I am happy

Today was hands-down one of my favorite days since arriving in Spain. It reminded me of my roots,
how far I've come, the simple pleasures of life, the willingness to say "yes" to uncertainty and adventure, the smallness of the world, and the ability to connect with absolutely anyone at any given time.

A month ago, my conversation partner here at the University of Oviedo invited me to go to a small town called Ribadesella with her and a few other people. I said yes, not having any idea who I was going with or what we would be doing. It turned out to be an amazing day, and the four other girls I met were lovely, bubbly, friendly people from all over the world: two from towns a little ways from Oviedo, a Scottish-American ex-pat, and a Brit. It was amazing to me that we could have conversations and connect over so much, in Spanish and in English (mostly in English, as the Spanish girls' English was better than us English-speakers' Spanish).

A few weeks later, someone suggested in the Ribadesella group chat a trip to Ponga to do an adventure course: zip lining and skybridge walking. I watched the group message, waiting to see if the 5 spots would fill up before deciding to go. There remained one spot left, so on impulse, I said I'd go. Fast forward a few weeks, and I'd just gotten back from Barcelona, just replaced my 2-month-old cellphone...I'm a little tired, and short 120 euros, so I'm thinking I'll just bail on the weekend. Problem is, I no longer have access to the old group message...so I tell my conversation partner and she puts me in contact with one of the girls, whose enthusiasm I just could not say no to. So when she asked, "You still up for zip lining Saturday?" I dove in and replied "Yes!"

Fast forward to this morning, and I'm taking a two hour road trip with two girls I've only met once before. The one girl, the Scottish-American ex-pat with an exuberant, Labrador-Retriever-esque personality and energy level, can talk about anything and everything for hours. She's so good at starting conversations, keeping them going, and engaging everyone she's with. She's one of those people you immediately feel comfortable with, but is also vaguely intimidating because of her sheer amount of enthusiasm, energy, and bubbliness. The other girl was the one driving us and she's a super sweet, generous, soft-spoken Spaniard who lives on a farm about two hours from Oviedo. She commutes home every weekend to help out on the farm, slaughtering pigs, milking goats, and herding cattle. She's wholeheartedly in love with the Spanish countryside and is a total advocate for it. She lives in a village of 100 people, went to school with 7 other classmates (IN THE WHOLE SCHOOL), and her two brothers and sister are some of the only young people in her whole town. She was telling us that the population of the Spanish countryside is dwindling as people give up farm life for the lure of "big city" "prestigious" jobs, but that she's always wanted to get her degree and get back to where she came from.

As it turns out, Reilly, Lena, and I all grew up on farms! Reilly, in a small town in Vermont, Lena in a small village in Asturias, and me on the edges between country and suburbs in Maryland. Reilly had chickens, Lena has pigs, goats, and I believe cows, and I had sheep. Lena by far is the most "country" of all of us, a true farm girl, but we all bonded over our appreciation of nature, desire to leave Oviedo for the day, and agreement that the country is the best place to a) grow up and b) raise children.

After many twists, turns, abrupt stops, sharp corners, and vague carsickness on mine and Reilly's part, we arrived at the adventure place! It was a very small business, with only a few employees. There was no wait at all to get suited up in our harnesses and have a guide lead us out onto the skybridge course. It started out nice and easy, with a swinging bridge over a river. The views were beautiful, and I didn't feel the least bit scared. It progressively got scarier though, and my heart was beating a little faster than normal as I worked my way around the edge of a rather steep rock face with nothing below me but rocks and river. Before long, we were back to the swinging bridges and nets, which felt suddenly very secure. After the skybridge course came the zip line, which was fun but rather short, as zip lines tend to be. In between the skybridges and the zip line, our guide took us up to see the upper part of the waterfall, which was beautiful. Spring has fully arrived here in Asturias and there were wildflowers blooming everywhere. I tried not to worry about the fact that giant rocks had fallen from the cliff and smashed holes into the bridge we were standing on over the river....and those holes had been covered over with other rocks....

When the adventure course was all said and done, we'd only been in Ponga for about an hour, so we got back in the car and drove to a nearby bar, where Lena got a giant hunk of cheese (she said Ponga was famous in Asturias for their cheese) and asked the man at the bar where we should go to see good views. He gave some vague instructions, and we headed back the way we'd come, taking a turn-off that led into Ponga National Park. Within a few minutes, we were winding up into the mountains, surrounded by sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains in the distance. We stopped in the first town we came to, parked the car, and wandered around until we found a good place for a picnic. The few people we passed on the road gave us warm "Hola, buenas dias" greetings, and it was obvious that they weren't used to a motley crew of Scottish-American-Spanish girls walking around their town with backpacks, looking rather out of place.

