Hola, Madrid.

• Note: to every person I told to read my blog while I was gone, I’m sorry this is my first post.  I have a number of excuses reasons that I won’t bore you with, but hopefully I’ll keep it more regular after this.
  
  
  In lieu of the regularity I’ve kept, though, I’ll quickly speed you through my days:
  
  
  Day 0:
  
  
      

Obviously, I had a rough (but not unexpectedly so) start to my four-week vacation.  I didn’t sleep at all, and my room was definitely left a mess.

Day 1:

Vanessa and I left for the airport at 4:45 am. I only fell asleep for “five minutes” (huge accomplishment).

The rest of day one was as uneventful as hours of waiting for, and riding on, planes.

Day 2:

I arrived in Madrid around 9:30 am Tuesday. I was incredibly eager to tell everyone that, after finding the millions-of-miles-away metro station and transferring three times with three increasingly weighty pieces of luggage, I could do just about anything. And I honestly felt this renewed sense of street smart abilities…until I got off the metro to actually find my hostel.  I stood in front of a city map for a good five minutes (those of you who know me know that means a good five minutes essentially wasted) until a guy came up to me and asked me if I was lost, too. Yes, I hadn’t moved nearly ten feet but I was entirely lost. In my defense, around 3 am the night before, I had quickly google-translated the directions from the airport to my hostel without much a look. And so I found myself desperately trying to figure out how to “upload 20mts by rapporteurs street to number 17.”

I’m supposed to rappor-what?

rap·por·teur

/ˌræpɔrˈtɜr; Fr. rapɔrˈtœr/ rap-awr-tur; Fr. ra-pawr-tœr

–noun, plural -teurs turz; Fr. -tœr]

a person responsible for compiling reports and presenting them, as to a governing body.

You can imagine my difficulty.

Anyway, I agreed to follow this New Yorker to his hostel (which, for being lost, he seemed to get to just fine) and from there, they told me how to get to my hostel…literally right around the corner from the metro.

I never cease to amaze myself.

I couldn’t check into my room right away, so I decided to go on this free walking tour whereupon I quickly discovered that a 3+ hour walking tour right after 22 hours of traveling and 36 hours of no sleep = "Are we seriously still walking right now?"

I met Catherine, however, and we stuck together and hung out for the couple of days she had left in Madrid. 

Catherine from Australia. I like her.

 Since this is getting longer than I wanted…

Days 3-5:

After the deflation of my street savvy ego, getting to know my way around this capital of Spain has definitely helped restore a bit of it. Honestly, it took me a good day and a half to actually like it, or even enjoy myself. When you only really travel once a year, it’s easy to forget the one day of hell that involves the dread and discomfort of long plane rides, hauling luggage, getting lost, and that complete exhaustion after all of it. After I recovered, though, I was up and exploring every day—visiting Museums and reveling over works by Picasso, Govy, and Raphael, laying in the grass and soaking up the sun overlooking the Palacio de Cristol, and people watching along the Estanque del Retiro.  

Today was my last day in Madrid, and I spent most of it in el Parque de Retiro (my favorite place so far). I left my camera, purse, books, everything at my hostel and walked out this morning in my running skirt and tank top, iPod in hand. As I was walking through el Plaza del Sol, I ran into Harriet, the girl who gave us our walking tour on the first day. She didn’t recognize me at first and said she would have taken me for a local. Translation: I conquered Madrid.

Tomorrow I leave for Barcelona by bus around noon and get there around 8:45. Let’s hope finding my hostel is just a bit easier this time.

P.S. This morning I mailed some postcards. If you get one, you should feel pretty great, cause it was quite the effort finding the post office. Who puts a post office in a parking garage anyway?

Blood is Thicker than Water

Meet My World

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

- George Eliot

The Best 3:06 Minutes

**Don't mind the bullets. Blogger was being a bugger and wouldn't let me insert paragraphs. Naturally, I couldn't stand for that. **

• I go through phases.

• There was that phase in 8^th grade where I started wearing makeup, applying everything shiny, silvery, sparkly…apparently anything starting with an “s” and ending in “y,” which was only a little bit worse than the pluck-your-eyebrows-till-you-have-none phase that occurred not much later.

