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

Poker Face

So it's been a little while since I sat down to scribe my adventures - and there have been plenty in the one week that I've been in Europe - so now's about as good a time as any.

Tuesday, February 1st

Gorgeous day

According to several emails sent to exchange students by our contact at NOVA (my university in Portugal), February 1st was to be the day that we were able to add/drop courses from our schedules if we pleased. So I had every intention of getting up and being at school at 8am to try and switch some classes to get into others that I found more interesting since my first round at registration. Low and behold that did not happen. I eventually rolled out of bed and showered and got ready and probably left my apartment around 10:30am; only 3 hours later than I planned - NBD. I didn't exactly know where I was going but once again I had my trusty iPhone (who is seeming more and more deserving of a name these days - that's so Jaime of me) to guide me to my destination. Let the forward walking tour begin - though I do kind of miss leading prospectives backwards in high heels.

This is my mini heaven

Let me start off by saying that Lisboa (as the Europeans say) is absolutely beautiful!  The weather is sunny, the streets are clean, and the city is easy to navigate. After just one day of walking around I feel very comfortable here getting anywhere I wanted to go by foot, taxi, or metro. I wandered through so many parts of town, explored areas I probably won't ever need to go, and I got lost on purpose all in just a couple of hours. I eventually came to the main square or plaza in São Sebastião where I discovered a variation of a mall named El Corte Inglés. Inside there are department stores, a movie theater, a supermarket, electronics section, etc. Think Wal-Mart meets the Beverly Center and you'll probably have a semi-accurate depiction of this place. 

If I get to live here, lock me up

He probably wasn't thrilled
to be caught by my camera

As I continued walking, there was this road that was not quite in the direction of my school but I was feeling adventurous  so I decided to try it (if Jandro were there he'd say E-Brawn had arrived). So I walked up this hill whilst passing a possible mansion, some eye-catching graffiti, and the nicest police station I've ever seen to arrive at what I think is a prison. It's this huge castle like structure with barbed wire and a man wearing a "GUARDA PRISIONAL" jacket pacing in front of it so I just put two and two together. It's interesting how the prison is right there on a main street instead of tucked away in the boonies of nowhere like our inmates. Then, right in front of me, an eggshell C230 Mercedes-Benz, not unlike my baby Faith, pulled up to the light with none other than a "TAXI" sign on its roof. Of course I knew Mercedes-Benz are taxis in Europe (really nice E-class Mercedes-Benz to be specific) but it was still shocking to see my favorite cars reduced from their luxury status in America. But anywho...

Going back to the corner
where I first saw you...

I was starting to get a little hungry as I usually eat breakfast before I leave the house and it had been about an hour and half since my eyes opened that morning. My tummy was starting to voice its contempt and I needed to silence it. I stopped by a nearby cafe and grabbed a ham croissant which foot the bill quite nicely. Around then I also decided I should get back on track and head to school. I took a turn down this hill which according to my iPhone (a name will be selected by the end of this post) was in the direction of school. But as soon as I turned the corner, I was distracted by my disbelief in Lisboa's ability to know exactly what kind of music I am obsessed with right now. I was just telling my boyfriend, Jared, how I'm on this whole The Script-Train-Maroon 5 kick right now and then the poster for their concert in Lisboa appeared! Amazing. I might actually see what I can do to make that Singles' Awareness Daydisplay of musical genius (otherwise known as Leah's birthday) . Come with me Deenz!

So continuing on my journey and one or two distractions later, I finally found campus - which surprisingly isn't a campus at all. It's an expansive lawn and one huge building where all of the business/economics classes take place for both grad and undergrad students. It's kind of cool that we're all in there together and since I went to high school in San Diego, I never experienced the single building-multi level aspect that many schools on the East Coast hold so dearly for those treacherous months of winter. But the building and the grounds are beautiful and I'm actually excited to go to school there. After hanging out in front of the building for a few minutes, I was seeing several people with binders and satchels, notepads and backpacks going in the building so I thought I'd go check it out. 


Curiosity may have killed the cat but he must not have had my great instincts because after all of that waking up late and exploring and being lost and getting breakfast and ogling concert posters, I arrive at NOVA approximately 3.6497 hours later than I had planned but as soon as I stepped inside the building, who did I see coming around the corner? Charlie, James, and Sam - 3/4 of the boys from USC who are also studying abroad in Lisboa! Perfect. After meeting their new friends, Julian and Philipp, I decide to head out with them upon finding out that I cannot in fact change classes until orientation on the 10th. 

Your highness

Charlie decided to go sit in on a class that he was trying to get into with Julian and Phillip so Sam, James, and I walked and talked on our way toward El Corte Inglés to get Sam and me Portuguese cell phones. After that escapade and a detour to get me a European-to-American adapter plug, we headed to the metro station to go to the boys' hostel. They were staying there until they found a flat together which I've recently learned they've successfully secured. On the way out of the mall, we did pass through the supermarket level where there was an interesting display of stuffed pigs with fruit crowns in the window. I guess if you're going to die it's better to be ham royalty than lowly bacon.

