Homesick

I spent some of my food money on a coat and a scarf, because it's FREEZING here at night and our apartment must have no insulation and thin walls (I know this is true, because I can hear the people above us walking around and talking all the time, and I always hope that something interesting happens... like hearing them have a fight, just so I can get some entertainment out of the fact that I can hear everything they do). I dont know where all my money goes... honestly, all I do is pay for food at the grocery store (which is cheap) and I went to Granada this last weekend, but oh well. I get paid soon, finally.

I was sick with what some people would call a "loose digestive tract" for several days earlier last week, with stabbing pains in my stomach that at first only got worse when I began taking the antibiotics my mother sent with me (THANK GOD... for the antibiotics, not the pain). Being sick in a foreign country really made me pissed off at all the little things here in Spain that are different than home... like how there is no carpet anywhere, just cold tile floors, and how there are bars on all the windows, and that the shower nozzle is in the CENTER of the shower rather than on one of the sides, and there is no central heating and I can't eat Tillamook Cheese and there is NO GRASS except in that one park, and all the trees surrounding my town are damned OLIVE TREES, and that I have to line dry my clothes because I dont have a dryer, or an oven, or a microwave, and my town is super small and there is NOTHING to do, there isn't even a movie theater, and the nearest place I can get to is Granada, which by bus takes 1.5 hours but if I had a car it would only take 45 minutes, and my room is tiny and with boring white walls and I can't afford to buy anything to put on them because I am POOR right now, and they don't have good tea here...

But they do have good chocolate. And good wine. And not having a oven or microwave forces me to cook, which is something that I never had to learn in the US and is a great skill to have. And the clothes are pretty cute and the people are really nice and actually long bus rides aren't bad because I can listen to my iPod or read, and the architecture is pretty nice, and I'm close to some of the most amazing places in the world and soon I'll be travelling to Scotland, Ireland, London, and Belgium, whether I can afford it or not. Whenever I start to feel homesick I go to that park, or I take a walk around my town and buy a pastry and remind myself that I'm here in SPAIN, living my dream, and that home will always be there and I have this wonderful opportunity, so just suck it up and like it.

And so I do. And the homesickness passes. And I am thankful and thrilled once again.