• Then follow my phases of (in no particular order) vegetarianism, scrapbooking, painting, sketching, crocheting, cream of wheat, poetry, running, saving the planet, yoga & pilates, Buddhism, etc.

• Now, I still do all of these things from time to time. I simply classify them as phases because when I did get into these…oh my goodness, did I get into these. It’s like 8^th grade Jaimie that can never get enough of shiny silver metallic lipstick.

Evidence of some phase products:

• One of the biggest phases I continually go through is in music. I get annoyed for other people on my behalf when this happens. Honestly. When I like a song or a band, I won’t stop listening to it. It’s ridiculous, really.  I even have a playlist on my iTunes titled “Best,” and that is where my current obsession is always placed until the next great discovery.  

• Some of the songs I look back on and equate with my sparkly early teens glamour phase, but others are always gonna be good.

• Last night I found my most recent phase. I don’t even know what it’s titled, but I heard it first on a Louis Vuitton commercial and googled the artist down. His name is Gustavo Santaolalla and his work is magnificent.

That's 41 plays since midnight. Like I said, ridiculous.    

• This morning I blended some phases and did yoga/meditation while listening to this song. Amazing.

• So after I learn everything there is to know and buy a bunch of stuff I won’t put to full use, I share. Even if people don’t want to hear it, I tell them--often in extensive detail--about my latest phase. 

• Hence this post.

• Here's a link to the commercial with the song if you're interested. The commercial itself is great, and I typically only say that one Sunday of the year. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5xCGZuvhWI  

• You can also get it for free on iTunes. Just search "Louis Vuitton Film Music." 

• P.S. I buy all my music, but not really for ethical reasons. So if someone knows how I can download some of Santaolalla's music that would fit the needs of a poor college student (i.e. free), you might be my new favorite phase.  

Time-Wasting & Barbie Face-Making

I have a problem. Well, I have a lot, but many of my negative qualities go around masquerading as quirky strengths, for my own amusement if nothing else. This, however, needs to be confronted without rose-tinted glasses.

I am...

A Perfectionistic Procrastinator.

It’s a bother, really.

I somehow manage to do everything under the sun except for what needs to get done.

*Some may recall my very first blog post where this presented a problem as well.

Example:

Since Friday, my plans for the weekend included two necessary tasks—cleaning my room and studying for my Spanish exam/completing Spanish workbook.

Since Friday I have done a lot of stuff, none of which have included these.

By Friday I say "It doesn’t matter." Procrastinator.

By Saturday I say, “I can do it tomorrow.” Procrastinator.

By Sunday morning I say “I’ll do it in the afternoon…” Procrastinator.

And so the story follows until we are now at Sunday evening. Oh, it’s still going to get done. I will study for my exam and do my Spanish workbook, AND I will get an “A” with a clean room because…the Perfectionist kicks in.

This has been my Sunday, and how my line of thinking goes to put off such necessary tasks:

Wake up.

Think…

“Oook, today I need to study. Ugh, it’s only 7:41.”

Go back to bed.

Wake up.

Think…

“I need to study."

Walk in to closet to put clothes on.

“But I should clean my closet first. I’m hungry.”

Eat breakfast.

“I have all day.”

Try to watch Bucs game.

Fail.

Watch The Office instead.

Read.

Look up picture mom sent to email.

“I should finally put up pics from my trip.”

Facebook (I’m not actually gonna say “facebook” for all the times I was on today, because that’d be a waste of space, and also a little embarrassing).

Make a recycling poster for our kitchen

Rake

Kill a spider

Read NY Times articles on iPhone

Eat lunch

Watch SNL

Oh my goodness, this is rather tedious actually.

So fast-forward to the most time-wasting thing I did today, which actually prompted this post…

**The most wasteful and useless matters happen as what I really need to complete gets closer and closer.**

Run face recognitions on MyHeritage.com. Face, face, face.

“Jessica Alba, she’s pretty.”

Google images: Jessica Alba

“Soo pretty. I think she looks better with lighter hair. I wonder what I would look like with lighter hair.”

Google: Hairstyle photo upload

Mess around with photo. Dye hair (virtually).

“Ew.”

Make Barbie Jaimie.

And so…here is my before and after:

Before: Jaimie the Time-waster 

After: Jaimie the Barbie

And it only took blonde hair, plucked eyebrows, pink blush, coral lipstick, and blue colored contacts. Ha.

