Fiestas, Siestas y Zanahorias (Parties, Naps and Carrots): A day in the life of a Laz

Heyyyy derrrrr lovelies.  Gracias for reading these mumbling pages of musings that make up my blog.  It really is much appreciated.

I don’t know how it has happened, but somehow, I am already beginning my sixth week of living abroad (and my 21st year of living in general – time flies so quickly it scares me. I’ll be ninety before I know it) and I like to think I am becoming a little more Spanish with each passing day.  Although I have not yet reached a point where I can spontaneously conjugate the verb I want in the tense I want (I am beginning to think that day may never come), or understand apparently hilarious jokes in lectures at which I am the only student not laughing, a day of classes taught entirely in Spanish at uni no longer leaves me feeling on the verge of a major mind-implosion.  AND I can (usually, pretty much) understand whatever is being said to me by whoever in Spanish (an achievement-and-a-half for me, given the gravity of the situation in which I found myself when I first arrived).

And so here I am, six weeks into my Spanish life, chilling in my room with candles and incense burning, my music playing and an enormous cup of tea by my side. I am singing out of tune, I am procrastinating (I have French and German tests to revise for AHAHA) and yes, OBVIOUSLY I am crunching on a carrot.  This scenario perfectly encapsulates the Laz in her natural habitat, as many of you will already know.

But one thing I have found since moving abroad is that I’ve been feeling guilty for living my life in Spain the way I do in Northern Ireland/England, which sometimes involves spending afternoons/evenings exactly as described above. You see, for some reason, I always thought that once I lived abroad, I would be doing something extraordinary every minute of every day; meeting new people, travelling to new places, doing exciting new “Spanish” things and just generally making enough “year abroad memories” to last a lifetime.  And now that I am here, sometimes when I am just chilling all on my ownio or with my flatmates at home, I feel like I should be doing something amazing in Santiago instead of snuggling underneath my favourite blanket and crunching on carrots.  But a year abroad in España does not consist solely of sun, sand and sangria (although to be fair, there is a lot of that too…jajaja). Sometimes, an evening of blanket-snuggling and carrot-crunching is just what the doctor ordered.

In all the fuss and excitement that my was move abroad, it was too easy to forget that I would actually be LIVING in a new country, and not just passing through, trying to cram as much as possible into a few short days.  So even though for a few weeks here, it felt like I was living someone else’s life, seemingly lacking in the all people and patterns and particularities of the life I left behind, once settled into a routine, it became clear that what I have here is still the Laz life after all. It may have relocated itself and become slightly more Hispanic, but the same madness and mischief most importantly, and blanket days from ordinary life before have stuck by me (like the top mates they are).

 

Here is an example of the aforementioned madness and mischief.

Most of the time, life here is indeed extraordinary.  You can have a great conversation with someone who had you not been lucky enough to be abroad, you would never have met.  You can try new kinds of food and drink in wonderful, traditional restaurants and bars.  You can travel to new cities and places you’d never even heard of before as well as continue to discover secret nooks and corners of the city you’re staying in.  And you can party until the sun comes up (there is no other way here. The Spanish are MAD.)  But being Spanish is exhausting. And sometimes, you need a day doing something ordinary, to let your life catch up with you, and to help the special Spanish things you’re doing the rest of the time seem all the more special.

However, it is also worth remembering that even these “ordinary” days, the ones with the blankets and the carrots, are still nothing of the sort when compared with life in Britain. If I go to even one class a day taught in Spanish, if I chat with just one Spanish amigo, if I watch some Spanish TV or read a Spanish newspaper buried beneath my blanket, I am still doing something I don’t get the chance to do at home.

View from our flat on sunny evening.  You don’t get skies like that in Britain too often.

So what I need to do is learn to embrace the ordinary that, as I have now realised, is extraordinary after all.  Because it pains me to say it, but the extraordinary won’t be ordinary for too much longer.  I have been in Spain for over a month already which means THERE ARE LESS THAN THREE MORE TO GO before I must seek pastures new once more which is why I must make the most of what I have got here when I have still got it.

So now I shall love you and leave you, and venture off to explore my extraordinary, ordinary life some more.  Until the next time, amigos.  Sending you all lots and lots of amor and abrazos.

Some of the more extraordinary things I have seen in the last few weeks:

And here I am with a basket on my head.  The shopkeeper shouted at me but it was worth it.

PS.  Emma, this post was inspired by our conversation.  And since I forgot to give you the promised “official first read,” here is a special mention instead.  MUCH LOVE.