I’m back in Fort Collins now, and am taking a few days to adjust and reflect. The biggest thing I’m feeling right now is the abundance of familiarity in everything around me, which is a good thing. The people, the things around me, but most importantly, the culture. I feel more comfortable with my surroundings. I spent five months outside of my comfort zone, with the most basic understanding of everything that was going on around me. Now, I’m appreciating the familiarity of many of the “little things” I didn’t have for the last semester.

At the same time, I really miss Andalusia. Granada is a beautiful little city, and it engenders a beautiful lifestyle. I miss my host family’s home cooking, the Fedérico García Lorca park, going about everything without a big rush (work to live, not live to work!), tinto de verano, and cute old people walking around town dressed to the nines. I miss the mix of beatufil and comical graffiti, and walking past several buildings that are half a milennium old without even thinking anything of it.

I’ve definitely come home, albeit a changed person. I look forward to going back to Spain as soon as possible, but at the same time I’m looking forward to resuming life back home with a better idea of who I am and what is truly important to me in life.

This week was the last week of my study abroad program. Finals were low-stress, and thanks to having two of them early, I finished my last exam Monday afternoon. So I’ve had most of the week to get some good time in with my friends from the program and appreciate the awesome life I’ve had here.

I have extended my trip by about two weeks because I have three friends coming out to visit me. We’ve rented an apartment here in Granada, so I can spend a bit showing them all my Granadino stomping grounds, and then we’re headed to Valencia and Barcelona, possibly with some side trips along the way. It’s going to be totally awesome.

I’m pretty glad that I have people from Colorado coming out here before I return there myself; I’ve just begun to realize just how different it’s going to feel to be back in familiar territory, yet as a changed person. It’ll be nice to have a bit of home come out here first to ease my re-entry to American life.

Last night I said goodbye to almost all of my friends from the program – most of them flew back to the States today. I’m never good with goodbyes, especially with large amounts of people at once. Today, I packed most of my bags and so my last night in my host family’s house will be the typical “sleep in a bare bedroom” thing that I’ve come to know in the “Moving Day Eves” of past years.

After about 2 weeks with my friends here, I will fly back to Colorado on June 6. I will spend a day on my own in Dublin before ending my European (and partly African) adventure.

I’m through 9 of 15 days of my intensive language course. Things are going well – I still feel like I’m reviewing the exact stuff that I’ve been learning and repeatedly screwing up for years now. This time it is clicking with a bit more ease, but it’s no walk in the park. The nice thing is that this time I actually feel motivated to study it and get it down.

I switched my course for the semester that starts in early February. I was in the Language, Literature & Culture program, but I changed to the Hispanic Studies program. Hispanic Studies has more faculty members from the University of Granada, and are more focused on the actual subject matter than they are on linguistic aspects. I signed up for some cool ones (Flamenco and Traditional Music, anyone?) so I’m looking forward to the start of that semester. Unfortunately, Hispanic Studies also comes with more homework. But I’ll only have 4 days of class a week, so I can’t complain too much.

More random observations and personal experiences from recent days:

• As expected, Andalucia is awesome for its free tapas. Each drink you order comes with awesome free snacks.
• While lacking spice and strong flavor, I am really starting to enjoy how the mediterranean diet is quite healthy without sacrificing much in the taste department. Obesity here is way less frequent, and I see a lot less unhealthily skinny people here too. It seems like a lot of people here manage to hover around “just right,” and that they don’t have to work too hard to stay there.
• My family and teachers have started trying to correct some Latin American influences on my Spanish – and are trying to get me to pick up the Castillian lisp as well. I’m subconsciously starting to use it at times, and also picking up the sloppy Andalucian habit of dropping the ends of many words (“Muchas gracias” sounds like “mucha gracia” and “más o menos” becomes “Má o meno”)
  As a native of another former imperial colony whose language has mutated much from the mother tongue, I don’t know what to think. I react negatively to the idea of British English being superior to an American dialect, since we can all understand each other regardless. I’m not closing my mind to Castillian Spanish – after all, I chose this country for study abroad over a plethora of Latin American options – but it certainly is making things more confusing. Once I was an American trying to pick up Mexican Spanish. In a few months I’ll sound a third American, a third Mexican, and a third Spanish. If I do Peace Corps in Latin America after I graduate, the people there are going to be crazy confused. 
• Last week I got a cold, mostly hanging around the throat and nose. Now it’s turned into a really annoying cough. I’m hoping it passes soon, but at least my head feels clear now.
• I watched inauguration online since I didn’t know if the televised coverage would dub over the speeches or not (they didn’t). People seem pretty interested but I didn’t get the best vantage point to really comment on Spaniards’ opinions. It’s obvious that people over here are very interested, but beyond that I don’t really know.

OK, I’m out for now… Time to beat myself over the head with some Spanish grammar.

Today 50,000 people packed the Oval at CSU to see Barack Obama speak. The line was two and a half miles long, and the rally got an early start, so the Secret Service stopped screening people in order to get everyone in as quickly as possible.

My friends and I got a spot about two thirds back on the length of the oval. Because the crowd was so long, it was pretty hard to see, so we ended up taking turns pushing up on each others’ shoulders to get a quick glimpse. My camera has a swiveling screen, so I could get it above some heads and see a bit, periscope-style. But most of all, it was great just to be there.

Obama  mostly went through his current stump speech, emphasizing his plans to make taxes lower than they were under Ronald Reagan, reform healthcare, restore the economy, and improve access to education.

Because of our location farther back on the oval, I couldn’t get the greatest photos, but I managed to take a few decent ones… Check them out on my Picasa album. I also took a quick video of Obama speaking on the economy, as well as one of the crowd of 50,000.

School + Work + Side projects have me pretty busy these days. I often use the blog post entry window as a mirror with which to reflect upon myself, but more recently I’ve been finding myself doing it on walks or bike rides where I convince myself to turn the iPod off.

Things are good. And crazy at the same time. But somehow I’m still managing to enjoy myself…

I also got to see my Arizona family for a few hours before and after the Lake Powell trip. That was nice as well, got to see Ethan off to his first day of Kindergarten.

So… Time for photos!

Lake Powell photos on Picasa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning I got stung in the arm by some kind of wasp. I’ve never been stung by one before, and I know that my mom is really allergic, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s over 24 hours later and I’m not dead, so I guess that’s a good sign, but the swelling didn’t really start until a whole day later.  Now half of my forearm is really tender and numb, it’s weird to type or drum. But I’m not too worried, if I had my mom’s allergies I’d probably be in way worse condition.

Yesterday I went hiking with Matt and Madelyn, we got lucky and had cloud cover most of the way up to Horsetooth Rock.

Here are some pictures of the weekend… I don’t know why, but recently I haven’t been taking any pictures of people.

(Link to Picasa album)

 

 

Pile of shoes after everyone came in from the rain

 

CSU

 

 

Low monitor resolution doesn't really do this one justice, download the full-res version.

Horsetooth rock, up close and personal

I was really lucky and only had one really nice article of clothing in there- this is the good thing about having more T-shirts than I know what to do with. It won’t be worth trying to get all of the stains out. I might try to rescue an item or two, and I’ll have some spectacularly groovy underwear a la tie-dye. But one thing’s certain: today will go down in the book of Stupid Things Zeke Does when he Lives on his Own.