The myth of the mystical Phoenix is that when it dies it turns to ashes, those ashes then ignite into a golden flame of rebirth, and the Phoenix lives on, renewed.
Traveling opens the heart, mind, body, and soul through all of its wanderings. Traveling creates the ashes from which the traveler is reborn, and love lights the fire.

I am a backpacker, a social worker, a grateful receiver, an eternal empathizer, a seed growing, an ear listening, a child learning, a sister sharing, an American evolving, a therapist reflecting, a daughter caring, an embrace holding tightly, a friend to all - I am a Traveling Phoenix, experiencing the world that sets my soul on fire with love. Thanks for joining me.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Bienvenido a Madrid

I´ve been all settled in for the past couple days into my new home for the next 4 months. Originally, I had a lot of anxiety about coming later than everyone else because of the hurricane, but now I´ve been here a couple of days and other people are still arriving.

Everything here is a lot slower. The days are long during orientation but once schools starts I will have a lot of free time to sleep and walk around and travel. My good ol´buddy Isabela has made the transition into Madrid 10,000 times easier for me. It would be hard for me to get home sick with her here, so relieving. My stomach was doing all kinds of seasickness with anxiety and then as soon as I got into class and sat next to Isa I felt like everything kind of just lifted off of me. Not to mention, she´s been so understanding while trying to help me get used to everything here. Gotta love that Costa Rican tranquilidad she has.

I haven´t had internet on my computer, so I´ve been using the schools computer to read emails and make sure my parents know that I´m alive and well. We´ve been doing walking tours, and roaming around. I´ve mostly been sleeping during down time because the orientation schedule is so tiring, on top of a little bit of jet lag. We saw la Plaza Mayor yesterday, and walked around Sol, which is part of Madrid that is a lot like... well nothing I´ve ever seen before but there are a lot of shops with hardly any cars so everyone walks in the middle of the streets.

Tomorrow our school is taking us on a day trip to Segovia, and then in a couple of weeks I signed up for a trip to Granada and Cordoba! Lots of history and beautiful sights to see. I can´t wait to start traveling too, hopefully we´ll be going to Greece, Germany, France, and Italy. If anyone is staying or knows a friend staying in these places, let me know if you can spare a couple couch guests... we want to save as much money as possible. Obviously.
It´s lots to do and only a short amount of time, we also have a lot of trips around Spain that we´re trying to plan... then when I go home I can say I really lived in Spain and saw everything the country had to offer.
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2 comments:

  1. Z. AdamSeptember 1, 2011 at 10:08 AM

    im glad you're having a great time! I wish I could hear from you too though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. mamakinsSeptember 5, 2011 at 5:26 PM

    Have fun, be safe and eat lots of ham.

    ReplyDelete

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