 *If you look closely, you may be able to see that I also googled "perfectionistic procrastinator" to see if such a thing existed. Despite the fact that "perfectionisitic" isn't actually a word, I do have fellow PPs out there.

And I think it’s safe to say I will never go blonde.

Now that I’ve done one more time-wasting thing by posting this, I might have to do work.

It may take staying up a little late and waking up a little early, but I’ll deliver that “A” and my room will be clean come tomorrow afternoon.

Yours truly,

Perfectionistic Procrastinator.

Welcome to the New

Originally my blog was created to keep friends and family up to date on my summer travels.  Since I’ve been home, though, people have asked why I stopped. I said to one of my friends, “Why would I keep writing? I’m home,” to which he replied, “Why not keep writing? You’re home.”  That could be an entirely valid argument, or entirely illogical, but either way I decided that I’d keep writing beyond my travel adventures.

So here’s the continuation of my life at a time of stationary complacency (for the time being) in the little town of Monmouth, OR.

Current Status: Full-time student looking for part-time job.

Confession: Financial status leads me to steal food from my mom’s house.

Missing: Best friends, Ireland, summer.

Being a transfer student is only cool when you’re from another country (which I guess technically makes you an exchange student), or at least from a really cool school, and who’s gonna do that? So is being a transfer student ever actually cool? No.

Being a transfer just means you get to mess with credits and most likely stay in college longer than planned (especially for those of us with four transcripts in our file records).

So my first week of school turned out to be a game, actually, called “How many times can you fill out a blue Add/Drop slip, and Who Can Get on a First Name Basis with the Staff in the Registrar’s Office the Fastest?”

And I was the victor of this very lengthily titled, nonexistent game. Kudos to Jaimie the Transfer. 

An aerial view of WOU

Despite all that, I really like my new school. It’s a pretty campus, the people are friendly, and I’ve been enjoying my classes. It’s a refreshing change from the Adventist school system. I like that it’s still fairly small, though, and has that sense of community that goes with it.

*Note to self:

Some conversations and choice words are taken differently here than they would be at an Adventist school. Por ejemplo…

When you say, “Well, I’m not really interested in a serious relationship right now, but we can still hang out and have fun,” the “hang and out and have fun” part apparently does not translate to, “We can play board games on Friday nights and converse in coffee houses…”

Lingo on the watch.That’s the last time I’ll get labeled as, “that kind of girl.”

These bruises are compliments of volleyball class to the genius who dives for balls without knee pads.

I like my new house even more than my new school. I have three other girls living here and so far it’s been great.

Also, I found love in this little town, and it’s called Bedroom. In addition to playing the unofficial transfer game, I was busy getting my room together the first week or so. It’s not entirely complete, but it’s at haven status. 

When I tell friends they can sleep in my closet, they think I'm joking. It's deceptively small-looking, but cozy.

Home, Full Circle

I arrived in New York around 9pm last night and have spent the past nine hours in the lovely JFK airport. It’s not so terrible once you get to know the ropes. JFK and I had our differences at first; it was rough, but I feel like we have a mutual understanding now.

I’m also entirely convinced that British Airways is the best airline to fly. My flights there and back were probably a couple of the highlights for my England stay ;) I was ecstatic to receive my second little packet of miniature toothpaste, toothbrush, socks, and eye cover thingy (I should figure out what those are called). Also—don’t judge—I watched three movies and three TV episodes during the flight. AND they fed me, not once, but twice. I had chicken tikka and raspberry chocolate mousse and then later a chicken sandwich. So I watched more entertainment and had more food in that eight-hour period than my span of three weeks (not really on the food, but that definitely got me excited).

One thing, though…I might have stolen one of their blankets. I know you’re not supposed to, but all I could think about was my long, cold night at the airport and couldn’t help it: I stuffed that blanket in my bag Bonnie-style. I was seated toward the back and waited, to be safe, till the rows behind me filed out. Did this result in the very last spot of the line going through customs? Yes. Did I feel like my backpack suddenly became see-through to unveil my criminal habit? Yes. Was it worth it? At midnight in the ever-decreasing temperature, huddled on a bench with a BA blanket (that’s British Airways…this blanket isn't that cool), I thought, “Yes, of course it was worth it.” At 6:00 this morning as I was getting ready to head to my terminal and realized I left my Ireland, organic cotton, ridiculous-amount-of-euro scarf under the seat in my frantic state to get away scot-free with the blanket I thought, “Nooo, that was so not worth it.” Karma.

