Catch-Up (aka the past eight months are a blur)

In the time since my last post, I've had some crazy adventures, and then settled down a bit. Spain adventures became a full-time affair, so I didn't get a chance to post more on what I was doing. Needless to say, it was amazing! Here are my good-bye photos to Spain, with my host family and El Cristo above the city:

Then, I came back to the states, and moved into this crazy house. I live in a community house, with 20 other wonderful, weird, lovely people. Here we are, at our finest:

 This became my biggest adventure of the year. These are the people who were there for me as I went through the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Class Winter Term, who held me as I tried to process it all, even after only knowing me for a few weeks.

Then came Spring Break. I chose to do an alternative break, and spent the week in Henderson, Nevada, working with the St. Therese Center, an AIDS resource center. One of the days we spent helping out with their Easter Basket distribution. That's me, in the ears:

Spring was a blur, I was suffering from what one of my friends called "Credititis" or an inflammation of the credits. Turns out that 17 credits, with 16 of them being 400 level is not the best idea. My crazy roommates and a lot of hard work got me through it though.

The whole while I was working one job and getting ready for another. My job giving campus tours was wonderful, and sometimes very, very wet. I also got hired to be a Peer Minister for the Newman Center for next year, which will be a completely different wonderful position for 2013-14!

This gets you pretty much caught up on my adventures, although now it is finally summer, so I'm preparing to have some more! Be on the lookout for family, quilting, Oregon, and my more of my marvelous roommates!

Osos y La Sella

This past weekend I soaked up the wonderful late-summer weather with a couple of wonderful adventures. On Saturday afternoon, my host mom and I drove a couple of towns over to see the bears (osos) of Asturias. The two girl bears were rescued after their mother died, and have lived on the reserve all their lives, and the male bear, Furaco, was a gift to Asturias in hopes that he and Tula or Paca might produce baby bears. No such luck yet, but all three live on the reserve, and a park has been built around it, with biking and walking trails to see the bears and the gorgeous surrounding countryside. 

Furaco about to take a swim

The beautiful Asturian countryside

On Sunday, I was lucky enough to have another awesome adventure. With a group of international students from the University of Oviedo I kayaked for the first time, down the River Sella. I didn't realize until later that there is an internationally famous kayak race that happens here every year, I just appreciated passing a wonderful day with my friends. It was warm enough to be able to swim, but not so warm that we were uncomfortable. Plus, the entire 16k route was gorgeous! 

We stopped at this really awesome footbridge over the river and went exploring! 

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My awesome partner gathering chi from the raging river!

The views were simply breathe-taking. For the whole six hours we kept saying "this is what it means to be alive. We are 20 years old, in Spain and living, this is so cool!"

La Fin de Semana

So much has happened in the past couple of days that it seems unreal that it's only been a long weekend since I arrived. I had more flight trouble coming to Oviedo, and didn't get in until 1am on Thursday morning. Thankfully, I have a truly amazing host family, and my parents drove half an hour out to the airport to pick me up. Thursday was orientation, and then Friday and Saturday we went on an excursion to the western part of our state, Asturias. 

At the Basillica at the shrine of La Virgen de Covadonga, a super important site to Asturias. 

The locals and other volunteers shared some of their lunch with us, including Cabrales, the cheese you can see Luis getting. It is famous, and is from Asturias. The flavor is very strong, and it smells and tastes like goat. I liked it, but couldn't eat very much of it.

After doing a service project in the morning, my group went out and climbed on the rock on the left, and then went swimming in this bay of the Atlantic Ocean!

My group had decided to stay after the volunteer project, so instead of taking the bus we took the train across the state back to Oviedo! These are my friends, Anna and Rachel. We had so much fun, and it felt so much like this is what study abroad is supposed to be about, talk with the local, swim in the ocean, drink cafe con leche and ride the train through the countryside. So amazing! 

Today, Sunday my family went on our own mini excursion to the coast, which was a total blast! It has been an amazing, overwhelming, fantastic time in Spain so far! 

This is my family: Eugenio (my dad), Olga (my mom) Natski (my sister's best friend here), and Yumi (my sister).

