Do asteroids hear ticking clocks after they crash and cooled off? After a python digests an immense large-bodied mammal...does it concern itself about staining the carpet? Where, why, and how do athletes live after their big break?
After crashing into the United States, hot...fast...from another place... I hear the tick tick tick of a cheap plastic clock behind my head. It always reminded me that I only have so many seconds before this gets harder, impossible, or has completely ended. As I have just digested the biggest part of my experience in life thus far, I am suddenly focused on keeping the carpet in my parent's house free of disasterous coffee stains. I know exactly where I will go, exactly why I will go there, and how I will live after this big roll.
Ok. So this is a shift in perspective. I'm sure people are going to drawl and clammer and ask the obligatory "where did you go, how long, what were you doing?" and the incredibly mundane and oh-so-common "was it profitable?"
I'll get those questions out of the way:
I was in Spain for the majority of 8 months. In addition to that beautiful country, I was also in Italy, southern France, Poland, England, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Morocco, and the fantastic soverign nation of the Vatican City. If you haven't seen me in two years... I was in Spain for 6 months the year before and travelled to Belgium, France, Portugal, and stayed in Spain more than not.
This took the better part of 2012 and thus far 2013.
I was teaching English to some of the most talented and...least talented people on the planet: Spanish teenagers. They were lovely, horrifying, hard-working, and lazy. They were boisterous and some were shy. Distinctly, unmistakeably, Spanish. I'll get into the industrial culture differences at another time.
And to the status! Disclaimer! Americans love our status... the one major thing which I noticed mattered to NO ONE but Americans was the number amount attatched to their jobs. In Macedonia, the magician I had drinks with never asked the South African sailor if it's lucrative to journey to India. In Plovdiv, the Pakistani telemarketer never talked about the perks of travelling with his successful company. The Swedish skydiving instructor I met in Lisbon never asked the Brazilian programmer about his advancement prospects nor vice versa. If someone talked about money as a measure of status...or posessions as a gauge of affluence...they were and are ignored. What matters is satisfaction, experience, and time to enjoy what you want to do. It's refreshing to escape to this reality.
So I will tell you that I enjoyed my time. I was satisfied by my experience. I had plenty of time to do whatever I pleased. There were beaches, relaxing strolls through peacock laced royal Spanish parks, and relaxing days spent in great company.
Down to the wretched bones of numbers: I paid student loans every month I was there. I left with nothing and relied on the good faith of my relationships and social skills to make ends meet before my first Auxiliares paycheck. Then, through private classes and service exchanges, I was able to afford my lifestyle unassisted. Not only this, but as a comet I travelled with $4000 stuffed in my reebok shoes as I backpacked across the Balkans and then flew home...all of which I earned through my own dedication to work and focus.
Now...to feeling. A summary:
When I came back from Spain in 2012 I was energized. After Paris and Brussels were so refreshing and invigorating, I wanted to keep rolling into new experiences and new lifestyles. Although I wanted to see my family and badly wanted to catch up with good friends...my primary objective was to get into an American medical school. I threw money at the process...it took it.
Then I threw more. As Ohio does, the area presented me with no opportunities as a Spanish speaker or as a biologist. Consequently, I started working in something closer to my field: animal healthcare products. Every day I labored to pay for more applications. On some weekends I was elated to see old friends and good people. On others...I kept the company of Genny. As the letters went out my heart started to sink. The numbers were crushing and I saw no positive results.
I enlisted the help of several doctors, volunteered at a few places, and pulled my family to get me a recommendation for medical school. Hindsight is 20/20. I could have gone to Ibiza, relaxed in the sun, kept my cash, and made a ton more new friends...if I hadn't run on the idiotic notion that American medical schools can overlook an unimportant action 5 years past.
Onto the goodness of my trip. Just like the first time I JUMPED. With 200 euros in my Spanish account (way below what you need for an apt in Madrid) I got on the flight to Spain.
(My family was angry that someone crashed into their car while I was driving and...unbeknownst to me and my father...it was uninsured. Their car, a new one, was also uninsured. State Farm either makes a lot of "mistakes" or insurance is a weasel industry which should be eliminated by the free market but they've wormed their way into our legislation)
Loli was so gracious to take me in.
Soon...I will write more about this strange and beautiful journey but for now I must go to bed.
