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spinning: Jimmy Eat World - If You Don't, Don't

'The first day is always the worst.' It's a universal saying, I've learned, as I finally got to sleep last night. I had been up almost 36 hours and I looked and felt like a disaster after my travel day. But things quickly took a turn for the better here in Santander, and I'm thankful for how quickly I've gotten acclimated. The flight to Madrid wasn't fun, even sitting with a bilingual American/Spanish woman and having an aisle seat with the one next to me empty. By Madrid, I was tired and airsick, and I had one more flight to go - after navigating a Spanish airport to get a ticket, through customs, and to the proper gate. By pure luck, at the first counter I saw two UT students, so we formed a group and successfully got through the various lines and so forth.

In Santander, life was golden. About 10 of us were on the Madrid-Santander flight, so it had gotten really easy to get around. We were all met by a collection of students, UT profs, and people from UC - Raul, the coordinator of the program, and Laura, a guide for the students (she's young, cute, looks similar to Emily Gordon, and speaks great English). A bus ushered us all to a stop on the UC campus, but the ride was amazing - the architecture gives new meaning to 'mix of old and new.' I'll try to take pictures to prove it. We immediately were paired up with our senoras - the 'little old ladies' who were to be our hosts. Once my name was called, I was brought an attractive blonde in flip-flops and cool shades - and my 'little old lady' is well short of 30 by her looks. I live here now with her, her husband Carlos, and temporarily an Oregon State student named John.

I'm in Santander, very much alive. Time is short here, so I'll keep the details short and sweet:

How was the flight? Sucked. No sleep and a little airsickness, followed by a full first day immersed in Spanish life. Was up for roughly 36 hours and that´s way more than I´m capable of. At least, I'm fighting the jetlag well and I'll probably wind up going out tonight.

How's the household? Great. My 'senora', who was supposed to be a little old lady, is an attractive blonde woman a few years short of 30. It felt weirdly enjoyable in a Quagmire sort of way to be zipping around town with her in her Citroen C2, but she´s married and expecting and they treat me like family. It's good that they're so young, because they're more accomodating than average for my bad habits like food and so on. I'm eating well, so far I've tried something new for every meal and it hasn't ended badly, and the accomodations are nice. For the next week, I have a temporary roommate named John from Oregon State. It's been great having him around to help me get acclimated. The only major detail I still have to get worked out is getting a new SIM card for my phone, after which I can get phone calls!

How´s the city? Crazy. It redefines ´mix of old and new'. The architecture here is insane, no two buildings look anything alike. Downtown is crowded as if it were a much larger city, with advertisements and stores covering the ground floor, cars moving by slowly, and the outskirts are much calmer and more easy-going.

I'm being forced to log off to make room for others. More details when I get the chance.

I'm in the eye of a hurricane. Not literally, but the flight was a torment of emotions worthy of a heavy dose of Midol. Once the Dramamine kicked in, I felt high. I cranked up my iPod, the song selection was perfect, and I felt happy. With myself, my music, my charisma in talking with seatmates and flight attentdants (even at 20 people seem to like a boy travelling by himself), and the world in general. By the flight's end, I was tired, sleepy, my whole head ached between the cabin pressure changes and my sinus congestion, and I felt a little airsick. I'm glad to be on solid ground - and that flight only lasted 2 hours.

I've been here before. I'm pretty sure it might have been this terminal when Eric and I came to Florida 4 years ago. This is the eye. Nothing's moving, TVs are in English, Pizza Hut was my dinner, and I've got my GBA and Top Gear ready to go for the 2-hour layover. Then I get back on the plane for an 8-or-9-hour flight and the insanity really begins.

Travel blows. Check-in and the new Gestapo security system are ridiculous. A guy in the security line next to me tried to get a BB gun through the x-ray machine and halted the entire checkpoint so they could call over a cop to check the guy's bag. That, after the check-in melee, almost made me miss my flight. Once I got through I almost left without my watch, and that only happened once I went "Oh yeah, suitcase." It's a small miracle I got everything on board for this flight. Now I get to repeat the process twice more before my travel day ends at 5am by my body clock. That won't be so hard, but the following day in Spain will be since there it'll be around noon once I'm in Santander.

But after the fiasco that is American air travel, I'm looking forward to both getting the hell out of the US and taking a vacation to Europe.

It's the night before I leave for Spain and the rest of Europe for 7 weeks, and I don't feel a thing except full.

I've never had the jitters about this trip, and I've never been really kid-on-Christmas excited, either. That's not to say that I strangely think the trip is a bad idea, I think it's going to be great. But I have absolutely *no* idea what to expect and I'm keeping it that way. Creating any sort of expectation for the trip means it's going to be wrong once I get there. I just don't have the energy anymore to worry about the food and the lower frequency of Coke and the fact that it won't be child's play for the first few days just getting around using the language. Maybe this is what it's like to just live in the moment and not worry about planning. I feel a little dumber for it, but I also feel much less stressed out about the weeks to come and I think that's a good thing. Expect many pictures from a quaint European tourists' town, a great white-sand beach, and a nice university that's actually not huge.

I plan on updating this very site from Santander's many cyber-cafes, so it's not the last you'll hear from me. If for some reason you need to communicate, I'm reachable by email at the address listed in the entry just before this one.

Have an awesome summer, guys! I'll see you all in July.

Update: Yes, Max, I still owe you $5. Sorry. But it is set aside for you when I get back.