Jessica Vooris '09

Outside, I can hear the song of crickets, a sign that autumn is coming. It seems that the first signs of the changing seasons come right after the 4-H County Fair. Even though it is still hot and humid, and there are a few weeks left of the summer, the crickets, the chill in the night air, and the blackbirds which line the power lines show that fall will soon be here. While the signs of changing seasons haven't changed, this fall is not going to be the same as the last two since I will not be returning to Bucknell for the fall semester. Instead, I will be heading off to Granada, Spain!

There are not really words to describe my past week.

I think about this blog at least once a day and there are so many times when I want to write but I don't have a computer nearby.

It has been a week since I left the U.S., and what a week it has been!

On Friday we went to see un espectaculo (show or performance) in the Alhambra, which is one of the places that Granada is well known for. It is a series of ancient buildings that have been the palaces for many different sultans and kings over the centuries. To be able to visit it at night was really special ...

un padre
que levanta a su hija
para que ella pueda tocar el agua de un fuente.

This weekend we had our first weekend excursion! Fuimos a la playa! (We went to the beach). We went to Nerja, which is about two hours away from Granada. On the bus ride, many people slept because everyone was tired from going out to cafes and bars on Friday night.

Wow, I have been here for three-and-a-half weeks! Before I know it the first month will be over -- a quarter of my time here. The last two weeks, since our trip to Nerja, have been really busy with the intensive Spanish class I'm taking, excursions around Granada, and, of course, homework. Also, the fact that I live so far away from the Centro de Lenguas Modernas (CLM, Center of Modern Languages) where we take class, means that I am walking a lot, particularly on days when I have to walk back in the afternoon for a Bucknell excursion. A couple of days my accumulated walking time to and from home has been three hours!

Two Thursdays ago, I had an adventure walking home. It poured all day. Torrential downpour. Smart as I am, I decided that I wanted to be home for lunch instead of hanging out in the CLM where we take classes with some of the other students who decided they weren't going to walk home in the rain. I figured, hey, I have an umbrella.

In general, I haven't been homesick much while I've been here. Obviously, there have been some days that were harder than others, but mostly it's all been good. However, along with missing family and friends, here are some of the things I've been missing...

In the time since I last wrote I have visited Madrid, Toledo, Cuenca, Segovia, where I went to various art museums, a few cathedrals, some churches, two synagogues, the theater and a roman aqueduct, and when we returned from all this traveling, I began my classes for the semester. It has been two very busy but enjoyable weeks! So here´s my account of our trip to Madrid...be prepared it is a loooong post! :)

As one of my friends reminded me in a recent email, being in a different country means being in a unique place in the world. When you are abroad you miss home, and appreciate the things you have there, but you also realize the opportunities there are elsewhere in the world. You may begin to feel at home in the place you are visiting, but you are aware that you don't completely belong there, and yet when you return to your home, there is often a feeling of displacement at home. After all your experiences, you are not the same person as when you left. Being in this in-between place can be hard, but it is rewarding. Traveling gives you the opportunity to sort of belong to many places and the opportunity for self-reflection.

The last three weeks since our trip to Madrid and since the start of classes have been great. Every day I feel more settled and at home here, and am not looking forward to the end of the semester. I want to see my family and friends, but I don't want to leave the people here. In particular I will miss Gregorio, Ima's neighbor, with whom I have an intercambio. We now meet almost every day. It is amazing how much he understands me, and how I think. He's surprised me a few times by his observations about my personality because they describe so clearly how I feel about myself and how I view the world. I'm also learning a lot of Spanish, and am having fun helping his English. He has become my friend, my mentor and teacher, and I will miss him so much when I leave.

My trip to Cabo de Gata was one of the best things that I have done in the past two months here in Spain. It is located along the coast on the opposite side from Granada, and the beaches are very different from the beaches on the tropical coast, (where Nerja, Almu�ecar, and Salobre�a are). For one thing the beaches are actually made of sand, not tiny pebble and the coast is more wild. Cabo de Gata is actually a National Park and its miles of coastland are protected land. The nearest big town/city is Almeria, and then there is an hour bus ride between Almeria and Cabo de Gata, a small town on the west side of the park. We booked a hostel in San Jose, the town on the east side of the national park, which is where Maria Jose recommended we stay.

Last Wednesday, I started volunteering at a day care center (in a marginal neighborhood on the outskirts of Granada, a 40-minute bus ride from my homestay), where I work in the two-year-old room. There are 20 two year olds, one teacher, and me.

Photos from the trip to Sevilla.

The weather was perfect, cool air, grey fall sky, yellow leaves...

Thanks to packages from home, new friends, and the colder weather, many of the things that I was missing in the beginning of the semester are no longer a problem.

Today I walked through the rain, listened to the differences between rheumatoid arthritis and osteo arthritis, had my blood pressure taken by a first-year med student, learned how to take a medical history, wrote a poem in Spanish, and saw the biggest rainbow I have ever seen in my life!

