Pictures

Hello all,

Now that I'm home and finally unpacked, I'm going to be posting all the photos that I took during my trip. I'll post links to the online albums and a corresponding story for each trip. Let me know if the links don't work and I'll fix them.

Home

Hello all,

As some of you might know, I had to cut my adventure short. As of now I am back in the States and doing well. Still trying to get my health issues sorted out, but I feel better being back home. Below is a post I made to Facebook a few days before leaving that kind of sums up what was going on. Now that I have better internet access, I'll post a link to some more pictures. 

-Jeremy (aka Yeremi)

Dear friends,

For those who have not yet heard, I am leaving Spain this Sunday (27 May) to return home to the States. I know this is quite sudden (I only finalized my decision this morning) and could come as a surprise, but I feel this decision is in my best interest.

The past month or so, I have been going to different doctors, clinics, and hospitals with stomach problems. Each medical professional made suggestions on what it might be but I have never received a definitive answer. Along with these stomach problems, my anxiety, something that plagued me in the past, has been increasing. For the last few weeks I have been suffering from bouts of anxiety, stomach pains, and the associated physical symptoms. After much consideration of my health, I think that it is best that I return home to hopefully improve my anxiety problems and therefore allowing my doctor to better treat my stomach problems.

That said, I can safely say that I will not have any regrets returning home now. With all certainty, I have accomplished everything that I set out to do, and then some. I remember my biggest fear coming to Spain was my Spanish abilities. Not to say that 4 years in high school and two in college didn't prepare me, but I vividly remember my first day in Madrid trying to tell my hostel's address to the taxi driver. In comparison, one of my proudest language moments in Spain occurred less than a month ago when I was able to successful talk to someone in Spanish on the telephone. While this might sound silly, I assure you this is not a feat to be laughed at. At this point, I definitely do not consider myself fluent, but I am extremely pleased with the progress I've made over the past 8 months.

Besides increasing my knowledge of Spanish, I was also nervous about how my work would proceed. Thankfully this went well. I have loved nearly every minute of working with my students and teachers in my schools. Thinking back to the first days and hearing my students speak now, I know that my work helped to improve their English skills. If nothing else, my students can now respond to my habitual question of "how are you guys?" without a puzzled look and some Spanish side discussion as to what I said. I've also enjoyed working with my other auxiliars. Kyle, Tremaine, Afeefa, Aaron, and Nat are some of the most patient and passionate people I have ever encountered.

Of course, I was also nervous about meeting new people in such a foreign environment (pun intended). Thus, I also want to acknowledge all the friends I have made in this experience. With all honesty, I would not have made it past the first week of Spain without all of you. I would name you all, but there are so many of you and I would hate to leave someone out. I consider you all very good friends of my mine and I hope that no border will keep us from keeping in touch.

Thank you also to all my friends, family, and loved ones back home for your support. I'm sure I've talked to many, or all, of you sometime in the past 8 months with some sort of gripe and I want to thank you for listening, or at least pretending to listen.

In addition, my time in Spain wouldn't have been as pleasant without my flatmates Tiffany and Felipe. Everyday you guys helped me to see the world a little different and I was constantly learning from you both. Plus, you're both awesome.

As for my last few days in Spain. Tomorrow I bid farewell to my school, students, and teachers. Followed by a lot of packing and meeting up with some friends throughout the day. On Saturday I am going on my final day trip, to a city called El Escorial. Then finally on Sunday, I catch a 9am flight that arrives 9.5 hours later around 1pm in Charlotte, N.C.. Finally, I have just a two hour flight from Charlotte, after a three hour layover, which should get me to Detroit around 6pm.

I just wanted to share with you all this short, disjointed, farewell to Spain and collection of my thoughts. I'll post some more thoughts at a later date in my blog, most likely when I'm in the States.

These past 8 months have been a time of my life that I will never forget. Absolutely no regrets.

Final Two Months

 

Everyone said it, “before you know it, you’ll be done”, and I didn’t believe them. But, here I am, with but two months left wondering where the time has gone. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to heading back to the States and continuing with “real” life, but I just can’t believe my days are numbered. It seems like just yesterday I was planning my trip to Spain, celebrating Thanksgiving at my apartment, cooking pizzas on Christmas morning, ringing in the New Year in Budapest, admiring the Lisbon coast, and eating pasta in Italy. While I feel like my time is short, I do have TWO months left, and I intend to make the most of them.

The other day I made a Madrid “Bucket List” which I’ll share with you all. In no particular order, here are some things that I will do before my time is up.

