Haciendo las maletas

In three days I will be leaving Madrid to celebrate Christmas with my family in Paris.  After a week in Paris I head to Barcelona for two days, then Zaragoza for a night, and after all that, I will return to my homestay long enough to gather my bags, say hasta luego y gracias to my host mom, grab a cab, and move in to my new apartment.  Between my finals, and all the moving of stuff, December is a crazy month for me, but it's important to take a few moments to reflect on the first half of my time here in Madrid.  Luckily, packing has become a great way to do that.

In my packing, I have come across a good number of things that I had either forgotten about, or not even known that I had here with me.  I am sure this list may grow between now and Saturday when I leave, but I've already found some interesting things so far.

Prescriptions:  Much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of my insurance, and the worry of my parents, I have been sick much of my time here in Spain.  Those of you who've been with me since the beginning certainly remember my three-week-long ordeal in the beginning of the semester.  Lessons from this sickness: NEVER take medicine that is supposed to help with "gastronomical problems," you may end up spending the majority of your first hours of meeting your host mom in Spain kneeling in front of the toilet as the sickness comes out the other way...Ok, that situation is pretty specific to my experience here, but I will never forget how miserable I felt on the plane from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid, and getting no sympathy because everyone around me chalked it up to my nerves, then embarrassingly spending more time throwing up than getting to know my host mom the first night, then being told the following day that, after insisting time after time that I avoid all over the counter medicine then finally giving in and taking said medicine, that what happened to me is exactly what the medicine does to a lot of people.  BIGGER lesson: listen to your gut (pun intended).

For the record:
2 rounds of antibiotics
2 different prescription cough syrups
1 inhaler (prescribed)
1 box of mucinex-esque dissolving tablets (prescribed)
and 1 box of the medicine that made my first hours in Madrid so memorable

Bathing suit:  Now, I have only had two chances to use a bathing suit here so far, and one chance I missed because I was sick when the rest of the program went to Portugal, but thank goodness I didn't have to miss the trip to Valencia.  I'm not sure how much you all have heard of Valencia, but in my opinion, this beautiful Mediterranean city is sorely underrated.  It is full of history, has INCREDIBLE museums, is not too big to be unmanageable, and is on the Mediterranean ocean.  I could go on, but I still need to tell you what all this has to do with my bathing suit.

On our last day in Valencia, we were given a few hours to explore on our own, eat, or, perhaps, visit the beach.  Of course the majority of us rushed to the beach, and, with varying levels of decency, changed into our bathing suits to take a splash in the ocean.  I'm not much of a deep water person, so I was enjoying wading by the shore, and posing for pictures with my friends.  Just as I was handing my camera over to a friend to take a picture of another friend and me, I started being splashed wildly from below.  I looked down, confused, to see a little boy giggling and splashing just me.  I wasn't sure how to react, and neither were my friends, so I shrugged my shoulders and tried talking to him.  Turns out, the last thing a five year old boy wants to do at the beach is make conversation, so before long he and I were running around splashing each other, my friends, and innocent passer-bys (I swear that was more him than me...).  I did manage to get out of him that he's five, he was in Valencia on vacation, and that his name is Ilia.  I don't know anything else about my little friend, but I will never forget all the fun we had.  A lot of girls dream about going to the Mediterranean and being splashed by a cute young Spanish man, but I think I had a lot more fun with my cute little Spanish boy.

Moleskine:  It's funny how there are things that you don't think you can live without, then they disappear, and somehow life goes on just fine.  For me, one of these things was my overpriced, slightly pretentious, little, black Moleskine.  For as long as I can remember, I have always had it with me to jot down notes, ideas, things I don't wand to forget, and whatever else comes into my head.  When I arrived in Madrid, however, it didn't show up during my unpacking, and I assumed I had left it in Santiago de Compostela and that it was gone forever.  And, guess what?  I got along just fine this semester with a cheap day planner from the UC3M bookstore.

Nevertheless, sometimes life rewards you for learning to manage without your snooty little accessories (...or whatever is relevant to you...), and about an hour ago, when I finally took down my suitcase, what should I find in it but my Red Cross certifications, and my Moleskine.  I had a few reactions to finding it, including, but not limited to:

"Oh my goodness!  Yay!  I've missed you!"

"Ugh, why'd I waste three euros on a new notebook!?"

"I know you though you'd hurt me by leaving, but I did just fine without you!  And now you come trotting back into my life when I've finally truly figured out I don't need you"

"Hm, I guess black notebooks really do camouflage well in black suitcases..."

And "Let's see what's inside..."

(Clearly I had/ve a strong attachment to this little notebook)

Well, I opened the notebook to the bookmark, and my last note is: "20/08/09: Ate chicken!"

And I had eaten chicken, and it was the first chicken, or any animal for that matter, that I had eaten since the first time I was in Spain, four and a half years ago.  I couldn't help but laugh to myself upon reading this to think how far I'd come since then.  Now I eat meat at every meal (well, not breakfast), and have eaten perhaps more different types of animals than I had ever eaten before becoming vegetarian.

All this being said, however, I have a feeling I will return to some level of vegetarianism once I move out  of my homestay because I just do not envision myself preparing meat for me to eat (to be honest, it still is incredibly difficult for me to eat animals, but I swore to myself that I would try everything offered to me during my homestay, and I am proud to say that, with the exception of paté, I have!)

It's hard to not be sentimental when packing up.  I would be lying if I said I haven't had some emotional moments recently when I've thought about the fact that, pretty soon, I will be half-way through the academic year here.  (Let's try not to think about what a wreck I will be when my time is actually winding down).  Packing is far from being one of my favorite things, but I really have been enjoying reflecting on every item I pull out of the back of my closet to put back into my suitcase, because there is a story to be told about practically everything in this little room.

I am sure a few of you all are doing some packing of your own now, either to go home for the holidays, or to travel away from home.  Have you come across anything with a story?  Share it with us in the comments!

Un beso.