february first

Everything is getting much better. I have met two people off Loquo (the Spanish Craigslist) for language exchange, and both turned out to be very nice and eager to show me around. Their English was much better than my Spanish (thank god or we wouldn´t have gotten far!) but it did mean that we did not speak much in Spanish. I´m really looking forward to my classes, which begin tomorrow. I also met some other travelers at my hostel, and we went out for drinks the other nights, so nice to have a long English conversation over wine! They thought it was very funny that back home I can´t go out to pubs (one being from Australia and the other from Quebec.)
Today my main goals are to find a pair of sunglasses (very nessecary here), locate my language school, and get cash from a machine to pay for my classes. I spend most of the day wandering around, sometimes with a destination but often not.
The main lessons I have learned so far, in my three days of misery, are: 1) it is perfectly okay to not have fun all the time. And 2) that in order to move forward you must be bold and make yourself a little vulnerable. My mom passed on a quote to me from her friend´s facebook status, "All real adventures start with the feeling, I am not so sure about this." I have this quote written in gigantic bold letters across a page of my journal, which I write in constantly, and it has been such a source of strength for me. So thank you very much to whoever wrote that on Facebook. Ha!
I have also just received an email reply from a friend of a friend lving in BCN that has offered their couch to me for a little while. Sweeeeet. I think I may be staying with them starting Tuesday.
Of all the famous gothic architecture, art, parks, cathedrals, museums, and Gaudi, by far what has excited me most in Barcelona is the graffiti (or street art, which is really more apropriate.) Here you have all these incredibly old and beautiful streets, quaint and so very European, and it´s all covered top to bottom in both hectic little tags and and extravagant works of masterful spray paint. It was only a few years ago that graffiti was even made illegal here, and the sense of limitation when it comes to choosing your canvas is nonexistent. The street artists paint anywhere and everywhere. The whole city could easily be considered a free museum. I will try to post some photos soon.
I really appreciate all the support and encouragement that I have received from home. Keep commenting and emailing! ¡Abrazos para todos my amigos y familia!

january 28

I have never been so jet lagged. Last night I lay in bed, eyes wide open, for eight hours. No kidding. This is probably a significant contributing factor to why I was in such a crummy mood today. Since I arrived here in Barcelona I have probably cried more than I have in the entire past year. It´s funny, all the time I spent planning this trip, thinking about where to go and what do to, I never questioned the decision to go alone, it seemed obvious to me. Now that I am here in this breath taking city, all I want, more than anything is a friend. This morning I took off towards MACBA (museum of modern art) thinking that walking around and looking at beautiful things might cheer me up. The whole way there I fought tears. Once inside, I still fought the tears. "This is horrible!" I thought, "I am in Barcelona! A city oozing with art and noise and magic, and all I can do is cry!" And the museum sucked. It was much smaller than I had thought and full of that pretentious red streak on grey background crap. And I didn´t even get to enjoy making fun of it because there was no one to laugh with. Outside the museum were hip university students lounging around in the sun laughing and skatboarding. How dare they enjoy themselves in front of me! Can´t they see I am miserable! I decided then I would not allow myself to be sad. If I couldn´t be happy I would be angry. But then I started crying again and melting into the big pathetic bowl of chicken noodle soup that I am. Then I was angry at myself for being so pitiful. Aha! Anger is good. Angry and happy are powerful emotions, while sad is just useless. I decided to only notice things that made me happy or mad. At this point I was meandering around without a point of destination and I happened across a beautiful wall of grafitti. Of course this city is filled to the brim with grafitti, but this wall was especially impressive. I even recognized a couple of the artists. This made me very happy. But them some jerk came along and started harrassing me to get coffee with him. That made me mad. My plan was working! I walked on, murmurring mean and violent things to myself, trying to stay angry. Then, amoungst all the quaint little Spanish shops on the avenue which I was walking, I saw a Starbucks. This ammused me, which I figured was also an acceptable emotion, sort of a sub category of happy. Then another good thing came, I spotted a sign "Youth Hostel" pointing down a narrow alleyway. I do not like my current hostel and was hoping to find something better. I rang the buzzer and up the windy steps lay before me a cheery room with walls covered in a childish mural. The man said they had plenty of space and I could come tomorrow. HAPPY. This brightened my day significantly and since then I have felt much better. No crying. I have a feeling that this bipolar pattern will continue for atleast a few more days, but atleast I am learning to deal with my emotions. No one said this adventuring in foreign lands thing was going to be easy, so I´ll get through it. The future only looks brighter. This weekend I am going to the Dali museum, no more modern art.