Anyway, we found a nice-looking patch of grass, climbed over the guardrail into someone's private

property, and plopped down on rare sections of cow-poop-free patches of grass. We ate our lunch and stared out at the positively stunning vista while the sun warmed (and burned, in my case) our faces and a soft breeze blew from the west.....(jk, I have no idea what direction the wind was coming from). Reilly continued with her questions, asking how our parents had met, what they do (Reilly's dad, like my mom, is a physical therapist; Lena's parents, like mine, met at a party), what we want to do for jobs, what our summer jobs have been...so on and so forth. We sat there for over an hour before making our way back into town, just eating, chatting, and marveling at the view and the beautiful weather.

On our way back to the car, we passed the only restaurant in town and Reilly asked if we wanted to grab a coffee. Lena and I said sure, so we went in and Lena and I got cafes con leche, Reilly got a bag of chips, Lena got some more cheese, and then she paid for all of us and refused to let us pay her back, saying that in her village it's customary for older people to "invite" younger people, which is funny, because Reilly and I are both older than Lena, but we didn't argue. After we finished our drinks and chips outside, we decided to give the foosball table a whirl. Lena asked a young, middle-school-aged girl sitting outside with her family if she wanted to play with us, since we needed a fourth person, and then we proceeded to spend 2 euro on 4 different rounds of foosball. It was really fun, even though the table was super jenky and the balls wouldn't come out when we put our 50 cents in and every time we'd have to go get the bartender to come outside, unlock the table, and pluck the balls out (the third time of which he said, "¿Qué estáis haciendo?" which means "What are you guys doing???") One of the spinners was also missing a man and the table was oddly slanted, but no one complained (except jokingly) or even kept score.

After foosball, the girl and her family went home and Reilly, Lena and I returned to our chosen picnic table and somehow wound up talking about how Lena should start a business that would repopulate the Spanish countryside by setting up these American women with handsome Spanish farmers LOL. We spent entirely too long trying to figure out how this whole "program" would work, before deciding that we would market it as a "romantic getaway" summer-camp-for-women, in which they would stay on a farm in Northern Spain, which just so happened to be populated by one very dashing, young Spanish farmer, and then they would fall in love, she'd stay in Spain and they'd get married and have kids and rejuvenate the land...and Lena's bilingual skills would obviously come in handy in making all this happen. This would also fulfill Lena's dream of being able to live in her village and work from home. And of course, when two young Spanish farmers happened to walk through the town, we started laughing, suggesting that Lena go up and ask them if they want to join her "program". Then we wound up talking about dating/boys/boyfriends and Lena was telling us about this guy she had met who lives in the next town over and owns cattle (of course) and there was this whole saga and Reilly and I were giving her advice about what she should do and telling her that she would have to marry this guy and single-handedly repopulate Northern Spain (before we concluded that we did not in fact like this guy, and that she should give him one more date and no more).

When we finally left the cafe over two hours after arriving, Lena had gone in to use the bathroom and when she came out she said the bartender asked if we wanted beds, since we'd seemed to make ourselves so comfortable there... Once we were back in the car, we made our way out of Ponga the long, winding way (there is no other way besides the long, winding way) and Reilly got pretty carsick and I almost fell asleep. We got to Cangas de Onis around 5:45, just in time to catch the 6:15 bus back to Oviedo (Lena was dropping us off and driving back home for the rest of the weekend), but Reilly was still feeling pretty sick and wanted to pick up some motion sickness medicine before getting on the bus. So we headed to a pharmacy, but the pharmacist said not to take it while feeling sick and that it takes 20 minutes to work...so then we decided to just walk around town a little bit (it was a beautiful town, rather touristy because of the famous bridge) and take the 7:30 train home, since Reilly doesn't get sick on trains. Lena drove us ten minutes to the next town over to catch the train and we parted ways after buying tickets. Reilly and I walked around the little town for maybe ten minutes or so before a man came out of a cafe across the street and Reilly looked over, recognized him, and ran across the street to greet him. They started talking in Spanish (obviously) and I assumed that it must've been one of her professors from the university. He asked us what we were doing there and then invited us in to have coffee with him and his wife, so we took him up on the offer, since we still had 30 minutes to kill, and he introduced us to his wife before we went over to the cafe counter and ordered some desserts. While we were there, Reilly explained that she knew the man from the Titanic, at which I was very confused...as in...the movie??? And then it clicked. The Titanic was the name of a cafe in Oviedo, which I'd heard quite a few other people mention but had never been to myself. The man was the owner of the cafe, and Reilly was a frequent customer, hence why he'd recognized her.

