2014 in Review

As per usual, every year I set a NYResolution to write more in my blog...and every year it seems like I get worse and worse with keeping up with it.  But one post that I always try to make time for, if not in my blog then at least in a handwritten journal, is my end of the year reflections.  This year was an especially important year for me in a lot of ways, so here are five breakdowns of my best and worst.

1. Love and Heartbreak
This is the first time I've ever written about my love life on my blog, but as it had such a huge impact on my life and my growth as a person this year, it would be counterproductive to moving on to 2015 to leave it out.  After casually dating (or barely dating at all) basically since high school, in February I met someone who completely altered my life and view on love.  Always being the cynic, scoffing at friends 'in love' or overly affectionate couples in the street, and even worse always dating people I already knew would bore me, I was knocked flat by what I began feeling for this person in just a matter of days.  We had an extremely intense relationship, squeezing what felt like years into months.  When the inevitable end came when he made a last minute move to Germany, I was devastated.  As he left my apartment for the last time, I went from living the highest high of my life to the lowest low with the closing of an elevator door.
After everything I experienced, and now that I am finally over the hump of heartbreak 7 months later, I can finally look back and appreciate it for all the ways that relationship allowed me to live an amazing new experience, and in doing so, make me a more empathetic person.  It's hard to understand people in love when you have never felt it for yourself.  I also see all the flaws that relationship had and understand more now about what I need and want, and what things are non-negotiables.  Despite a lot of hard feelings I had towards this person for a long time, I honestly wish him the best in his life, and I'm ready and happy to close that door.

2. Friendship
This year I realized some really important things about the friendships in my life and how distance really, truly makes no difference.  Most of my best friends in the entire world I get to see once a year or less, but every time I see them I feel my love for these people is just as strong or even stronger than the last time we were together.  I also chose to cut a few people out of my life who were once part of my friend circles or who I once even considered to be people who would be my friends for the rest of my life.  These weren't even conscious decisions, to be honest.  It was more so that at some point I didn't even have to think about it to realize these people were just no longer worth my time or efforts.   I also learned that all friendships have their flaws, and you don't always have to agree or get along with even the people you know are your friends for life.  If you can look past the disagreements and still feel a strong bond with a person, this for me may even be the best sign of friendship.

3. Bad Luck
I CAN'T WAIT to be able to write an end of the year post and NOT mention my perpetual bad luck. For the 3rd consecutive year I had something stolen from me here while living in Madrid!  The count so far is one bag, one computer, one wallet, and two phones.  This is why I can't have nice things.

I moved out of an apartment with the world's worst roommate right at the beginning of 2014 into another place with the world's most awkward roommate.  Just to give a small idea, I had a date over for dinner at the apartment one night and while we were eating a nice almost romantic dinner, my roommate came in and brought his own dinner and sat down at the {very small} table with us.  Talk about mood killer.

And of course, to end the year off JUST RIGHT, I broke my ankle about 2 weeks ago.  Anyone who's known me since middle school knows this was a long time coming, however in the last two months I've been doing more exercise than I have since leaving high school, so how on earth I break my ankle walking through a crosswalk I HAVE NO IDEA.

4. An Epic Summer
Sorry, not sorry, but I have to take a moment to brag about a summer for the books.  My parents came to visit for two weeks at the end of June and I loved having them here, getting to show them around Madrid and taking a trip together to Ireland, not to mention having someone else footing the bill for a time.  Then I "worked" tutoring in the mornings for a month, moved out of that awkward apartment and a generous and lovely friend let me crash her place for a few weeks before I went on my first solo trip.  After spending 3 days in Belgrade with my friend Aleksandra, I went to Dubrovnik, Croatia all on my own.  I'd been dying to go to Croatia and I finally got tired of waiting for someone else to accompany me, so in an attempt to also get some much needed personal reflection and mental health repair time (see #1), I pushed my nerves aside and planned a week there.  This was one of my favorite trips ever and I am now 100% convinced on solo travel.  It was so easy to meet other people and I was a lot more open than I would have been had I gone with other friends.  It reminded me about all the things I first fell in love with about traveling, not to mention Dubrovnik met all my very, very high expectations and even took me beyond what I hoped to experience.
Then, in September I attended my friend Mary's fairytale wedding in the French countryside.  Such a love-filled, beautiful, and romantic weekend reconnecting with two good friends from college.  And then I closed off my summer with a weekend in Munich at Oktoberfest - a big checkmark off my bucket list.  It's everything you would expect - boisterous, traditional, and full of massive, heavy pints of BIER...and cleavage.

