#spain!

[aiiaiiiyo]

Seafood Paella in Valencia, Spain! Check this blog!

[canariesrise]

In other big news from IRL that I don’t think I’ve shared on here: on Friday I’m going to Spain and Portugal for a little over two weeks with my childhood/high school best friend and her long-time boyfriend. 

I’m hella excited because on the one hand it’s like going home and at the same time, I’ve never been to Portugal. (When I lived in Spain I made it all the way to Edinburgh but didn’t get to Portugal because of course I did. It’s me.) And I haven’t been to Barcelona and Madrid since I lived in Spain 7 years ago, so it’ll be a lot of stuff, too. And going to Spain with Caitlin, getting to show her around this place that means so much to me and knowing she would like to so much, has been something I dreamed about for a long time but never really ever thought was remotely possible. For years, Caitlin was balking at the expense of getting a passport so the actual buying a plane ticket seemed remote, let alone us going together. 

But it’s happening! And on top of that, I’m excited to spend time with one of my closest friends who I may see for 2 days a year on average now. And with the person who I’m guessing she’s going to marry. I’ve spent an okay amount of time with him given how little I see Caitlin, but I like the idea of getting to know him better. Having lived with Suz and C.J. before the got married turned out to be very special to me in the way that it let me get to know C.J. better. (Also I would be having these terrible days because ~enterpreneurship culture~ and would come home to C.J. mocking it at all and like A+, thank you for that.)

Anyway, I’m very excited but also rather nervous. I’m nervous first of all because I have not had the time I would have liked to prepare for this trip. Between February and May I did almost nothing except flights and AirBnBs and then once June rolled around I’ve dug in, but between shopping, making arrangements to be away, and planning, it’s a big project which has not fit in well with my garbage fire of a life. With less than a week to go, I feel okay, but I’m sad that I haven’t had more time to do planning of attractions and whatnot. I know that it’ll be okay, but I also know that people’s recommendations to just walk around and be spontaneous in European cities are just not that great in practice a lot of the time. I do have some plans and ideas, and certainly Sevilla and Granada are places I know well enough, but I’m sad that I feel like my life has prevented me from enjoying this trip as fully as I would have if I had shown up with more plans. For all that people who are not planners treat those of us who are as wet blankets, I do have more fun when things have been planned and I don’t have to make decisions or figure things out on the fly. 

And I’m nervous because Caitlin and Scott seem to live pretty healthy and active (not necessarily in the sporty sense, just that they do a lot of stuff outside the house) lives, whereas I’m over here trying to, you know, be an actual human from time to time. On top of that, I’ve never fared well with the Europe to U.S. jetlag (the lost night’s sleep is a killer for my neurological conditions) and it’s going to be hot (another bad thing for my neurological conditions). So I’m concerned that we are going to be operating at drastically different levels of energy/paces/whatever. That being said, I’ve done my best to set expectations about that, being clear about my health conditions and also saying “I’m going to do my best to not let my health problems affect your experience of the trip, but they are going to happen at some point.” So I’m just trying to take comfort in the fact that I will be in a place where I feel comfortable on my own, letting them go off on their own and try to remember that if I have to set boundaries, I’m not doing that *at them* or because I’m unfun or whatever. But I haven’t traveled with Caitlin (Scott I’m less worried about because he tends to be the older, saner member of that pair. Well he’s always the older one.) and so I’m still nervous about how she’s going to react. I mean, she’s good people and won’t like get mad at me, but we also don’t spend that much time together as an adult and I think our differing abilities to get about might just be awkward. 

So maybe cross your fingers that my health isn’t the total garbage fire that it can be sometimes? That would be nice. 

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[riarevenge]

euros starting so let me just say i don’t give a fuck

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Visit in ❤️🇪🇸 Photo: @rlourandou. Congratulations 👏🏻👏🏻 Chosen by: @stavros.soultanias . From Instagram

[14cookiesinajar]

I Can Do This

I AM NOW OFFICIALLY POOR BUT ALSO GOING TO SPAIN! SPAIN!!!!! BUT ALSO POOR! VERY, VERY POOR!! But I already feel a million times better about all of this and being poorer is probably going to be the highlight of this Finals filled week. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO SPAIN! So here's what happened... In the beginning of the Fall semester the opportunity to go to Spain was advertised through my university; that stupid flier taunting me in every hallway I had classes. I have anxiety issues and a self esteem that's really crap at times so the thought of going to Spain wasn't "for me", that I was " too busy" and I didn't have the finances and what about this and what about that? There is also a lot of family issues I have to deal with that I'm not going to go in to but the jist of the matter was: While no one came out and said "Don't go to Spain... Please.", the opposite actually, I felt like a burden by wanting to go to Spain. This is a reoccurring theme throughout my entire childhood honestly. I don't ask for things. I don't do things... Because I will inconvenience others. Which is ridiculous. I understand that. It's my life not theirs. But it didn't matter that I understood because that was still how I felt. I was giving them so much of myself and at the very mention of going to Spain the conversation of "what we need to do to make this happen" set my anxiety into full swing. Because intentionally or not, they made me feel guilty. Oh no! I couldn't ask them to do ALL THAT! To adjust their lives to account for my absence for a month. And besides, I didn't really have the money anyways... I'll just do it next year!! But thankfully that's not how it worked out. Because I was REALLY stressed out of my mind over the winter holidays. And my house was claustrophobic and my anxiety oppressive (So much stress cleaning was done). And then something very important happened... I sat there at my Christmas dinner staring forward out the window above my mother's head and their loud voices and went... "Fuck them". Fuck them all. I'm going to Spain. Figure out your lives without me. And I felt so happy!! At least until I actually signed up and started stressing out because of money and omg what have I done?! And now here we are months later with everything paid. I'm going to Spain. It hasn't sunk in fully and maybe it won't until I'm in the airport, maybe not even then, but I am going to Spain. Because this is my life and I'm not the one who made THEIR lives a mess but I'm not going to let the same happen to mine and I am going to Spain. It's been months of anxiety and stress and hate and even depression but I DID IT! I AM EXCITED FOR FINALS WEEK, OKAY?! Because I made it... And if I can get through a whole semester of ridiculousness I can get through this week and omg I'm going to Spain. Poor... But officially going to Spain. And did it all myself and I can do this. I can do this. It is a thought that is so foreign to me but it is there and I CAN DO THIS.

[nikolajfangirlteam]