Many the Miles

"Distance is to love like wind is to fire...

it extinguishes the small and kindles the great."

It had officially been one month since I last saw Jared in Danville, California. I flew back to San Diego on January 3rd and he flew to Spain on January 4th. It had been the longest 31 days ever. But I was finally flying to Pamplona to spend four days with him and I couldn't have been more excited. My plan was to take the metro to the station nearest the airport and then take a cab to the airport. Then I would catch an hour long flight to Madrid, a 3-hour bus to Soria, and then a 3-hour bus to Pamplona where I would finally meet Jared. Some journey huh? Well here it goes.


Thursday, February 3rd
I was pretty confident in my plan to get to the airport when I left my place that afternoon. I walked two blocks, got on the metro and took it almost all the way to the stop in which I intended to get off. I'm going to assume that it was God sending His angels to look out for me but when I got to the stop right before the stop I thought I wanted, about 90% of the passengers got off the metro. Looking around a little bewildered, I must have had tattooed on my forehead "American idiot who doesn't know what she's doing" because about 10 people turned around from their walk off of the metro and started motioning me to get off with them. I was a little nervous because I had no idea who they were or how they knew where I was going to be able to tell me where I needed to get off but their tenacity caused me to be subordinate. A woman started asking me something in Portuguese but of course I didn't understand her so I was giving her the deer-in-the-headlights look when like a heavenly symphony I heard the English language. An older man was asking me where I was going and he walked with me downstairs to the street and told me which side to exit to get a cab to the airport. Wherever you are, thank you kind sir.

This is all I packed for 5 days

I trotted along down the sidewalk with my massive backpack in tow until I found a cab. It didn't take long to locate one and luckily my cab driver spoke English! We chatted a little on the way and he wished me a good flight and a safe trip when he dropped me off, which I genuinely appreciated.

Finding the EasyJet line and checking in for my flight was a breeze, as was going through security. It kind of reminded me of traveling in the states pre-9/11. I didn't have to take off my shoes, no one opened my bags... It only took me about 30 minutes from the time I got out of the cab to the time I sat down at my gate.

Cross between an escalator
and a moving sidewalk

My flight was brief and I slept the majority of it - that's how I like it. When I got inside the Madrid airport, I knew I was looking for a tram to Terminal 4 because Jared had already informed me that the buses were at T4. I found a group of people waiting for a bus and asked a gentleman, "Este el autobús para T cuatro?" He replied "si" and I was a happy camper. When the bus came a few minutes later, I realized that people were paying to get on but Jared told me it was a free tram. The man asked the bus driver if it was the correct bus and the only part of the driver's answer I understood was "No...arriba." I slightly recalled seeing a T4 sign in front of an escalator so I led the man in that direction and we found the right bus.

I would like to take this moment to thank Mrs. Ocampo, Mr. Johnson, and Ms. Balbuena for the 3 years of high school Spanish I endured. I'd even like to thank Mr. Diaz for the whole 6 days he was my teacher freshman year. I would not consider myself a Spanish speaker at all but I was communicating pretty well with this man on the bus. He was telling me about meeting his friends when he gets to T4 and I was telling him about taking a bus to see my boyfriend who is a student in Pamplona. He told me about the new part of the airport when we got to T4 and I commented how far it was from T1. However trivial the conversation, I was thankful for it.

A lot of waiting, the UK edition of Cosmopolitan, Skittles, more waiting, and 2 long bus rides later, I finally made it to Pamplona and there he was... In that moment all of the Skyping and emailing and longing to be together was finished (at least for 4 days). He hugged me and the length of my day and the exhaustion of my body melted away in his arms. It was all worth it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. We walked back to his apartment, not letting go of each other once, and just talked all night. It was so nice to see his face and stare at those blue eyes and laugh with him and hear him without the delay of 6,000 miles or the interruption of connection issues. We were so silly and just did all of the things that are sacrificed through a Skype conversation. It was just great to be with my boyfriend.

Friday, February 4th
We walked around the city of Pamplona all day and Jared showed me parks and plazas, his school, and this pretty awesome castle/fort thing. We walked hand in hand through the streets and just talked about life and ours aspirations and our fears and what we want our future together to look like. It's amazing how people's hearts have no capacity for love; there is no limit. You may think you've never loved someone so much in your life and you couldn't possibly love them anymore than you already do and then they do the littlest thing and you realize... you can (at least that's how it's been working for me).

