[CONTINUING STORIES, by Alex] You Don’t Know Until You Go

When my best friend sent me the email explaining an assistant teaching position in Spain, I was immediately hooked on the idea of going.  Not that I was particularly interested in teaching as a career or anything permanent, but that it was a great way to improve my Spanish, live in another country, and also answer that nagging question that was so prevalent after I graduated: “What am I going to do next?”

 

I had a lot of expectations and ideas about how things were going to be there- everything from how the town would be to who I would be friends with and how I’d spend my time.  Looking back, it’s funny how much those expectations differed from the reality of the situation.

 

For starters, I never imagined meeting all the different people I met from all over the world.  My coordinator told me there was a British boy who would also be teaching at my school and for some reason, I thought he and I would be the only Anglos stranded in a sea of Spaniards.  I hoped we’d get along to provide each other with a little reprieve from the constant Spanish speaking and also Latin culture shock.

 

In fact, there were several schools in the town and in the surrounding villages so several other Americans and Brits were there.  Also, the university in town was full of Erasmus students: visiting students from universities all over Europe who spend a semester or year studying abroad.  Ali and I did become quick friends, but our circle was more of a mini United Nations than the Spanish immersion I had anticipated.

 

I lived with one Spaniard, a fellow Californian, a Portuguese girl for a while, and later a French girl.  I had lots of American and British friends and spoke English quite a lot.  I even got a chance to practice French, which I had studied in college, and Italian which I had never formally studied but for which I always felt a special affinity.

 

Also, despite acknowledging the fact that long distance relationships are difficult, I never imagined breaking up with my boyfriend of, at that time, four years. It seems kind of obvious now that we were (very literally!) on different paths, but I always thought somehow we’d work it out like we had always done in the past.

 

Despite being only 21 years old when I left for Spain, we already had quite a history.  We had an inexplicable bond when we first became friends in middle school.  When we dated and broke-up in high school, our bond kept us friends until we started dating again after high school graduation.  At that point, we had already seen each other’s awkward adolescent phase, the first jobs and cars, the first relationships, and then we made it through all of the traditionally relationship-testing college years.

 

The realization that things between us were not working out came about three months into the 9-month program.  It felt like a whole new world had been opened up to me and the person I loved wasn’t there (both physically and emotionally) to share it with me.  I felt like I wanted to travel more- see more of the world and think outside of the life I knew before and I felt like he was getting more and more entrenched in his office job and the world of the South Bay of Los Angeles.  Two months of avoiding the signs later and they became too clear to ignore.  The fifth month in, I ended the relationship and we consoled ourselves with the idea that “maybe someday” our goals would converge again like they had before.

 

 

 

You Don’t Know Until You Go (Part Two)

-or-

Smurfs and Knights in Shining Armor

Before I broke up with my boyfriend, I had been going out A LOT and I had been doing it in the typical Spanish style, which meant hitting several places in one night and ending in a discoteca at around 7:30 in the morning. It got to the point where if my friends asked me to go out, I’d say “Oh, tonight, I don’t think so…” and they’d just laugh and say, “You know you’re going to come, so why don’t you just admit it now?” I’d chuckle along with them, and sure enough, when the time came, I was ready to go. It got a little repetitive to party so much, but anything was better than sitting home alone and mulling over my failing relationship, which usually involved unnecessary website-browsing and excessive Principe® cookie-eating.

My inclination to party ended the second my boyfriend and I broke up. Even though it was me who ended it, I sobbed profusely on the phone during, cried myself to sleep that night, and randomly burst into tears on different occasions the following day. All I wanted to do, it seemed, was be alone and go over again and again everything that was said and thus cycle back and forth between agreeing with my decision, and beating myself up for my horrible mistake.

We broke up on a Tuesday and that weekend my friends and I had all planned to go to Carnival in Cadiz. We had been planning for months and I was already committed to wearing the group costume (Smurfs) and going in on the apartment that we had arranged. Needless to say, in my new downer state, I was in no mood to finish up the final details for the trip which included: buying my train ticket and looking for blue tights and white shoes for my costume. I was ready to call it quits and back out of going, but I talked to my friend Liz (at which point I started crying again) and she assured me that we would still have fun and that the last thing I should do is be alone in Jaén for the weekend.