This is the last of the coastal areas we went to before exploring a town and heading back to Oviedo. It was so cool because nowhere we went was super touristy, it was all local areas. As my mom put it, it wasn't a tourist route, it was 'the Olga y Eugenio ruta'. 

I love it here!

Italia

In Transit: Italia

The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the plane in Rome was the humidity. It was warmer, and there was significantly more moisture in the air then there had been in London. This is also a very busy airport. There are people going every direction, all the time. Due to my changing plans and unusual circumstances, I had to go through immigration, pick up my bag, and then go check in again with a different airline. The first part of that was easy, I managed to get in a fast line and just breezed through. My bag however, must have been one of the last off the airplane. After all of the trouble I’ve had over the past couple of days, the wait for it was making me nervous. While I watched, I thought about something my brother said before I left, and tried to decide on a name for my bag.  This is what she looks like, she's on the bottom:

Right now I’m torn between Tulip and Hope. Opinions?

Anyway, after that I finally made it out, and then found out that my airline doesn’t check anyone in more than two and a half hours before the flight, and I was 5 hours out. So, I found a place to sit down, stay cool and wait. After playing around for about an hour and a half, I decided to get some lunch. From where I was sitting, I could see what looked like a good place, so I went up and first observed. It was crowded around the counter, and I speak next to no Italian. Also, the Italians do not queue well, so I had to assert myself, get up to the register, and I just gave the woman the name of the slice of pizza-thing that I wanted. Thankfully, that was enough, then and when I went to tell the man behind the counter what I wanted. Two of the few words I do know in Italian though, are gratzie and prego, so I was able to thank him properly when he handed me my food.

I was more than a little pleased with myself as I went to sit down. Also, the food was fantastic. I’m not completely convinced it was worth the 5.30 that I paid for it, but then again, I am in an airport, and at least I did manage to order it myself! 

Slight Change of Plans

While there are significantly more pleasant places to be than the waiting room for citizen services at the US Embassy in London, I’m also quite sure there are many much less pleasant places to be as well. It’s well lit, with large windows, and children playing and saying adorable things. Due to a bizarre and unfortunate turn of events I found myself here today applying for an emergency passport. Mine disappeared somewhere between the first security check and boarding my flight yesterday. It quickly turned into a long, stressful day; I missed my flight, and despite repeated checks of all of the security gates and everywhere I went in the five minutes between going through security and realizing my passport was gone, it didn’t turn up. I had to go through immigration as a special circumstance, with only a copy of my passport. (And thank goodness I decided at the last minute that morning to keep my boarding pass from Charlotte to Gatwick as a souvenir! That turned out to be the document that made my passage through immigration possible, as it proved my story that I had been in England, and therefore could return) Then, I had to wait for over two hours as my bag got rerouted and rerouted before finally getting to me. I was exhausted, stressed out, and so incredibly relieved to see Suzanne & Valerie when I came out with the arrivals gate. Through the whole ordeal though, there were so many bright spots: the security agents who personally checked every lane, the British Airways woman who escorted me and rerouted me free of charge, the baggage me who personally assured that my bag got to me, the other British Airways woman who rechecked everything for me before I left, and of course, Valerie  & Suzanne who, in the midst of getting Val ready to move to France, came and got me, and helped me figure it all out.

Even getting where I am today was an adventure. Last night, after the whole ordeal at the airport, I e-mailed the consulate to get an appointment, according to protocol. I was terrified I either wouldn’t get an appointment, or wouldn’t be able to make it in time since the Hyde’s house in Weybridge is at least an hour from Lodnon proper, plus I had to have passport photos and proof of travel to show at the Embassy. It was another tense morning getting ahold of the Embassy and British Airways, then printing my reservation from the library, hectic train and tube rides, a slightly sketch place to get passport photos (and after all that, it was definitely not the best picture of me), and then almost not finding the embassy.

But now I’m here (or was when I wrote this originally) and it looks like I will indeed get my emergency 6-month validity passport (I did). My first flight for tomorrow is set, Heathrow to Rome, but I will miss my original flight from Rome to Oviedo. Hopefully I’ll be able to rebook that once I get back to Weybridge later (Also accomplished).