Out of the metro

It was my first time on the metro in Lisboa so the boys helped me get a day pass and learn the stops and all that jazz. It's really easy. The metro is such an awesome and fast way to get around the city - come on Los Angeles... let's get it together. The boys' hostel is in downtown Lisboa and the view coming out at that metro stop is incredible. The ocean is literally 3 blocks to the right and it's just a bustling metropolis of people and buildings and all of the touristy statues you can imagine. It's pretty great. 

Yes, you're reading that bed right

After hearing of Jared's experience with hostels in Amsterdam, I had very low expectations for the boys' hostel but I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was a really nice place. It's called Yes! Hostel and I guess at night it turns into a bar and a big party downstairs in the lobby which sounds like a great way to meet people in the city. When we walking in there was great music playing, books, DVDs, and board games on the shelf, iMacs by the window, and all kinds of stuff ready and waiting in the lobby for guests to use. It's a pretty sweet set up. I hung out with the guys for a couple of hours there before heading back to my place to nap and get ready for the Erasmus (exchange student) party. It was turning out to be a pretty great day so I could only guess what fun the night had in store.


Hours later...

My first drink

That night, when I met up again with the boys, the quartet was finally complete as Farbod had gotten to town that afternoon. We all headed to the Erasmus party and arrived at the club by the water around 1am just as our new friends Julian and Philipp were heading inside. Apparently the prime going out times in Europe are 1am-4am and maybe later. I could barely handle 11pm-2am in America. I need my rest people! 


When we got there we were informed that everyone got a free sangria just cause. Anyone who knows me knows I do not drink. But I wasn't trying to get drunk or anything and it was free and I was curious and I'm in Portugal and what the heyy... so I went for it. When in Rome, right? I sipped on it slowly for about a half an hour to pace myself since it was my first time and to make sure I didn't get drunk - also because I hadn't eaten since my croissant that morning which isn't the best idea before drinking but I handled it like a pro. It was really good and I enjoyed the taste without feeling any effects of alcohol so I would consider that a success compared to some people we've all had the pleasure of witnessing on our beloved 28th street. Later I was also weaseled into doing a shot with some of the boys since Philipp decided to pay for them. I really tried to get out of it but it wasn't that much anyway (and Sam did back out of the bet that I couldn't wait until my birthday to have 2 drinks in one night) so nothing was really holding me back - but my taste buds should have. It was awful. Disgustingly vile. Why do people drink that stuff? Like eww. Come to find out it was Jameson Whiskey - "A man's drink" according to Charlie - and it was foul. Never again.

The old man is Antonio

Those are the glasses

The whole night we danced and laughed and met new people and chatted it up with the people we'd already met and just had ourselves a grand ol' time. There was this one girl that had on a yellow pair of sunglasses that just got passed around all night. I'm not sure how sanitary it is to have people sharing sweaty eyewear all night but it made for some great pictures if nothing else. It's pretty funny to me though that all of the music is in English because even if someone can't understand the English words I speak to them, we can end up in club together shouting the lyrics to Wonderwall (which did in fact happen). Oasis should be so proud that they're song transcends every language barrier and unites all lovers of music. 

James... the heartbreaker

But one of the funniest events from the whole night was a girl who took quite a liking to James. We had all made the distinction pretty early in the night that Farby is the only one out of the 5 of us that is not in a relationship (Jared, Hannah, Hilary, and [Charlie's girlfriend's name escapes me at the moment] would be proud of us). But of course because 4/5 of us are unavailable, one of us four is going to have to be idolized for the night. James captured the eye of a girl named Rita who waited a staggering 30 seconds after talking to James to confess that she was quote unquote "in love" with him. Now we're not gullible or cocky enough to think she literally meant love but she was definitely infatuated with James all night. He handled it like a champ though and let her down quick and easy letting her know he has a girlfriend. We applauded his skillful release of her lustful grip but the chase did last a good 15-20 minutes and definitely entertained the rest of us.

It was a pretty epic night given everything that happened afterward too: good drinks, great dances, awesome pictures, the walk home, our conversations about fútbol in the plaza (documented by my trusty Altria bloggie), my search for something yummy open at 5am, my walk through the streets while I waited for the metro to open at 6:30am, and the wonderful memories of our first night out together in this new country. I'm so excited to spend the next few months getting to know these guys, sharing great nights, and enjoying making memories we'll keep forever. This experience is what you make it and you get back what you put in. Well I just upped the ante cause I'm going all in - I'm pretty confident with the hand I've been dealt. 

Trojans do it best

P.S. my iPhone's name is Haley because it's my hero (but no worries Jimbo - you're still my numero uno)


P.P.S. Each of my post titles are that of a song I find appropriate so I'm going to start ending each post with its lyrics. 


"Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me (I love it)
Luck and intuition play the cards" -Lady Gaga