Living in Community

While I lived in Madrid, I had the pleasure of living in a beautiful apartment decorated in photos and collected items from all over the world in the heart of the city. I had the joy of walking to my classes each morning, and soaked up every second of hearing the city buzz, watching the people interact and feeling a completely rare joy in my daily commute. 

My old roommate and dear friend, Cande, and her boyfriend, along with the visits of several friends ensured the apartment was never empty. My first week there her brother was visiting, and overlapping with his visit was another friend. In the four weeks we were there together, it truly felt like a home. There was always a meal being prepared, someone doing laundry, something to discuss, and an open bottle of wine. I've had great roommates and I have great friends. I have two years of stories from living in the sorority house. But this apartment in Madrid was something else. It felt like truly living with a sister, everything is everyone's and all responsibilities are shared. One's burden is felt by all. I learned to cook new meals, I laughed until I cried sitting at my place at the the table, and I had days in the last few weeks where I did absolutely "nothing" at all except enjoy doing nothing. I have deep love for the people I met in Madrid, and great appreciation for all the things they've taught me. 

I leave Madrid sad. I know that a great year is ahead. I know that I have only one year left of law school and that I cannot just stay in Madrid forever. But July 2014 will be the month that I reminded myself of a great city where I truly feel at home. It went by too fast. I met new faces and spent delicious quality time with favorite faces. Certainly, some of my favorite memories were in Madrid's streets, and other favorites happened in that apartment.  I am already looking forward to the next time I chirp, "Hasta luego!" Because with Madrid, it is just that - "until later;" it is never goodbye. 

Ritual Union

I travel for the glam and the gore
Reinventing yourself is such a big American phenomenon. I think retracing yourself should be as well. Perhaps you'll think I am overexaggerating, but I left a life here. I just abandoned it and started over. I have a habit of doing this. Thanks to this habit, I have stories that belong in a novel; I have friends all over the world, I have pictures worth 1000 words and I have scattered pieces of my heart in many places. Of course, I stuffed much of my Madrid experience into my heart and I always carry it with me.
I feel compelled to be up to my old habits, to go to all my favorite watering holes, and to love Madrid in the precise way I learned to love it. Unlike other times I've sought solace and refuge in the European continent, I didn't run from something this time, I ran TO it. However, I did not come to be transported back to being 22. I came to bridge my life now with my life then, and to make them one. This is proving very challenging- emotionally and physically. It's not fun to be on the Madrid time schedule and go to sleep at six in the morning then sit in a law school classroom three hours later. It's also proving a true test of the timber of my heart, to reminisce and to so clearly visualize the different turns and decisions I could have so easily made in a different direction.
This is not a post about regrets, but one about habits. "Ritual unions have got me in trouble again. I was wondering, of the white dress, and a mistress, a spirit holding my hand." (Little Dragon) This is a series of thoughts and fears about reaching into the future and into the past simultaneously. About redefining. About growth.

Traveling and globe wandering to the absurd extent that I have  boasts a lot of glamour. Let me remind you, in 2013 I lived for four months in Africa and four months in London. In 2013, my feet stepped on the sovereign ground of THIRTEEN nations. Oooh, you swoon, sitting at your desk. 
But there is also gore. 
It has immense challenges. 
I won't conflate such a discussion in this post for fear of you incorrectly thinking that I am ungrateful, or trying to make a statement that travel is not "all it's chalked up to be." Travel, in fact, is so much MORE than any one chalks it up to be, that it is a gift that keeps giving, keeps challenging, keeps pouring out blessings.
This harvest of blessings is hard on my heart.

Learning to strike the balance between roots and branches, yet how to mold my own past self with a new future self in order to be one content mono-polar human really has me pensive (and playing this song on repeat). 

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

I travel for people...