Once we got our desserts, we headed back to the table, and settled into an easy Spanish conversation,
carried mostly by Reilly's easy-going, nothing-makes-me-feel-awkward-or-nervous personality which wore off on me and made me feel comfortable talking in Spanish with these complete strangers. I could understand everything they were saying and was able to formulate comprehensible sentences without excruciating effort. In that moment, I thought to myself--it may not be pretty, but I CAN speak Spanish! Then before I knew it, these two lovely strangers were offering us a ride back to Oviedo! Reilly asked me if it was okay if we went with them, and I said sure, why not, and thanked them for the offer. There was no doubt in my mind that these were two lovely, gentle, kind-hearted people. I was a little worried when Reilly went off to use the bathroom before we headed out and left me with these two strangers and my meager Spanish, but I did my usual "Wow, what great weather" commentary to get us started off on a conversation about the weather of Spain, an ever-safe topic. Reilly came back and we were ready to go, but before we left I asked Reilly if we had to pay and it turns out the cafe-owner had paid for our desserts! And mine was so delicious. I don't even know what it was, I just saw something vaguely chocolate-pie esque in the dessert case, pointed to it through the glass and said "Uno de estos, gracias", my go-to phrase when trying to obtain any type of pastry I have no name for but that looks delicious.

The ride back was lovely: sunset over the mountains and Reilly and I were having a conversation in Spanish with a 60-something couple in their tiny European car as they drove us the hour back home. We talked about music, shows, traveling...and Reilly turned to me during a gap in the conversation and said, "You have a shockingly good vocabulary". Of course I was flattered, because she'd been in Spain twice as long as me, but I was also reminded that I had indeed learned a great deal since stumbling off that bus three months ago into the waiting arms of my host mom, unable to form a coherent, sensible Spanish sentence.

After our new friends dropped us off in the center of Oviedo and Isabel got out to hug us goodbye and Vinni popped the trunk and got our backpacks out for us and Reilly and I showered them with thank yous...after Reilly and I recounted the whole day on the way back to our apartments and how crazy and fun it had been...after we hugged goodbye and parted ways, I was left with just a feeling of so much excitement, like I needed to call everyone I knew and tell them that people are inherently good, that you can make connections with people from an ocean away and laugh and have fun and swap stories and dream up ridiculous Bachelorette re-creations with near strangers.

And now I want to call up younger me and tell her that one day, you will leave your hometown and you will live in a big city and you will travel to foreign lands and speak in a foreign tongue and trust people and spend time with people you hardly know and when you are in that place--with all those strange and new experiences, you will still one day be sitting in a poop-filled field, eating a turkey-and-cheese sandwich and looking out at a little town and remembering your own little town, the walks you took in early spring of senior year, when you would walk and walk until you lost yourself, until you would look up at your little town, standing at the bottom of a valley with an unusually warm March sun beaming down on you, and you would see that little town encapsulated like a snow globe. That's how you carry your old home in your heart: quiet, tranquil, with the hum of streams and cicadas filling the air. A place where you learned how to enjoy the simple things of life, where you learned how to trust people, to love people, to make deep connections. In Philadelphia you learned how to discern who to trust, how to step out of your shell, how to be happy away from home, how to spread your sphere a little wider to encompass more than just the people you grew up with. In Oviedo, you are learning how those two worlds collide, how everything you have learned and grown into makes sense now. In this place, only because of all the other places you've been, you can have easy conversations with strangers, feel at home in a city and feel at peace in the country, talk in a foreign language without shame, and at the end of the day return home to an apartment that you share with people who were unknown to you just three months before and call it "home".

-SE Wagner

Oh my life is changing everyday

In every possible way

And oh my dreams

It's never quite as it seems

Never quite as it seems

I know I felt like this before

But now I'm feeling it even more

-"Dreams" by the Cranberries

(this was playing on the radio in the car on the way home)