january 27

aha! I have made it to Barcelona. Last night I arrived in the BCN airport feeling so proud of myself because I had already arranged for a hostel to stay in and drawn a little map based off of google on how to get there. Finding the bus from the airport to Plaça Cataluñya was no problem, but finding my hostel after that ended up taking almost two hours of wandering semi-aimlessly and making pathetic attempts at asking for directions in Spanish. So much for google maps. I knew that my Spanish was no good, but I did not realize just how much you need to know for even simple conversation. It was very frustrating, and I cried, but only a little. Finally I found the place, a funky, but clean, hole in the wall with three small floors connected by steep stairs painted bright green. Atleast it´s cheap! Only €9 per night! I went to bed feeling a little discouraged and lonely, and very jet lagged.
This morning I dressed and left the hostel as soon as possible. I neeeded to find a mobile phone store. And food! First stop was the little market across the street where I bought a loaf of bread and three bananas. I have a feeling I will be eating a lot of bread. After that I did find a phone store and although the girl working there spoke no English whatsoever, I managed to get a phone and I think it has minutes on it. Now that I was equipped with a phone and some food in my belly, I decided to hop on the metro and get down to the beach. Everyone is walking around in coats but it is really only about 55 degrees and the sun is warm. Walking down the beach I was even warm enough to take off my sweatshirt. Oh so much walking, I am already sore. I also found the Parc Citudella which is absolutely beautiful, and full of ping pongers eager to give you a turn.
That was most of my day up until now, except that I did make a friend in Plaça Catalunya named Usman, a man from Senegal who talked with me in Spanglish for over and hour.
This city is beyond incredible, very big and very beautiful. It is easy to feel lonely when I am hanging out at the hostel but walking around in the sunshine is wonderful. I´m looking forward to beginning my Spanish class and hopefully learning enough to hold a conversation.

January 19

I leave in six days and I am feeling remarkably prepared. Originally I wasn't going to make too many plans, I thought I would just sort of figure it out as I went along. But after receiving a few emails back from various WWOOF projects, an itinerary formed itself. Here's the outline of my plan:
I'll arrive in Barcelona on January 26th and begin taking two weeks of intensive Spanish classes on February 1st. My classes end on the 12th and on the 15th I have arranged to go to Lakabe (a commune near Pamplona) for ten days. After that I will probably visit some friends in Logrono for a few days and maybe hike on the Camino de Santiago. Then in March I plan to go to Sanguesa to work on a strawbale building project. At some point in the end of March, my best friend, Taylor is going to come visit me on her spring break. In April I will go down south to Granada and work on an organic farm run by an English woman. After that I may go to Amsterdam to visit Max or I may just bum around in Granada. Of course none of my plans are set and I'm sure they will change, but it feels nice to have things mapped out.
Currently I am just trying to say goodbye to my friends, get my taxes done, and eat as much delicious vegan Portland food as possible.

January 11, 2010

I have created this blog with the purpose of sharing my experiences with my friends and family back home while I travel across Spain and Western Europe. Honestly, I am no good at writing, so don't expect any staggering works of genius. And I won't always have access to a computer, so my posts will probably be infrequent. Originally I was just going to get a Flikr account and post some photos now and then, but I thought this might be more fun, and might encourage me to reflect more deeply upon my travels. I depart from my home of Portland, Oregon to Barcelona, Spain two weeks from today. I have a return ticket for June 1 but I have recently decided that this probably will not be enough time and I may stay an extra month or so, depending on my financial situation.
I decided when I was fourteen that as soon as I was free from high school I would get as far away from home as possible for atleast a few months and it would be a radical and life changing experience. I got a job and started saving my paychecks, and last spring I graduated a year early. I'm not running away from anything. I actually love Oregon, and I love my friends and my family (I even sort of liked my high school.) I just know that I cannot be satisfied until I have seen a good sized chunk of the world.
So here I go.
My biggest fear is that I will come home having accomplished nothing. Feeling no sense of change or enlightenment. I figure I ought to set a few goals for myself so that I do not end up wandering aimlessly (although wandering isn't always so bad.)
Some goals:
1. Learn Spanish
2. Work on a WWOOF farm and learn a bit about agriculture/permaculture.
3. See a Dali painting
4. Leave my mark (specifically in the form of spray paint and marker)
5. Make a friend

I plan to spend a few weeks exploring Barcelona and hopefully taking language classes when I first arrive. At some point I will head up to Amsterdam to visit my good friend, Max, who is studying abroad there. I also need to visit Anna and Cere in Logrono. And I will probably stay the last two months in the south around Granada (where it will be warm!)
I think that's enough blogging for now.
Thanks for reading!