Saturday, February 5th
The next day we took a 2-hour bus to Bilbao in the heart of Basque country. It takes a lot to humble me about my driving skills but our cab driver from the buses to the hotel put me to shame. He actually made me nervous. I would like to extend an apology to anyone who I've scared (Niki Cid) with my Nascar evasive moves. When we arrived, Jared and I were both tired and hungry so we devised a plan to nap for an hour and then get up and go on the hunt for some really good pizza. Five hours later we went out in search of that pizza place. On the way, we explored the city and it was absolutely beautiful!

 

    

          

After tons of sight seeing and getting through siesta (yes, it really happens Farby) we finally did find pizza and it was quite tasty. Something I did learn along the way is that my boyfriend may be a lot of great things but a subtle starver he is not. He makes my mom look like a lamb when she is hungry and that's saying something (Monique, you know what I mean... no offense Mommy). He's apparently like me when I don't have enough sleep or when I'm around people who have turned their brains off for the evening. But it did make for a few laughs on my part and some good memories and after I fed him we were good to go.

Around midnight we took a stroll along the river to the Guggenheim Museum. When I first saw it I thought it looked a great deal like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. As it turns out they were both designed by legendary architect and Trojan Frank Gehry. Pretty sweet.

Eight-legged freak

Courtesy of a Trojan

Colored dog

Zubizuri Bridge

Oh my lanta, it's gorgeous

Sunday, February 6th
The next day we got up and out around noon for our last day in the city. Jared took me on this tram that brought us to the top of the city and the view from up there was incredible. Absolutely beautiful.

Green and yellow! Green and yellow!

Later we walked through the city and back to the buses arriving an hour and a half early (he is quite the punctual one) so we just hung out at the station until it was time to go. When we got back that night, we were actually able to stream the Super Bowl live with American commercials! My favorite was definitely the Audi one. It was my most mellow Super Bowl yet but I enjoyed it.

Monday, February 7th
We literally slept all the next day only waking up to eat, watch Entourage, and Sporcle ("we" named 35/47 European countries). We did stop by this cafe below Jared's apartment because he had never eaten there and the food was pretty good. The dessert however was fantastic. I had two desserts while we were sitting there and came back for another a couple hours later. I had no idea what "torrijas caseras" was when I looked as the menu but I decided to be adventurous (E-Brawn) and try it anyway - my instincts rock! It was so good. It's some kind of sweet bread with vanilla and sugar and cinnamon and it was great. Then I had the helado limón which was the best lemon ice cream I've ever had. I never get lemon ice cream because it sounds horrible but was I so wrong. I got seconds of the ice cream.

Torrijas caseras

Helado limón

Tuesday, February 8th
It's an understatement to say that is was hard to leave at 7am Tuesday morning. I said goodbye and held on to him tight behind glossy eyes trying to be strong until I got on the bus where I essentially made Noah's ark look like it survived light showers. The weekend had been great but it didn't end as perfectly as I'd imagined it would. I wanted to stay and work everything out right then but I had to get back... such is life. Two buses (one with a disturbing acoustic mix of Ayo Technology), one plane, and one taxi is all it took to get me home. After endless snacking and frivolous shenanigans on the computer, I climbed into bed around 4am on Wednesday and didn't get up again until 7:30pm! 15.5 hours in bed? Why Missy, I do believe that's a new record.

With V-day coming up I've been semi-forced to think about love and relationships. Luckily I've learned a thing or two about love and relationships in my short 20 years of life; mainly that true love is a process, not an event. There is this romantic notion that all of the pain and the garbage is really healing and beautiful and sort of poetic and (because OTH dictates my life) I can say that it's not. It's just pain and it's garbage. Love is so much better than that. The truth is that everyone is going to hurt you. You just have to find the people worth suffering for. I am a firm believer that love is not a disease that infects us; it's a choice. We choose to be in love and we choose what love makes us do. I'm in a long distance relationship right now which is not the ideal situation for most couples but it's something you deal with when you must and you get through how you can. I know it's not going to be easy. In fact it's going to be really hard. And we're gonna have to work at this every day but I want to do that because I want him (Thank you, Noah Calhoun). Always choose love.


"How far do I have to go to get to you? 
Many the miles, ooh send me the miles
and I'll be happy to." -Sara Bareilles