5. Work 
In a rare moment for me, I came to one very firm decision this year which is that I will not be continuing with BEDA Auxiliares for a 4th year during the 2015-2016 school year.  This has normally been one of my most difficult decisions in the past two years, but throughout the course of 2014 I realized that yes, I am finally finished being a teacher's assistant.  I love my school and seeing all my incredibly funny and painfully cute kiddos, so I know that saying goodbye and closing this chapter in June is going to be very emotional.  As for what's next, that remains to be seen in 2014.

The Lands of Bikes & Blondes

Last month I embarked on my 4th consecutive Spring Break trip, this year to Scandinavia (Sweden and Denmark)!  This was the trip that almost wasn't.  My heart had been set since early this Fall on spending 10 days in Turkey but as the months went by, my flight tracking was producing terrible results-- nothing less than 500 euros that didn't include a flight less than 24hrs.  The plan was to reunite with my friend Aleksandra who I hadn't seen since I visited her in Macedonia the first summer I spent in Spain in 2011.  In the end we picked Scandinavia because we both knew a fair amount of people studying or living there that we could meet up with.  I will spare the rest of the details, but in short because of financial reasons neither of us were sure until practically the week of if we would be going, but it all worked out in the end!  The worst part of getting ready for this trip was that as I was packing my WINTER COAT, the weather in Spain was finally moving fast away from "winter".  But in a rare twist of luck for me, we had great weather and only had 2 days where it rained.

In Sweden, I spent 2 nights with a friend from Moldova who studied at UWEC for a year (as the story goes with 99% of my friends abroad).  She is doing her masters in Lund, a tiny University town across the sea from Denmark.  It is very small and cute and I quickly realized you could see everything there was in 2 hours.  That wasn't too helpful when I was trying to spend an afternoon out of her dorm to give her some time to focus on her thesis.  After 45 minutes listening to a choir and orchestra rehearse in the town cathedral, an hour wandering up and down the same empty streets (at a snail's pace...I think even the Spanish would have been whizzing by me), and 30 minutes sitting on a bench reading a magazine article about new condom design ideas... I was cold and bored and needed to return to social interaction.  Swedish people, at least in Lund, are exactly how you imagine: BLONDE. EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON.  I have never seen so many yellow-white blonde heads in my life.  Blondes on bikes, blondes on bikes, blondes on bikes.  The biking culture is amazing.  More on that in a minute.

Lund streets

Stayed warm and entertained listening to their rehearsal

Seas and seas of bikes!

Aleksandra arrived on the 2nd night and the following morning we headed to Copenhagen.  We stayed at the Copenhagen Downtown Hostel, an excellent place that I would recommend with flying colors.  They offered an amazing breakfast buffet for around 50 krone, which is the cheapest breakfast you will find in the city, and you cannot beat the selection they offer.  If you've stayed in youth hostels that offer breakfast, you know that the selection is 9 times out of 10 annoyingly underwhelming.  This would have you fooled into thinking you were staying in a 4 star hotel.  There was also free dinner each night, plus a great social area mixed with a bar/restaurant and very friendly and helpful staff.

I can say I knew nothing about Denmark, and Copenhagen, before I went.  We joined the free walking tour (which I am now a loyal fan of, despite my "no plan" travel philosophy) and I got a speed lesson on Danish culture and history.  The main thing that I am (still) fascinated and in love with is the tax system.  Pay attention, my American readers.  According to our guide, the LOWEST tax bracket pays around 39% income tax, while the highest could be somewhere around 60.  Yes, you read those numbers correctly.  How un-American!!  Those high numbers guarantee that EVERY SINGLE PERSON has access to FREE higher education and FREE health care.  Free. Everyone. Forever.  Recently, the government took a poll of the Danish people asking if they would like their taxes lowered, to which the majority said no.  Learning this information made my American blood boil...because I was thinking about the crippling affects the trillions of dollars of student loan debt is having on my generation and the negative effect that will inevitably leave on the economy.  Not only that, but recently I had a conversation with my mom about the lack of care my grandpa is receiving at his assisted living home.  I said to her "If you can get him on a plane, send him here.  It's free."  Isn't it amazing that the "freest" nation on the planet leaves its people in invisible chains?