I knew she was right, and though I still didn’t feel up for it, I went through the motions of preparing anyway. Thursday after our classes, Liz and I caught the train and went to pick up the keys to the apartment before the rest of our friends arrived. Five hours later, we arrived in the small town outside of Cadiz and trekked to the apartment. The apartment was meant to sleep four, and when we told the Landlady that we actually had five, she said.. “Ooh, it’ll be a little tight with five.” Liz and I laughed heartily as soon as she left, because we had fibbed and in fact, there would be a total of ten of us. Rates in the area were much higher than normal due to Carnival, and in order to save a little cash (which we all seemed to be short on) we adopted the philosophy “The more the merrier.”

Besides all of my fellow teachers from Jaén, we also had two random guests. They were American military boys who were stationed at a base not too far from Cadiz. They had seen the event invitation that Liz had posted on Facebook, and despite not knowing any of us, asked if they could go in on our apartment. They had sent a witty message, and we reasoned that anybody with that kind of humor couldn’t be too bad. Although it very well could have been horrible, we were lucky and they turned out to be respectful and fun guys. Also, they had gone to the “PX” (US army base retail store), and had loaded up on plenty of delicious American junk food that we all had been missing for months, which sweetened the deal for us both literally and figuratively.

We went out to the streets of Cadiz for Carnival both Friday and Saturday night. True to form, I was one of the few to stay out very late both nights, making it back to the apartment at around 10 in the morning.

The Spanish have a term for partying that takes place in the street, or plaza, or pretty much anywhere besides a bar or discoteca, it is called a botellón. This phenomenon was especially prevalent before the law came about that forbid it, but it is still fairly common to see nowadays, albeit done a bit more discreetly. I can’t say that Carnival was much different from a regular botellón, it was just on a much bigger scale and everybody was wearing outlandish costumes. To be fair, we heard that there were shows or performances of some kind that happened earlier in the evening, but we had been living in Spain long enough to assume that the good stuff wouldn’t happen until at least midnight.

Aside from the ridiculousness of a bunch of drunken Smurfs, pirates, and assorted other characters belligerently meandering among the streets of one of the oldest cities in Spain, it was all okay considering I got a marriage proposal from a knight in shining armor. Okay, actually his armor wasn’t shining. He was dressed as a Knight Templar, and his “armor” was made out of cheap synthetic fabric, but I got a pink plastic ring and he even kneeled. Seeing as how we had met only a short hour ago, I couldn’t be sure he loved me for me, or if he was just attracted to my blue legs and white pumps, so I said no. A real shame though; it would have made a good story for the grandchildren.

Also that weekend, I got a text message from an Italian exchange student studying at the University of Jaén who was roommates with my friend Ali. His name was Alessio and I had been out with him, Ali, and their other Italian roommate Vito, on several occasions. One such occasion, Vito asked me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said yes, Alessio replied with a very dramatic and drawn out “Aleeex… no…” It was so melodic, it could have easily come across as ridiculous, but it had a certain Italian panache that made it endearing.

Alessio and Vito had been invited to come to Cadiz and share the apartment with us, but were unable to make it due to an exam. The text message was very simple; he just wanted to know how the apartment was and how things were going in general. Ali was also in Cadiz so I wondered why he chose to message me instead of him, but other than that, I didn’t think more of it.

On the train ride back home, severely sleep deprived, I felt strangely happy and at peace. I realized that while Carnival itself had been a lot of drinking and shallow socializing, the time spent with my friends in the apartment had been very therapeutic. It reminded me of a sleepover from preadolescence where boys are just fleeting thoughts and the focus is on playing dress-up and having fun with your friends. I knew I would still be sentimental about the break-up from time to time, but I was starting to remember how fun it can be to be single, especially when you have a good group of amigas.