As I type this, however, I am waiting for the Lost & Found of BA to open so that I can hopefully retrieve it. I will give them back their blanket and offer to make them a hundred more as long as I get my scarf back.  

My ticket: First I thought, "World Traveler. That's really cool." Then I realized "world traveler" is just a nice way of them saying "Yeah, you're in coach, sucker."

Well, in just over an hour I fly to Portland. It feels like I’ve been gone forever, and yet my trip seemed so short. I had the most amazing time, met some of the best people, and got to see more of the world—this is what I love, and this is what I’ll be waiting for as soon as possible.

I left my glasses, SIM card, and heart in Ireland (“lost” my be a more fitting verb for the two former) and some day I will go back for them.

Now for me to find my lost scarf. Fingers crossed.

Update: I take it back. British Airways is not the best airline to fly. They did not return my scarf. Serves me right.  I got a number for the UK lost and found at BA, though, and they will hear from me very soon.
Also, a tidbit of very unnecessary information: I'm pretty sure I have gained at least five pounds in the past 30 hours. It's like I'm some kid just out of Auschwitz who is suddenly surrounded by reasonably priced food in a money system I actually have (I know it's not really like that at all...). Regardless, I'm going running tonight.

London, Second Time Around

I really did come back to London with an open-mind, sure that my second experience would far exceed my first. It was better, yes, but I think it’s safe to say I will never live in London or go back any time soon.

Some journal entries from couple-day stay:

September 23, Thursday

Accomplishments:
• I finally saw the touristic sites of London
• I gave another tourist directions on how to get to the station
• I managed to get a place to stay
• I smiled at a fireman
• I Got my adapter back from Stefano
• I gave another tourist directions to the station (I know, I just felt this one needed repeating)

Failures:
• Ended up in the ghetto of the ghetto in London
• Did not get to see Hannah :(
• Er, I still suggested the tourist to ask a local…just to be sure. So maybe that didn’t deserve a two-time mention.

London is SO great that…

London is so great that when I had to register online to use wifi at McDonald’s, my disposition sitting in a lonely both stranded in who-knows-where, London, wondering where I would sleep come night, inspired the password of—in asterisks for the sake of delicacy— ****London (you can put it together).

London is so great that it has rained hard three of the four days I have spent here.

London is so great that I wanted to stay in a public restroom (a fairly nice one, granted) because it was the warmest place I’d come across all day.

London is so great that instead I spent a large portion of my day in a department store testing out furniture, smelling every single candle, and people watching to avoid said rain.

London is so great that I got stuck in the doors of the subway (yeah, I'm gonna call it that because that's how anti-London I am right now) three times because of how very crowded it was. Also, chivalry is dead here. Don't bother, boys, offering your seat to the distressed girl with the huge backpack on her shoulders getting stuck in the doors. You just keep listening to your iPod while I hold on to this railing above my head.

The first time I got stuck, my Hollywood-polluted mind freaked and I thought I was gonna end up mangled in the tunnel. Instead the doors just opened again, rather anti-climatically.

London is so great that I went to three different libraries because the first one was freezing and the second one charged entrance for non-members, which I feel entirely defeats the purpose of a library.

London is so great it has significantly heightened my sense of sarcasm.
 

This woman in the pink sweatshirt tried to sell me a tissue paper flower for “the children.” When I said “No thanks,” she walked away and said, “Yeah, you wouldn’t.”
Excuse me for being more poor than your manipulative guilt trip of imaginary children that I choose not to afford myself the luxury of your tissue paper flower on this rainy day. Truly.

 Here the pink-sweatshirt woman has acquired her target while I innocently capture her in a picture...minding my own business.

And here she is, angrily walking away.

Meet Manuel

He hosted me for my stay in London and saved me from sleeping outside :)

He made me the best toast and had the coolest red shoes.

And I will miss his silly self.

Well, I think London was a necessary thruway. In Ireland, I did not want to go home. In London, I could not wait to be home. It all works out.