Sash and I in front of New Harbor in Copenhagen, one of Hans Christian Andersen's points of inspiration

Rosenberg Castle in Copenhagen

That's a REAL Danish pastry

After a couple days in Copenhagen, we took an hour ferry ride to visit Aleksandra's friend, Sandra, in Aarhus, another small University city in the north of Denmark.  Aarhus was great.  We got a chance to delve into the bike culture by using the free bikes they have placed throughout the city center.  Bike lanes back home have nothing on the Danish bike lanes.  They are very well designed and you do not feel unsafe at all riding side by side motor vehicles.  On streets that have higher traffic, there are separate lanes off the road and also apart from the sidewalk so you have no real fear of pedestrians becoming obstacles either.  We spent one whole day biking to the deer park, the beach, around the city, as well as a couple trips to and from Sandra's apartment (4km from the center).  This was the first trip I think I can safely say I got in better shape, especially compared to my trip to Munich where I wouldn't have been surprised to not fit in the airplane seat on the way home.

Getting cozy with the freely roaming deer in the Aarhus Deer Park

Bike time!

We watched a Viking club train for their Viking fighting competitions

Sun, cookies, and some coffee is really all I need for a great vaca

If it weren't for the weather and what I perceived to be a cold and closed attitude from Danish people, this would be a top destination for me to relocate to.  I think it's amazing that people are willing to overlook a percentage on their tax form because they can see the bigger picture of the benefit that comes from a nation full of well educated and healthy people who care about helping their neighbor without needing to know what's in it for them.  I can think of one big blob of land to the west that could really learn something from that.

Meandering Mind

Leave it to a puente* to get my sleep schedule all out of whack. Usually I'm dying to be off in dream land by this time at night, but I had 4 days to get into bad sleeping habits (a.k.a. up until 4 or 5 am and sleeping until 2 or 3pm).  As I'm laying here awake, I started to think a little bit...as one usually does when there's nothing else to do and I can't allow myself to do anymore useless Facebook stalking and I've already watched too many episodes of Downton this weekend (I'm thinking to myself in a British accent if that tells you anything)...

I was thinking about dreams.  Seems odd to think about dreams when I can't fall asleep, but anywho, for some reason I recalled a question I had to answer in my interview for the Americorps job last March about what my dream job and aspirations were.  I was so stumped by this question and I still am pretty sure that my answer was the reason why I didn't get the job.  I said that I didn't have a dream job.  I remember that as the words came out of my mouth, the interviewer immediately wrote notes down on her paper, and I knew that what I had said wasn't the answer they were necessarily looking for.  But tonight I'm thinking about this again for whatever reason, and I'm wondering to myself why this is such a big deal?  It's not just a question you get randomly in 1 out of 100 job interviews.  It's a pretty important thing to people, and it seems like something we need to know about others in order to get a really good sense of who they are. 
Of course I have dreams and aspirations about my life (which I did try to explain in the rest of my answer, fyi) but I don't understand why there has to be such a focus on them.  I guess what I mean to say is that sometimes I feel like there is too much pressure to be a success and to have a dream and to do anything and everything in your power in order to achieve that dream.  Don't get me wrong because I believe that this can also be a great thing.  But what if you're like me and you have an idea of where you want your life to go...but you accept the fact that life is crazy and sometimes it finds us before we find it?  Doesn't this seem much more logical of an answer than "Well my dream is to spend 2 years in a Master's program studying this amazing topic that I have been passionate about my whole life, and then after that to land my 'dream job' doing this very specific thing that I have already been living in my mind for my whole adult life".  That sounds robotic and droll to me.  But for me to say "I have no dream job" sounds lazy.

In the end, I know that I have never dreamed about a job (Work? Gross).  I've dreamed about seeing things and learning more and growing up and meeting wonderful people and making a difference.  I never imagined myself doing any of these things in a specific career, just in any way that life allows me to.  That is what would make me happy, and isn't that what our dream job is supposed to be afterall?









*puente - Spanish word basically meaning a long weekend due to a holiday