Loving (and Leaving) Limbo

Inertia. For those who forget high school physics, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. So imagine a California car (named Heather...I'm just going to make this metaphor very clear) driving down a normal California road. The scenery is fantastic, almost perfect, but this car has been on this road for quite a while. Then you put the car on Spain Highway. There's so much to see and do that fills the car with goosebumps and utter excitement and fear...and you expect the car to take a pit stop and describe everything to you in blog form? Shame on you! (Let's not forget, Heather, that you created the blog in the first place, so you're the one who said you'd update this blog...Yes, you're right, my creepy third person personality) Anyway, there's my rationale for not updating my blog in a while.
Another feature of the car metaphor is that you're never stopped. Being the sola driver on her way up Monte Urgull or into a smoke-filled and male-packed nightclub or tapas bar is never comfortable...it may take my breath away, but I suffer the consequences. Sometimes I cannot breathe. This metaphorical car is always in motion, always thrown off balance, and so always a little uncomfortable. Sometimes a lot uncomfortable.
Spain is my limbo. All the Catholicism that has begun to take a stronger presence since Lent began in this 99% Catholic country (though very few people show it) makes this comparison even more accurate. I feel removed from the world, but not quite delivered to Paradise, like I'm supposed to figure things out and fix things up here before I really get thrown in headfirst. Because when I get back, I'll be on senior highway, headed for adult-dom. Oh, #$%@.
That isn't to say I don't go bed relaxed and ready for the next one, smiling all the way. Here's what's been happening (though, I remind you, things change quickly in limbo). Monday through Friday 10am through 3pm I usually spend in class or at Deusto working on group projects (I have one in EVERY class. EVERY class. not good for self-coined "free spirits"), sitting with extranjeros in the cafeteria, or wasting time on facebook (this has lessened of late, thankfully). Then I take some sort of trip...to sit on La Zurriola and think, to a French boutique with the word "rebajas" posted invitingly on the front glass, or, as Miriam/Ted/Mandy and I did last week, to one of the hidden and beautiful corners of San Sebastian. Tatyana from Belaruse told us about Palacio de Aiete, a quaint, green park only a 10-minute bus ride from our barrio, Parte Vieja. There was a waterfall that the rain accented beautifully...and the whole park fell together in moss, swans, flowers, silly red cottages...it was a little too much, at moments, especially since I was with the happy couple Ted and Miriam, who were as giddy as the swans were (if either of you are reading this, which I doubt, know that I am exaggerating for the sake of divirtiendome). On the downside, we were soaked, and I'll have to return for a pensive walk when verano (summer) starts for sure.
So that's an example of a "local trip." Some other ideas I have are climbing the non-Jesus mountain on the opposite side of Bahia de la Concha, walking every single passageway on Monte Urgull, and, as soon as classes start, SURFING. Karl, Corinna and I have mapped out times to take classes. Now we're waiting on an email from our instructor. Oh please, please, please let him be a well-formed young Spaniard.
Next, I try half-heartedly to do homework. The problem is (that I am lazy) that I'm only taking four very low-workload classes, and I know my grades don't transfer to my LMU GPA. So as much as the IDEAL would be to return to the US fluent in Spanish, I very, very much doubt that it will be the case. Especially with the amount of time I'm spending on facebook, writing ENGLISH blogposts, and chatting with Europeans who lack as much Spanish as I do.
Finally, I go out. This could entail a jazz club for flamenco guitar, Zibbibo (the bar literally underneath our flat), or, my personal favorite, DANCING. My favorite night of the week is hereby Thursday night, where the Erasmus gang goes to salsa dance at Bataplan (if you don't know this word by now, get updated on my blog, please!). I get reasonably dressed up, and I found out recently I've got good hips for salsa and merengue (Maria Frye, when I get back, you're on). We all end up getting free drinks afterwards at Molly Malone's, then the girls go home for primping while the guys...I don't know...drink...and we all end up returning to Bataplan until sunrise. It's pure fun, safe, magical...and the dancing just invigorates me. I don't know why I quit dance as a silly 4-year-old for soccer. Anyway, I'm glad to be somewhere where I'm old enough and accepted enough to dance freely and ridiculously, and even well...in LA I'd have to find a new group of friends and get a fake ID and a lot of spare time to make that happen.
So there's what limbo entails. NOT SO BAD. Like I said, forever, as time blows my bangs into my eyes, I remember this is going to end. Soon. And I wonder what I will learn from it, and how I will cope with leaving it for either heaven or...elsewhere.

Never doubt you cross my mind, and you are loved.