Counting Down...

Holy crap. I'm leaving for Spain in twelve days.

You'd think that after five months of knowing this was coming I'd be a little less surprised. Sure, I've been talking about it. I've been brushing up on my Spanish, and memorizing a few key phrases like "tengo monos en la cara?" ("Why are you staring at me?" or literally - "do I have monkeys on my face?) and "contigo ni a China me voy" ("your a pain in the ass" or literally, "I wouldn't even go to China with you") - but I still feel completely unprepared.

In less than two weeks from now, all I know about my life is that I'll be living in a "large, nicely decorated house" with my house mother Mari Carmen and her son Agapito. [He's 32 and a bus driver.] I'll be an official student at la Universidad de Salamanca. [A regal 13th century university where conquistador Hernan Cortes and Miguel de Cervantes - author of Don Quixote - studied back in the day.] And I will likely be eating lots of pork, learning quite a bit more spanish, and and if all goes as planned, adventuring my way around Spain and Europe for a three month exploration that I'll be talking about and remembering for the rest of my life.

That being said, I think the only real way to prepare for something like this is just to trust. My abroad experiences in Greece and Australia the last two summers were unbelievable... and even after thinking I knew what to expect, both trips proved to be entirely unpredictable. The friends that became family, the places I stumbled upon by hiking down a windy dirt road - none of it could have been anticipated. And really, that's half the fun.

So consider this very first blog entry my introduction: an open invitation to you, my friends, family, and new acquaintances, to join me as I set aside my UC Davis sweatshirt, and become a viajera, [traveler] y una estudiante a la Universidad de Salamanca.