I finally feel like I can breathe again. I know I’m not out of the woods yet, but enough is settled that I finally feel okay. My passport is being processed, my flight is booked, and by tomorrow night I’ll be at my host family’s house in Oviedo, settled in one place. And another couple of bright spots: 1) I am still okay to go to Germany in December and 2) I’ll be able to convert my temporary passport to a normal, ten-year validity one free of charge upon returning to the US! 

Get Set!!

Tonight, my lovely mother planned and bought supplies to have a going-away open house so friends and family could drop by and see me before I leave for Spain! Me being me, I decided to have some fun decorating, and this is what our entrance looked like: (I love sidewalk chalk!)

The whole evening was a blast, with family and friends coming and going. Here is one of the pics, me with some of my church ladies, Mary, Julie and Charlotte. 

It was so nice to get to chat and catch up with people that I hadn't seen in a while. It fills me up for tomorrow, which will be laundry and packing and last minute errands as I get ready for my big day of travel!

7 Quick Takes: NOLA Style

Ok Aimee, again with the lateness. But, better late than never. This spring break I went to New Orleans on a Mission Trip with the St. Thomas More Newman Center. It was an amazing experience, and here are a brief 7 Quick Takes from places that meant something to me on the trip.

1) Camp Restore

We stayed here, in East New Orleans (I think), at a facility created by a Lutheran church for the specific purpose to house volunteers that have come to rebuild the city. We slept in what I believe were grain cars. They are slightly larger than boxcars, both length-wide and width-wide. The one that the girls stayed in housed us all in eleven bunkbeds, lining 3 1/2 of the four walls, with a couple of walking feet in between. It was definitely cozy. And the food was ok, especially considering they were feeding 100 plus people every meal. My favorite memories from here though were from our casual group bonding times. There were a couple of excellent games of Mafia, and one night where we had an ultimate showdown in Bump. Camp Restore was our home base throughout the week, where we went "home" every night.

2) St. Peter Claver

This is the Catholic Church in the 7th Ward (again, I think) that we went to for Mass on Sunday. It was cool to see how Mass is still Mass and yet is still different by region. There was much more of what I would call "Southern Baptist"-style preaching during the homily, and their choir was robed and super super legit. Plus, the church was gorgeous and all the people were incredibly friendly. It was an amazing way to start off our trip.

3) The Cathedral

Sunday afternoon we went down to the French Quarter and got let loose for a couple of hours. I ended up wandering around with Therese, one of our permanent community members who came to celebrate her 50th birthday by giving of herself to New Orleans, and Mary, an undergrad also in my department. We walked around the French Market, and then meandered the streets, winding up towards the end in the Cathedral Square. One of my favorite memories was just praying inside the cathedral, which is a tourist site as well as a legitimate church. It was really cool, just spending a little time with Jesus while I could tell there were people walking around in the church, and I could hear the crowd and jazz music from outside, and still it was like there was just the two of us in the midst of all the noise and excitement of life.

4) The House for Novices

Technically this is named after a saint, but I don't remember which one. What I do know is that it was a large, old house that was originally a home for girls, and turned into a day care and is not really rather run down. However, what I remember most about it is what it is going to be, a home for novices for the Sisters of the Holy Family. We worked here for a day and a half, doing various work, but mainly working on the floors, ripping out small-ish areas of linoleum, carpet, tile and almost everywhere the tar that stuck the tile to the floor. It was hard work, slow and tedious, but it was good to be able to give, to make an investment in the future. Plus, there was a lot of working together, talking and bonding.

5) Dillard University

Monday night, after our first day at the House for Novices, we went to the alma mater of one of the Keila Whittington, one of the associate women's basketball coaches at UO and the main coordinator of the New Orleans aspect of our trip. At Dillard, some of the students told us what it was like for them during Hurricane Katrina. In all honesty, I wasn't particularly looking forward to this when we went; I was tired and just not really feeling like sitting through what felt like yet another presentation about what happened during the hurricane. However, this was one of the talks that definitely changed my perspective about the entire event. When the students talked about what happened to them and their campus-their home, I could imagine it as my home. Some of the things they said reminded me of UO, and I could put myself in their shoes, could see it happening to me-even though, as other people on the trip pointed out, the likelihood of a disaster like that in Eugene is almost nil-I just understood the sense of home that they were talking about.

