Iberian Crossroads
College is a whirlwind of education, lifelong friendships, parties, experiences both heartwarming and heartbreaking, decisions and choices both frivolous and with far-reaching consequence; like or not, college is the period that informs and shapes the adult you will become. In a lot of ways, that dynamic and intensity was really distilled into my final undergraduate study abroad trip to Spain.
As I began Year Four, I kind of knew I would need one more year of college beyond that. It would allow me the chance to breathe a bit more when it came to my majors in communications and Spanish, expand my French and German aspirations into full-fledged minors, complete literally every single Italian class Christopher Newport offered at that time, and retake some classes that I had struggled at previously to improve my cumulative GPA. There were external factors involved with that decision too: The recession was entering its worst year nationally and friends that had graduated or were preparing to were lamenting the state of the job market so I figured a little extra time fine-tuning my, uh, craft couldn't hurt. On top of that, my girlfriend at the time was a year behind me and planning to attend a study abroad trip to Spain that coming summer. Well, I love college, I love studying abroad, and I certainly love my girlfriend so that all just seemed like an easy decision, yeah? Sure, I would have to work two jobs to cover that final year that my scholarships didn't account for but, hey, no big deal, right?
The Spain study abroad would be like a victory lap in a country with my best foreign language presaging one last ride closing out college...well, that was certainly my initial intent anyway. There was a bittersweet element underlining the departure as we assembled to fly out of Norfolk for a red-eye I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep on; while I was in Spain, most of my friends and peers that I had started college with would be graduating and I was going to be missing that. That was a big moment for them and I felt I should be there but knew I couldn't.
Spain definitely lived up to its reputation for being one of the more sun-soaked countries in Europe with virtually every day as bright and warm as an afternoon in Southern California. The majority of my time in the Iberian peninsula was spent in the capital of Madrid, a bustling metropolis in its own right that prides itself with a vibrant nightlife and more land dedicated to parks than any other European capital. The interesting thing I found about Spain's layout is that it's concentric with much of the activity radiating off plazas situated across the city. There are grand vias (highways), sure, but the real authentic clubs, cafes, and restaurants really are based out of plazas. And after indulging in tapas-styled restaurants all over DC and New York, I have to say that there's no substitute for the authentic experience in Spain: all the small plates with chorizo and cheese and bread for no extra charge as my friends and I would split a flagon of cidra (hard cider) or just get some beer; no country does post-work happy hour better than Spain.
From the outset of this trip, there were a couple things that immediately caught me off-guard: First, there were a lot of Young Life kids on this trip which is fine but they tended to really keep to themselves; that sense of camaraderie that really made the trips to Costa Rica and Switzerland just wasn't there in full effect. Compounding that was my girlfriend. What was originally intended as her and I romantically touring the southern half of Iberia had become a several week-long lovers' quarrel that left us each largely going separate for the most part getting some distance as we tried to figure things out at our own pace. While we would continue to date afterwards, the irony somewhere is that our relationship really had its beginnings from studying together in our first study abroad in Costa Rica and the beginning of that long goodbye would really start in our final undergrad study abroad in Spain; a bit of cruel symmetry that.
Anyway, enough about all that; this isn't that kind of blog.
I wasn't lost for things to do in Spain, of course. In Madrid, I would read in one of the many parks but what I really enjoyed was touring El Prado marveling at everything from medieval works I had studied back in college to see works by Picasso, Goya, and Velazquez with my own eyes; some of the best art in the whole world. With the Castilian capital in the throes of the Festival of San Isidro, I went on a couple day trips by train across the country. Toledo was the first where I walked the summer streets and decided to get a Roman gladius; Toledo was renowned all over Europe for centuries about the quality of its steel. In retrospect, I should've just shipped the fucking thing back home because that thing was a royal pain in the pass to travel with but I still have it all these years later. A second day trip was to Segovia, a town with an intact aqueduct dating back from the Roman Empire where I quietly ate ice cream in its shade; now that I'm writing all this down, I really did spend a lot of time alone on this trip. One last day trip saw me going off to Valencia for two big reasons: First, it's the reputed birthplace of paella so I got a massive skillet of Valencian paella and it was fucking delicious. Second, the city's cathedral has a chalice that's rumored to be the Holy Grail. As a lifelong Indiana Jones fan, I was not going to come this close to seeing the subject of my favorite film in the series and not check it out. Turns out it's a decorative stone cup that has since been fitted with gold and jewels; stop the presses.