• Go to Cuenca
• Cuenca is a city in the south of Madrid famous for its hanging houses
• Go to El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen
• El Escorial is a palace and a city in the northwest of the Madrid community. The palace is supposedly beautiful, but I also want to go to see the Valley of the Fallen. The Valley is a monument made during the Spanish civil war that is still controversial.
• Go to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
• One of the famous art museums in Madrid
• Return to the Prado
• The most famous museum in Madrid
• Museum of America
• A lesser known museum but I want to see how the Spaniards look at the discovery of the New World
• See a bullfight
• While I don’t think I will enjoy it, given the history and the cultural impact bullfighting has had on Spain, I feel like it’s something I must do
• See the San Antonio de la Florida
• The San Antonio is a lesser known church that contains many works of Goya and it was recommended by NYTimes as something you must do
• Eat churros and chocolate at San Gines
• San Gines is a Madrid institution, especially popular at 5/6am when people start to return from a night out
• Visit the Royal Palace
• Something extremely tourist that I have not gotten around to.

I don’t have a bucket list for my time in Spain/Europe but one is forthcoming. Looking ahead I have a trip to Marrakech, Morocco May 18-20th which I am very much excited for. After that, I don’t have any trips planned but I can promise at least one more trip before I return home.

Speaking of returning home, my flight home is July 3rd; just in time for Independence Day.

Hasta Luego

Spring/Easter Break and Law School

Friday, I leave for my "Easter" break. Here in Spain, Easter break is really a combination of spring break and the Easter holiday. Normally, we'd have off for the week before Easter and the Monday after Easter. However, this year we also have Friday off and tomorrow (Thursday March 29) is a country-wide strike, so my vacation started early. I'll be travelling from Madrid to Milan by air, then going throughout northern Italy by train. After Milan, my next city is Venice, followed by Bologna, then Florence, then Pisa, then Genoa, and back to Milan for my return flight on Easter Sunday. Here's what my trip will look like:

In addition, today I decided to accept an offer to attend the University of Illinois College of Law as a member of the class of 2015. Now, I have the difficult part of trying to find housing from thousands of miles away.

Where have I been???

 

As one of my friends rightfully pointed out, I haven’t been so good at updating. But, here is a new one for today.

The second week in February marked the halfway point of my time in Spain and as of today, I have a little under four months left. Given this, I think it might be helpful to reflect over the last 5 months I’ve spent in Spain.

What I’ve done:

• I’ve been in a foreign country for 162 days, and counting…
• I’ve increased my list of visited countries from 2 (Canada and Mexico) to 7 (Canada, Mexico, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany).
• I’ve applied to 30 different law schools, all from abroad. So far my record is 12 acceptances, 6 denials, 4 waitlists, and I’m still waiting on 8. Included in these are 8 scholarships, including 5 scholarships of over $10,000 per year.
• I have visited the three coasts of Spain and have taken countless buses and trains to these cities.
• I’ve managed to avoid private transport throughout my entire trip. This seems amazing since there was hardly a day in Michigan that I did not drive somewhere.
• I have, hopefully, improved the English of my, roughly, 300 students. In addition, I’ve spread the knowledge of Valentines Day, Christmas (in the States), and Thanksgiving to Spanish children.
• I have picked up some of the British English, which I so despised in the beginning. I now find myself looking for the rubbish bin, spelling some words differently (mainly the double “ll” as in travelling), and also using have a lot more (as evident in this update).
• My Spanish is much better than when I first arrived. I now feel confident enough to pay exactly with change, as opposed to the beginning when I used to only pay with big bills, to avoid paying the incorrect amount. I can also give directions in Spanish to the occasional lost Spanish tourist. But, most importantly, I can recognize when my students swear in class and yell at them.
• I’ve been a tour guide of Madrid, both for one of my friends who visited after New Years and my family who was just here a few weeks ago.

What I will do:

• I will make a decision about which law school to attend in the next month. This decision has been driving me crazy, but I know it’ll all work out fine.
• I will be visiting some more countries before I come home. Later this month, I’ll be spending a week in northern Italy for our Easter break. I also have a trip to Morocco in the works. I hope to visit Greece, the U.K., Paris, and more of Spain, in the next four months.
• Continue to improve my Spanish.
• Learn more about Spanish cooking. I’ve been pretty good with learning some traditional Spanish foods, but I can definitely do more.
• Explore and take more pictures of Madrid. I’ve clearly spent most of my time in Madrid, but it’s the city that I have the fewest pictures of.
• Send some postcards out. I have about 12 that I’ve been meaning to send but keep on forgetting to do so.
• I’ll work on updating more often.

Family

The family is safely here in Madrid, and I come down with a nasty cold. Figures... Expect pictures and an update soon.

Winter Trip

Hey all,

I'm leaving today for a 12 day winter vacation. First stop is Budapest, Hungary. Followed by Prague, Czech Republic. Finally ending up in Berlin, Germany, with a possible stop in Dresden, to which I will return to Madrid on Jan. 8th. Expect a post about this, my trip to northern Spain, law schools, and my job here in Spain, when I return. In the meantime, here's a approximate map of my winter journey and a picture of my favorite pintxo from San Sebastian. Hope everyone had a great holiday and has a happy new year!

Sun-dried tomato with a balsamic pearl onion.