Uh oh

(meant to put this up a week ago oops)
Last Sunday dinnah of the semester is tomorrow. Last time with the group, for a long while at least, and last time cooking (forreal cooking, not microwaving oatmeal). Not sure how to feel. On the one hand, there's melancholy -- so many people I won't see for such a long, including my family, and so many changes I won't get to witness. And selfishly, all the inside jokes I'll miss out on. On the other hand, small, sudden, pill-like doses of fear. Just irregular and infrequent enough to catch me off guard when I'm doing something mindless, like trying to fall asleep.

And then, overwhelmingly, all the time: borderline peeing my pants excitement. I have this vision of myself sailing down a sunny Valencian street on a bike, knowing where I am, maybe even seeing people I know, going somewhere with a sense of purpose that's totally my own, filled with a sense of place that I've painstakingly built palabra by palabra, maybe even mulling over a dream had in Spanish the night before or better yet,  mulling over a Spanish dream IN SPANISH. I daydream of hanging out in a cafe and knowing the owner and the neighborhood regulars, having long, languid conversations that segue into warm Spanish nights and weekends spent traveling to, well, anywhere really, because anywhere will be an adventure.
Absurd and romantic, yes. But I'm not letting the skeptic in me kill these dreams yet.

I am also struck by how very unoriginal each of these sentiments are. Though they grip me with a kind of terrifying novelty, they are probably only repetitions of what every other traveler before me has felt. And that's okay -- they're new to me,at least, and I at the same time feel myself forging a tiny, filament-like connection to a much grander tradition. Something like the spirit of adventure, maybe. Anyway.

These are some of the things I've been doing/should start doing soon to prepare, in no particular order:
1. Google-earthing the shit out of Valenica.
2. Getting travel suggestions from the more internationally savvy people in my life (Italy and Turkey currently top the list. Maybe Morocco's on there too. Also maybe Portugal. "The top" is a loose rank, currently encompassing most of Europe).
3. Listening to Juanes. And Mana, and Shakira (they're not Spanish pero no importa).
4. Reading this book and wishing El Bulli still existed. But refusing to let this diminish my excitement over Spanish food.
5. Getting into futbol. Surprisingly difficult...I'm not a sports person.
6. Trying to break out of my weird American food habits/not being a grandma when it comes to sleep patterns.
7. Thinking about what my host ma might want for a "thanks for taking care of me!" gift. Also practicing taking shorter showers. Spain's all about water conservation.
8. Watching these. Trying so very, very hard to understand.

I think this is going to change a lot of things about my life. But it seems silly/futile to try and anticipate what those changes will be.

Jumping the gun. Just a little.

     This is a bit on the early side, I suppose, given that the reason I'm making this blog (really making a blog this time, not coming up with some grandnewneverbeforeseen idea for a blog and then writing one post and then abandoning it to the blogosphere void) is to keep track of all the exciting goings-on in my first trip abroad TO ESPANA in the spring. But the urge to blog, which is admittedly a fleeting and seldom-felt urge for me, has taken hold, and you can't just ignore the spirit of the blog. You gotta let it take hold. You gotta let it move you. All this bullshit blog-osophy is just an excuse for me to say the word blog in my head, which I find strangely pleasing (I think it has something to do with the way the liquid sound of the "lo" get stopped up short in your throat with that gulping, glottal "g"...). Anyway. ANYWAY. It also wouldn't kill me to start writing posts now so I can get a handle on this stream-of-consciousness business. So I can learn to weed out all these extraneous thoughts...well, not all of them. But just to get down some clearly communicated ideas. To be a little more pure, a little more succinct.
     I'm also writing now because it's just starting to hit how big of a thing this is going to be -- "this thing" being going to another country for five months. I don't think I realized until really recently (as in some truly absurd time, like three days ago) how long I've been waiting for this to happen. We're going on almost 10 years of anticipation here, people. That's a lot of pressure. And I also realized I don't speak nearly enough Spanish to get by. Can I tell a nino to "dibuja el numero cinco" ? Por supuesto. Can I tell a taxista in Valencia to take me home, please? Meh. A little less sure about that.
     I think some people are in the habit of putting down purposes or outlines of what their blogs are going to try to accomplish, or contain, or share with the world etc. etc. I'm way too scatterbrained for that kind of focus. So, let's say this blog will be vaguely travel-y with a lot of other random bits mixed in (think rhapsodic tangents about food and books and...well, probably just food and books). It'll be like any classic Thanksgiving dressing (still digesting yesterday's dinner so bear with me): mostly bread, but with unexpected, tasty little nuggets of other stuff you found in your pantry mixed in. Mmmm. Stale pecans and crasins.