Wow, I can't believe that I only have a week left here in Spain! My life has been a lesson in learning how to move and leave loved ones, and I have had the experience of many long distance relationships, but knowing that we will stay in contact doesn't stop the pain of saying goodbye. I have found a family here and a new way of life, and I do not want to leave. Of course, I can't wait to see my family and my friends, and I am looking forward to Christmas! How exciting; it's that time of year again, and before I know it I will be waking up in my own bed, to open my stocking and other gifts! By the time I get through this next week full of finals, and teary goodbyes, I will be glad to be going home to see all my loved ones for the holidays.

On Wednesday before I went to Ireland I had a scare in the daycare. We had taken the kids out to play in the 3-year-old patio, because it was in the sun and therefore would be warmer than the normal patio they play in. Now playtime was over, and Sylvia, the teacher, had taken the majority of the kids into the lunch room, while Ana, the assistant, and I rounded up a few stragglers. I went to the back corner to get Joaquin, who was sitting on the stump, and lifted him to his feet. When I set him down he took off at a run towards the rest of the group and ran smack into the side of one of the metal bars set up for them to swing on. He immediately started wailing, and he hit it so hard I was sure he'd hurt himself, but didn't see anything when I looked at his forehead.

How exciting: a new semester is beginning, and once again Bucknellians are heading off to different parts of the world, or back to Lewisburg, Pa.

I am so happy about the opportunity to continue my blog experience. (Thank you, Bucknell!) Once again I will be heading off abroad, but before I get to the semester that awaits me I'd like to try and fill you in on the goings on of the last few weeks...and then I'll get back to the future that awaits me...

In my last blog entry, I had so much to say that I forgot to mention a funny story that happened on my way back from Spain. After our long journey, from Granada to Madrid to New York, we got off the plane exhausted but glad to finally be home, or at least in the U.S. (Some of us had long car rides, or connecting flights before we would finally be at our own houses.) But before we could get through customs and through the gate to see our anxiously waiting families, we had to wait for the bags to arrive on the conveyer belt.

It's crazy to think that tomorrow I will have been in Bath for two weeks. It has been a whirlwind of activity, as I suppose the first few weeks are for anyone. We had a week of orientation, a trip to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Lacock, and our first week of classes. And on top of all of that, I have been out and about exploring Bath with my housemates, and the local LGBT life with another girl on the program. (It's exciting how much there is to do!). And before I even arrived in Bath, I had a lovely few days staying with my uncle and family in Canterbury.

Without a doubt, my tutorial in Oxford is going to be a highlight of this semester. Every Wednesday, I take the train from Bath to Didcot Parkway, where I change trains to Oxford. Then I walk to my professor's house for the tutorial; a one-on-one session where I read my work, we talk about poetry and poets, and he gives me writing excercises. I was a little nervous the first Wednesday, intimidated by the thought of a one-on-one session with an Oxford professor. But the first session was great! And the one I've had since went really well too.

I've been so busy! I can't believe that we have just ended week six. I've been doing so much. I have been traveling alot. The last two weekends I was in Ireland, once to visit see my friend in Cork, and then a trip to Dublin with my Irish Lit course. They were both great, but meant that my weekdays have been really busy doing work.

Here are a series of photos I have taken over the last few weeks while in Bath and during my weekly visits to Oxford. I try to have my camera on me at all times. I like taking pictures of trees, and I love the sky, but I have also tried to start taking more pictures of people, and am losing my shyness about doing so, although sometimes I feel slightly stalkerish.

One of the hardest things about leaving Spain was saying goodbye to all the friends I had made through NOS. (For those who only started reading this semester, NOS was an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization in Granada). My involvement with NOS was one of the highlights of the semester. I became a part of the Granada lgbt community and made some close friends. (And I spoke a lot of Spanish with them.) Leaving was hard and my only consolation was the thought that I will have the opportunity to visit in the future, and also the hope that I would make good friends here in Bath.

To quote one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Izzard. "They say Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And it's true. No, they say two countries separated by a common language." That's the line. It's an Oscar Wilde line, I think.

My program, unlike many others, only had a week for Spring Break, although when you add in the Friday of the week previous (we don't have classes on Fridays) and the Monday of the week we came back (I don't have class on Monday) I had 10 days off. I was thinking of going to Spain, but also wanted to see relatives, and soon realized that I couldn't do both. Finally, a week before our break began I figured it all out. I would go to Edingburgh to visit one of my best friends from Bucknell, Megan, and then down to Scarborough to vist my great-aunts and Uncles, and at last to Nottingham to visit a cousin.

This week was my crazy week. I had papers and creative writing portfolios due. Now I have a calm week before finals and then the semester is over. How did the semester go by so fast? What do you mean I only have two weeks left? It has come as a bit of a shock, but I'm not freaking out the way I was at the end of last semester when I was preparing to leave Spain, because while I'll be very sad to say goodbye to my housemates, :( at least I'm not leaving England. I'll be here (or in Europe) until Aug. 11.

This is a story I wrote in my Writing From the Self course. Since it is a true account of something that happened to me this past February in Bath, I thought it would be something to post here in the blog.