I wasn't always flying solo either. Madrid was followed by full ensemble trips to Seville and Malaga. The Andalusia part of this study abroad was my favorite spending days on the hot, Spanish sand and swimming in the Mediterranean for the first time. It was that awkward part of the early summer where the sand was already super-heated so you could only stand or lay on it for so long before it started to legitimately burn you but you couldn't stay in the water too long because it hadn't been seasonally warmed yet just spending the whole day popping in between the two until either alternative became unbearable. The other stops throughout Andalusia consisted of Granada and Cordoba and both cities have this timeless magical quality to them. Granada was the last Moorish stronghold and fell to Castilian forces in 1492; once the city had fallen, the monarchs felt comfortable commissioning Columbus with sailing to find a quicker way to the West Indies. Dusty and sunbaked by day, hauntingly dimly lit by night, it had this feeling that you were walking through living history; something older and more important and enduring than any other city I have ever known and I've known a fucking lot. And Spaniards all over the country would stay up until the odd hours of the morning, even on weeknights. I can keep up with the best of them but there were definitely some rough mornings especially in Granada and Cordoba where it was impossible not to get caught up in the magic of those cities.
But like all magic, it can't last forever and neither can college. That's why I think that study abroad trip to Spain I think somehow represents college at large for me. The rollercoaster of emotion especially in romantic terms. The eternal internal struggle between the social butterfly and the pensive loner. The importance of friendships forged and seeing them evolve in the face of time and circumstance. The joy of living in that moment and the bittersweet knowledge that like a perfect sunrise, it is all fleeting.
When I returned home from Spain, my friends had already graduated and most had already moved out. My girlfriend and I were giving it another go but the fissures had formed as much as we didn't take that seriously enough at the time. I had to prepare for one last year of college, no more delays, just time to grow up and play the exit song. I thought I was done studying abroad for good.
I was wrong.
As I began Year Four, I kind of knew I would need one more year of college beyond that. It would allow me the chance to breathe a bit more when it came to my majors in communications and Spanish, expand my French and German aspirations into full-fledged minors, complete literally every single Italian class Christopher Newport offered at that time, and retake some classes that I had struggled at previously to improve my cumulative GPA. There were external factors involved with that decision too: The recession was entering its worst year nationally and friends that had graduated or were preparing to were lamenting the state of the job market so I figured a little extra time fine-tuning my, uh, craft couldn't hurt. On top of that, my girlfriend at the time was a year behind me and planning to attend a study abroad trip to Spain that coming summer. Well, I love college, I love studying abroad, and I certainly love my girlfriend so that all just seemed like an easy decision, yeah? Sure, I would have to work two jobs to cover that final year that my scholarships didn't account for but, hey, no big deal, right?
The Spain study abroad would be like a victory lap in a country with my best foreign language presaging one last ride closing out college...well, that was certainly my initial intent anyway. There was a bittersweet element underlining the departure as we assembled to fly out of Norfolk for a red-eye I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep on; while I was in Spain, most of my friends and peers that I had started college with would be graduating and I was going to be missing that. That was a big moment for them and I felt I should be there but knew I couldn't.
Spain definitely lived up to its reputation for being one of the more sun-soaked countries in Europe with virtually every day as bright and warm as an afternoon in Southern California. The majority of my time in the Iberian peninsula was spent in the capital of Madrid, a bustling metropolis in its own right that prides itself with a vibrant nightlife and more land dedicated to parks than any other European capital. The interesting thing I found about Spain's layout is that it's concentric with much of the activity radiating off plazas situated across the city. There are grand vias (highways), sure, but the real authentic clubs, cafes, and restaurants really are based out of plazas. And after indulging in tapas-styled restaurants all over DC and New York, I have to say that there's no substitute for the authentic experience in Spain: all the small plates with chorizo and cheese and bread for no extra charge as my friends and I would split a flagon of cidra (hard cider) or just get some beer; no country does post-work happy hour better than Spain.
