Where I've Been

Sorry that it's been a long time since I've blogged, but my laptop was in London for about two weeks. You know, just chillin. Hanging out with my Kindle and the other thousand pieces of lost luggage at Heathrow. It was good. I think we both grew as people.

I left my laptop in a bin at security in Heathrow. They make you go through again because they're serious as hell about security in Britain and security in Spain is a joke--you leave your shoes on, don't take out your electronics and you can get almost any liquids you want through as long as no one actually sees them. The flight was late getting in because no one in Spain understands the concept of places to be and people to see, and I had like forty-five minutes to make my connection in London. Which if you been to Heathrow you know isn't even enough time to physically get to your gate, let alone eat a sandwich or pee. I was running to the gate, but safely got on the bus out to the plane, and then realized that my backpack was feeling kind of light.

No MacBook.

No Kindle.

Shit.

I thought about trying to go back, but I wasn't prepared to miss my flight. By this point I wanted to go home way more than I wanted my stuff back. So I got on board, hyperventilated for like half an hour about all the files that I might have lost forever, then for another fifteen minutes I berated myself for never backing things up. That got boring so I had an Advil PM and two of those mini plastic bottles of Pinot Grigio, put on The King's Speech and slept like the dead for the rest of the flight. Helpful tips!

The thing is, though, it didn't ruin anything about coming home. My boyfriend was waiting for me with irises and a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. Here's pretty much how it went:

8:00 pm I wheel my luggage through the exit, see Cam.
8:00:05 Random lady: There's a smiley girl!
8:00:07 Other random lady makes connection between me and Cam: AWW!
8:00: 10 Me: Hi.
8:00:12 Cam: Hi!
8:00:125 We're making out, random ladies are applauding, and oh em gee this is just like Love Actually you guys!
8:12 Random ladies start getting veeery uncomfortable. It had been like three months, okay?

My family was at home waiting for me, and my little brother and cousins had painted a big Welcome Home sign. And it was pretty much as awesome and warm and fuzzy as I thought it was going to be. It was totally possible that my computer was lost for good--although luckily it's not--but when I'm not blogging about random shit I occasionally write some serious pieces, a few of which I thought were starting to be kind of not terrible. There was some stuff on there that I really didn't want to lose. Thankfully it's all back now, after a lot of abusive emails and for some reason multiple faxes...I won't get into that shit though, you're welcome.

But bizarrely, there was a huge sense of calm that came over me somewhere in the middle of my second airplane bottle of Pinot Grigio. (And I might have utilized the red balloon trick a couple dozen times). Especially for someone who a.) sometimes pretends to be a real writer and b.) never backs anything up because she is really unbelievably DUMB, losing a computer is kind of a big fucking deal. But even though everything I'd ever written was quite possibly gone, I had a weird moment where I just decided it was going to be okay. I was finally on my way home, and it was all going to be okay.

When Your Euro Trip Starts to Feel Like a Bad Trip

So let me say first of all that I love Spain. It's an unbelievably beautiful country, the people are all so nice, and I'm having a fantastic time learning Spanish and exploring the city that's still my home for the next three-plus months. But this was a fucking rough week.

We traveled to Madrid for four nights last week, from Wednesday to Sunday, making side trips to Segovia and Toledo. I loved the trip--it sounds silly but you can't help but be bowled over by how old everything is here. The aqueduct in Segovia has been there since Roman times and was only decommissioned a few decades ago. My dad laughed when I called Madrid a "new" city--only because most of the architecture is from the seventeenth century onwards. After a little time here it's easy to forget that they were building palaces in Madrid while the Pilgrims were practically living in mud huts. I visited the Prado, which was something I've been wanting to do for years, and it definitely was not a disappointment.

So throughout all of this I have kind of a low-level sinus ache/head cold. Which, whatever. I was perfectly able to get out and do whatever I wanted. Wasn't about to go run a marathon, but I was fine. But our last morning in Madrid, two girls from the group came down with a stomach virus, and long story short we spent five hours on a bus together and practically everyone in the group came down with either the cold that had been circulating or the stomach bug. Or you know, both, if you're me.

There is absolutely nothing like being sick to make you homesick. At a certain point you just want to puke in your own toilet and crawl miserably back into your own bed. My hostess Ana made a special trip to the store for melusa, a white fish that is delicious but definitely not what you want to eat on a queasy stomach. I didn't want anything to eat at all, but I had an aggressive Spanish matriarch trying to get me to eat fish in cream sauce absolutely insisting that it would fix me right up. I wanted my mom. I wanted to go home.

I didn't actually cry at the table, but it was a close one.

Another thing you don't realize--until you really need something, anyway--is that they don't have the same names for medicines here. I would have killed for Pepto Bismol but I had no idea if there was a Spanish equivalent or what it was called. Our profa Sarah recommended something called Primperan, which was supposed to help with nausea. Well, my roommate went out and got me some. Here are some of the possible side effects:

-Disminuacion del nivel de consciencia, confusion, alucinacion (Decreased state of consciousness, confusion, hallucination)
-Espasmos de los musculos de la cara, del cuello y la lengua (Spasms of the face, neck and tongue muscles)
-Problemas de coordinacion de los movimentos voluntarios (potencialmente irreversible) (Problems with coordination of voluntary movements, potentially irreversible.

This is something you can just walk into a pharmacy and buy, although to me it sounds like you could just inhale some lead paint dust and call it a day. I decided to take my chances with the puking.

Anyway. It was just a bug and I'm fine, but it was not a good time. On Tuesday I felt okay, so I went out because I wanted some fresh air and needed stamps and some girl stuff. Well. Let me just say that siesta sounds like a great idea to you but it sucks when you're puking in a Spanish Burger King because you've been forced to wander around for an hour waiting for the stores to open up again because they're all closed for siesta and all you want is some goddamn tampax. So yeah. That was my week, how was yours?