6) The Overgrown Lot with the Gate

Thursday and Friday we spend working in the Lower 9th Ninth Ward, the area that was worst hit by the flooding when the levees broke. Some parts of this neighborhood were 20 feet under water, it was a complete disaster. When you see videos of people being helicoptered out of the flood area, it was in this neighborhood. Even now, it's hard to reconcile the fact that it's been five whole years since Katrina. What used to be a vibrant community is a ghost town, with one or two occupied houses per block, and many many lots that have nothing on them, save maybe foundations and steps. The one lot that really got to me though was the lot that we pulled up to when we first arrived, right next to the Lower 9th Ward Community Center. It was completely overgrown, except for a rusted gate and a foundation and steps. When I looked at it, I could feel that this was not just a house, it was someone's home. Someone came back to no home. Their life had literally floated away. This just struck me to my core, the idea of someone coming back, and holding onto that gate as they stare at what used to be their home, sobbing. It is a feeling that will stick with me from now on, I know.

On a redeeming note, the last thing we did on Friday was to clear this lot, mowing it down and trimming it up. I swept off the top step, even though I know it didn't do much practical good, and by the time someone sees it it will be dusty and dirty again. Still, I think in a spiritual sense it mattered. It was my way of saying "welcome home, here is a place to come home to, here is a place to start again".

7) Frenchmen St.

The last place I have to include on this list is Frenchmen Street. It is located downtown in/near the French Quarter and it was the most legit New Orleans place we went. The bars there are open to 18 and over, and card at the bar for drinks, so only people who are 21 can get alcohol. But, we got to hear some incredible live music, and hanging out, getting food, talking and listening to the bands felt so chill, so adult. It was a blast, and definitely one of my other favorite favorite memories of the week.

7 Quick Takes

Year 1, Term 2, End of Week 9

1) Oh my gosh. It's the end of week nine. This term has gone by so so fast. wow. And this week, one of the reasons things have gone so fast has been...

2) Work- I absolutely love my job. I recently started working at Yogurt Extreme, a frozen yogurt shop not too far off the UO campus. It's a great job. I have a great relationship with my boss and my coworkers, and I like working. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to have a job well done, and I like working the cash register and helping people. It definitely adds a lot to my life. And the nice part is that right next to my work there is...

3) Coffee- If I haven't mentioned it before, I'd like to point out that there is a totally awesome coffee shop right off campus called Cafe Roma. Their coffee is super strong, different from what I'm used to, but my new favorite. Cafe Roma has also become one of my favorite off-campus spots. The atmosphere is busy and cozy. It's a great place to meet friends, and it's also my favorite spot to go to work on things that are close to my heart. I wrote palancas there this year, and also worked on my talk for....

4) Sing. Pray. Love- which was an event that the music/spirituality people at Newman put on this week. We've been working on it for about a month, working hard, to sound good and to make it an opportunity to turn our songs into prayers as well. I felt honored to be a part of it. On top of that, I was asked to speak at the event, which ended up being a reflection on why I sing....

5) "because I love it"- I learned this in the past weeks, after a particularly bad rehearsal where I tried a solo that wasn't in my range, looked like an idiot, and fell apart on my friend afterward because I was so embarrassed. He looked at me, and asked me why I still sing. Immediately I responded "because I love it". I have realized more and more this week how true it is. The other truth that hit me this week is that...

6) They're. Still. Here.- I know I write about friends a lot, but yesterday night something finally hit me. My head and my heart connected and I realized that two of my very best friends are still here. They've seen me crazy happy and stressed and sad and afraid and they're still here. I'm finally understanding that they aren't going to decide at some point that I am too wierd or different to be friends with. It doesn't matter that one of them is going to Greece, I can just tell this is the kind of friendship that goes beyond distance or time, which brings me back to...

7) Time-it is going so quickly, but at the same time I'm remembering that there is so much ahead of me. I've been planning apartments next year, and trips to our various homes, Ashland Spokane and Ontario. I have opportunities for the summer and so much future ahead of me. "It's just wonderful"