From the outset of this trip, there were a couple things that immediately caught me off-guard: First, there were a lot of Young Life kids on this trip which is fine but they tended to really keep to themselves; that sense of camaraderie that really made the trips to Costa Rica and Switzerland just wasn't there in full effect. Compounding that was my girlfriend. What was originally intended as her and I romantically touring the southern half of Iberia had become a several week-long lovers' quarrel that left us each largely going separate for the most part getting some distance as we tried to figure things out at our own pace. While we would continue to date afterwards, the irony somewhere is that our relationship really had its beginnings from studying together in our first study abroad in Costa Rica and the beginning of that long goodbye would really start in our final undergrad study abroad in Spain; a bit of cruel symmetry that.
Anyway, enough about all that; this isn't that kind of blog.
I wasn't lost for things to do in Spain, of course. In Madrid, I would read in one of the many parks but what I really enjoyed was touring El Prado marveling at everything from medieval works I had studied back in college to see works by Picasso, Goya, and Velazquez with my own eyes; some of the best art in the whole world. With the Castilian capital in the throes of the Festival of San Isidro, I went on a couple day trips by train across the country. Toledo was the first where I walked the summer streets and decided to get a Roman gladius; Toledo was renowned all over Europe for centuries about the quality of its steel. In retrospect, I should've just shipped the fucking thing back home because that thing was a royal pain in the pass to travel with but I still have it all these years later. A second day trip was to Segovia, a town with an intact aqueduct dating back from the Roman Empire where I quietly ate ice cream in its shade; now that I'm writing all this down, I really did spend a lot of time alone on this trip. One last day trip saw me going off to Valencia for two big reasons: First, it's the reputed birthplace of paella so I got a massive skillet of Valencian paella and it was fucking delicious. Second, the city's cathedral has a chalice that's rumored to be the Holy Grail. As a lifelong Indiana Jones fan, I was not going to come this close to seeing the subject of my favorite film in the series and not check it out. Turns out it's a decorative stone cup that has since been fitted with gold and jewels; stop the presses.
I wasn't always flying solo either. Madrid was followed by full ensemble trips to Seville and Malaga. The Andalusia part of this study abroad was my favorite spending days on the hot, Spanish sand and swimming in the Mediterranean for the first time. It was that awkward part of the early summer where the sand was already super-heated so you could only stand or lay on it for so long before it started to legitimately burn you but you couldn't stay in the water too long because it hadn't been seasonally warmed yet just spending the whole day popping in between the two until either alternative became unbearable. The other stops throughout Andalusia consisted of Granada and Cordoba and both cities have this timeless magical quality to them. Granada was the last Moorish stronghold and fell to Castilian forces in 1492; once the city had fallen, the monarchs felt comfortable commissioning Columbus with sailing to find a quicker way to the West Indies. Dusty and sunbaked by day, hauntingly dimly lit by night, it had this feeling that you were walking through living history; something older and more important and enduring than any other city I have ever known and I've known a fucking lot. And Spaniards all over the country would stay up until the odd hours of the morning, even on weeknights. I can keep up with the best of them but there were definitely some rough mornings especially in Granada and Cordoba where it was impossible not to get caught up in the magic of those cities.
But like all magic, it can't last forever and neither can college. That's why I think that study abroad trip to Spain I think somehow represents college at large for me. The rollercoaster of emotion especially in romantic terms. The eternal internal struggle between the social butterfly and the pensive loner. The importance of friendships forged and seeing them evolve in the face of time and circumstance. The joy of living in that moment and the bittersweet knowledge that like a perfect sunrise, it is all fleeting.
When I returned home from Spain, my friends had already graduated and most had already moved out. My girlfriend and I were giving it another go but the fissures had formed as much as we didn't take that seriously enough at the time. I had to prepare for one last year of college, no more delays, just time to grow up and play the exit song. I thought I was done studying abroad for good.
I was wrong.