Its been an incredible blessing to be surrounded with some of my favorite people in the entire world this summer. Just to give you the correct image - I have about three incredibly precious friends from when I lived in Madrid that I am still close to today. Two of the four, I lived with at an apartment on a street called Rios Rosas. Cande, one of those roommates was my roommate nearly the entire time I lived in Madrid. Cande now lives about two streets over from where we used to live, and she lives with another Argentinian, who happened to apply to a program in Paris for the month of July. So, like something perfectly designed by the stars, I am living in her roommate's room and we are roommates again. Cande is leaving to return to Argentina in August and so I will be her first and last roommate while she lived in Madrid for three years. Wow, it gives me chills. 
The other one of those two, Gabriel, was in Madrid to complete his masters and now he works back in Brazil for Google (no big deal). I have been incredibly lucky to see Gab in Los Angeles last May, and to see Cande in Barcelona in October. But the three of us haven't been together since 2012. Until last Saturday. It was an epic reunion, and I want to cry just thinking about how incredibly beautiful and sweet it was to be reunited, in our city, at our favorite restaurants, discussing our favorite things. To add icing on the cake, Cande's boyfriend and my boyfriend were also there basking in the happiness and hearing some of our greatest adventures. Wow. 
The third, Melania, who I visited in Rome in October comes to Spain in another week. 
Other than arranging my living situation, Gab and Melania is completely coincidence and God's plan being far better than mine. 
I just LOVE it when a plan comes together better than in my wildest dreams. 
Through these great people, I have continued to meet more great people who are like minded and like-hearted. People who love the world and love the people in it. We've had great discussions over Rioja over the future, the gray areas, and hot-topic debates. It further reminds me that I travel for the people I have the privilege of sharing the travels with. I travel for those who travel with me, and for those I meet along the way. 

Gab and I at our old metro stop home

Brian and I at Retiro, Madrids equivalent of Central Park

REUNION

If its love, and we decide that its forever; no one else can do it better

If its love, and we are two birds of a feather 

and the rest is just whatever

We can be them, two birds of a feather that flock together.

Love, love, got to have something to keep us together. 

Love- that's enough for me. 

We can travel to Spain, 

it sounds insane, cause it is. 

We can laugh, we can sing, have ten kids and give them everything. 

Love, love, got to have something to keep us together. 

-If Its Love, Train

Happy Cultural Tapestry Day!

Read my friend Shelley’s post on her time in Rwanda, called “A Friday Afternoon”:

www.wavesofjustice.com

I finally got to upload pictures from my first few weeks here, so go check those out on Facebook. It takes too much internet to upload them in more than one place.

Just wanted to ask for prayers, as I will be traveling all day Thursday, July 4, and Sunday, July 6^th to and from Uganda on a bus for a very long bus ride. There is a group of Pepperdine students in Kampala, and I want to see them, experience the greatness of Kampala that I’ve been hearing about my whole first year at Pepperdine. I’m really, so excited. I have heard the difference between Uganda and Rwanda is like day and night, so I can’t wait for a new adventure! I’ve done plenty of research, talking to all the right people, and although no bus in the developing world is particularly “safe,” it seems like a completely reasonable trip to make, that thousands make everyday. You know, all those quotes about “enjoying the ride”? Well, I’ll be enjoying it for ten hours from Rwanda to Uganda.

I’ve been thinking about where I spent the last few fourth of Julys

2008: Munich, Germany

2009: Cozumel, Mexico

2010: Sevilla, Spain

2011: Rome, Italy

2012: Madrid, Spain

2013: Kigali, Rwanda to Kampala, Uganda and everywhere in between

I’d say I’ve been enjoying the ride, alright. Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s nothing more patriotic than raw appreciation for your own home country. And you didn’t read my last post if you aren’t cognizant of just how appreciative I am of each and every thing these days. But maybe, my version of the fourth of July is becoming less of a day about American patriotism, more about destroying that unfounded ethnocentricity, and more about celebrating my cultural tapestry, many threads of which are very American, and many threads are from many other spectacular places.

Travel is an intensified feeling—maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It’s recess and we need it…

Connecting with people carbonates your experience. Extroverts have more fun.

If your trip is low on magic moments, kick yourself and make things happen.

 If you don’t enjoy a place, maybe you don’t know enough about it. Seek the truth. Recognize tourist traps. Give the culture the benefit of your open mind. See things as different, but not better or worse. Any culture has plenty to share.

Of course, travel, like the world, is a series of hills and valleys.

Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic.

 If something’s not to your liking, change your liking. Travel can make you a happier American, as well as a citizen of the world. Our Earth is home to six and a half billion equally precious people. It’s humbling to travel and find that other people don’t have the “American Dream”—they have their own dreams. Europeans like us, but with all due respect, they wouldn’t trade passports. Thoughtful travel engages us with the world. In tough economic times, it reminds us what is truly important. By broadening perspectives, travel teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Globetrotting destroys ethnocentricity, helping us understand and appreciate other cultures. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, celebrate it. Among your most prized souvenirs will be the strands of different cultures you choose to knit into your own character. The world is a cultural yarn shop, and Back Door travelers are weaving the tapestry. Join in! –Rick Steves, Europe Through the Back Door

Happy 4^th of July, y’all! <3