Journal Entry Midnight June 30th

June 30 12:00 Midnight

I'm not really sure if Midnight is technically Tuesday still or Wednesday but I decided I would go with Wednesday because most of the writing will occur after 12.

Thank goodness for kind and loving people who are willing to be there for me and help me. Today has been a very hard day for me. I spent a fair amount of it crying and being sick and then crying a bit more. At times like this I am reminded of a fact I constantly try to reassure myself of, there really are good people in the world that will take time and effort out of what they are doing just to make you feel better. I love that kind of people! That is the kind of person I aspire to be. There are not many of these wonderful generous people in the world, which makes me treasure them even more. So thank you wonderful people for sharing your time and kind words with me that help to carry me through this difficult time.

It is thanks to these people that I have decided to continue and finish my class. A month is a long time but I need to do it to show my appreciation to them and to show myself that I really can do it. I know that I am not a very loud person, and although my body may be strong and solid my personality is much softer and more frail. I know who I am and I like that person, but sometimes I get frustrated with myself for not being more outgoing or social. But this is what I am and there are beautiful people who love me as I am and don't want me to change to make them happy. I want to prove that even people that would much rather be at home with the ones they love can survive in the "real" world, and although I may never be a globe-trotting citizen of the world, I will make an effort to try to understand and appreciate other people and where they come from.

Who knows, maybe I can change a few minds about Americans. Maybe I can show a few people that there is more depth, warmth, and definition behind Americans than just gun-carrying, cursing hillbillies that don't care about the rest of the world (and I have asked, that is what they hear about us). I have learned that getting angry at people for how Americans are perceived just increasing the stereotypes, instead we should really try to understand where these ideas came from and discuss the accuracy or miscalculation involved in the production of these stereotypes.

9:20 am

They wash the streets of Barcelona every day. Taking care of the sidewalk outside of your door here is like keeping your lawn neat and trimmed at home. The city has trucks that come and wash it down at night. Then in the morning all the shopkeepers sweep their little area of the sidewalk. It makes sense really because dogs go to the bathroom on them and people toss their garbage on them too.

It's hard to believe that anyone in Barcelona owns and uses a full-sized car. Between public bikes, buses, taxis, walking, trains, and the Metro I can't see there being a lot of need for cars. I understand if people need to move things or something but to go to work it's faster to not have a car.

I've also noticed a lot of people here carry a carry-on bag everywhere. I think it may be used for a breifcase, it would be better for a person's shoulders than carrying a really heavy breifcase I guess.

The leggings trend is alive and well in Europe even though it is dying down and fading out in the states.

Lunch time

I realized that I haven't really talked about food much here, that is partly because I haven't been eating much, but it does deserve mentioning. Most people here have some type of bread in the morning for breakfast, it's a bit like a doughnut. I usually just have juice or tea in the morning.

The only real meals I have tried here were attempts to make myself eat when I didn't want to and they were horrible failures. I tried to make myself eat perogies that I found at the market, but they were made with carmelized garlic and goat cheese and made me really sick. So I waited a couple days and just had juice to let my stomach resettle a bit. Today I tried again. I got Tortellini, which sounded good actually, it was made with Venetian Salsa and French cheese so I was really excited about it. I took a big bite, swallowed, and then after a slight pause ran to the bathroom. They were filled with pork! Really fattening salty horrible pork! That was the first time I have had pork in about 10 years and my stomach reminded me of why I stay away from it.

There are a few things that I have found that I like. I love the different juice boxes that they sell at my school the one I had today was watermelon and musk melon, and although it wasn't my favorite it was at least a familiar taste and didn't make me sick. Also there is a store called Alimentacio de Buddha just down the street from my apartment and on my way home from class I stop there and get a strawberry or lime popsicle, they are just simple fruit-flavored frozen sugar but they feel wonderful when I'm really hot and my stomach is empty but I'm too wary to get real food. So juice, popsicles, and the fruit I bought at La Boqueria are what I'm living off of but it's okay because I know I am okay with those and at least it's something, for a while I had nothing at all.

8:05 pm

There's a decent breeze tonight. If I sit on my bed with my eyes closed I feel just like I used to when I rode my bike down the hill in the backyard. The wind blows my hair back and pushes at my eyelids. And if I breathe in the breeze I can smell that it will rain soon. Just like at home I can smell it in the air, but here it mixes with the scent of the Mediterranean and with the dinner smells from neighboring apartments. In the end the mixture is a bit disappointing, it ends up smelling like soggy salted-ham.

But if I close my eyes and just breathe, feel, and hear, for a split second I don't notice the differences. For a second I'm home on the hill on my bike with the birds singing, the wind blowing, and the storm rolling in.

It's the same warm feeling I get every morning just as I wake up. I feel, home. Then I open my eyes and am again bombarded by the wonderful, frightening, alien environment around me. Like another planet... Houston... we have a problem....