adios y tal

today was sunshine and chicken sandwiches and last minute postcard souvenirs and passion fruit martinis and sushi and lovely catherine and 3am walk home with albert talking about barcelona and traveling and coming back and staying home. hasta luego, bcn; you've sure been swell.

goodbye daytrip, sand between our toes

kelly and i spent the most lovely lazy sunshine-y day today at a little town an hour out of barcelona called sant pol de mar. the beach was beautiful and isolated and i just read and napped and cooled off in the mediterranean sea (also, got very sunburned). tomorrow is my last day in barcelona and my plans are to relax and meet catherine for margaritas and walk down my favorite streets and get ready to finally fly home. i will enjoy old comforts, i will not indulge in (bad) old habits.

sant jordi i el drac

yesterday was sant jordi's day, a very catalan holiday when all barcelona girls get roses from barcelona boys and boys get books from their girls. the whole city was packed like i've never seen it, and the streets are lined with roses of all kinds and books of all kinds for people to pick up along the way. kelly, tara and i got roses from the boys and found them these vintage catalan cookbooks for housewives. it was all very valentine's 2.0.

also, i know it makes me beyond boring, but i just want to go home. i have appreciated this opportunity so much but i am done.

or, dramatic change of plans:

staying in barcelona hostel for 7 nights until my flight back to the states. biggest bummer.

south of france tomorrow for sure

eyjafjallajokull, hate you.

quejido: i just want to get to french riviera with jenni and then GET HOME. ay que horror. que. hor. or.

as of now my "plan" (hah. hah.) is to avoid london like the plague and be very sad about not being able to meet catherine in paris and figure out some other way to get back to the states. royal navy?

last hurrahs, etc..

(photos from catherine's camera. love these girls!)

más alla de aquí, etc...

i find it amazing how even when you know four months will go by fast, four months goes by and you wonder how they could have possibly gone by that fast. or how much things could stay so much the same. i am envious of people who study abroad and find a new self in their new place; i won´t pretend to feel that drastically changed by my own experience, although i have loved it here.

i had wished to feel somehow at least more mature, more independent, more a future, free-me by the time i left here, but i think i clearly just do not do well with the whole forward motion thing (i am allowing myself the small displacement of blame in this case that my time in barcelona did not exactly start off under the kind of circumstances that inspire moving away from the comfort of family or friendfamily). but i´m not sure i mind. i have learned about myself and as a mini-self test this studying abroad as taught me that yes, peace corps would be difficult and painful and yes, it will always be hard for me to "let go," but also that yes, i am always still me and as long as there is work for me to do and things for me to learn i will never be bored enough to be too lonely.

i am sad to leave barcelona, especially just as the city is starting to wake up from the winter. most of all, i will miss the language so much. i have loved speaking it every day and learning new words and listening to myself hold fluent (albeit short) conversations in this language i have been missing since i stopped speaking it so many years ago. i have loved the chance to watch NCIS in spanish, listen to the news in spanish, gossip in spanish, give directions in spanish, learn in spanish. loved loved loved.

i am also sad to leave churros y xocolata, pa amb tomaquet, paella wine siesta sundays, menta infusiones, metro people watching, walking everywhere all the time, doble mejilla besos, guapa guapa, sun shining off gaudi roofs, street musicians, traveling every weekend, bakeries, flower shops, spending days wandering and without hardly saying a word to anyone, the little man at the gym who calls me guapisima. but i am so glad to go home and i am so looking forward to san diego summer loveliness!!

finde

i have one weekend left in barcelona. this means:
1. demasie cafe for some adios xocolata
2. ciutadella parc
3. tibidabo
4. beach rollerblading
5. beach disco
6. get a grip
7. pack up life
8. thesis application
9. tutoring re-application

londres

granada, favorite

semana santa (preview)