Ya no soy salamatina… (Roots&Wings)

So this is quite a bit late after the fact, but I’ve been wanting to blog about some anxieties I was having towards the end of my sojourn in Cadiz before I was to make the voyage back to sweet home Salamanca. One night it occurred to me que ya no soy salamatina, I’m not Salamancan anymore. It was breaking my heart that a city that had been my home for four of the more amazing months of my life no longer felt like home, yet at the same time, I wasn’t gaditana either. Cadiz had been my home for 6 weeks and while I loved it, and I would gladly live there again, it wasn’t really my home yet.  I was having an identity crisis, one of many I’ve had over the years that I have always related back to the idea of having roots and wings.

For good or bad, I think it’s important to know where we come from. Some people disagree, and that’s ok; I blame my strong affinity to history, home, and identity on my Cancerian astrology and I embrace it. My love for languages, travel and different cultures affords me the opportunity to have multiple homes, multicultural traditions, and a mosaic identity. Bits and pieces of different colored tile, one picture, one person, me.

I was feeling that the roots I had laid in Salamanca were withering, that I was losing my connection to a place that had been held sacred in my heart from some time.  I felt a bit like a vagabond, wandering aimlessly with no place to call home; people thinking I was Spanish and identifying me as gaditana from my accent which left no trace of my Castilian roots both delighted and  disheartened me.

Despite my anxieties that returning to Salamanca would only confirm my fear that I could no longer call that city home, that it would all feel even more obscure than a distant memory, that I wouldn’t recognize my home, that I would no longer belong, something amazing happened.  I slept on the bus from Madrid, waking up just in time to catch the first views on the cathedral in the distance. Walking the old familiar route from the bus stop into the city center rejuvenated me. And when I checked into the hotel room it could not have been more perfect. Green: my favorite color, the color of growth and new beginnings.  And roots and wings. 

Fate was sending me a message. Where would I be today if I hadn’t studied in Salamanca? Strengthening my skills in Spanish and sprouting my understanding of the incredible adventure that is study abroad there is part of what led me to my job in Cadiz. It brought me back to Spain, to home. I hadn’t lost my home in Salamanca. My roots were strong there, and they gave me the wings to fly. 

Summer in Spain

Who would have thought 3 years ago when I was going to Spain for the first time that my love for this country and my passion for study abroad would land me a dream job? After returning from Spain I considered working in study abroad, but left the thought to the side to teach middle school for a year before moving onto my Masters in Romance Language Linguistics. Now one year into my Masters’ program I am back in Spain and getting paid to be here! My university hired me for the summer as a TA/Assistant Coordinator for their 6 week summer study abroad program in Cadiz, Spain. Cadiz is a small city in the south of Spain with a beautiful historic center and multiple gorgeous beaches so while most days it feels like a paid vacation, this has been first and foremost a job. I worked with the coordinator to supervise 30 undergraduates who were here for the 6 weeks taking summer classes in Spanish. I helped organize and chaperone the daily activities, wrote daily reports, visited the student’s Spanish families, wrote more reports, chaperoned all program excursions (we’ve been to Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Jerez and Playa Bolonia/Tarifa), tutored, took students to the doctors and pharmacy when they were sick, and was on call 24/6 in case of emergency or if they had questions or needed help of any kind. On my one day off per week you would still usually find me at the school for at least an hour in the morning checking on the students and at the daily afternoon activity. It wasn’t always easy, I had to deal with some difficult situations, was asked questions I don’t know answers to, and had plenty of times when I wasn’t sure what to do; but I loved it. I had a wonderful coordinator who I look up to as a mentor, and I see this job as the next step (the first being my own study abroad experiences) towards working in study abroad as my career, or at least part of it. I gained some invaluable experience and had a great time. This morning I said goodbye to my patitos (little ducks) as they are off to their next adventures; some are doing their own traveling, some are off with the group to Morocco, and some are going back home to confront the woes of reverse culture shock. I only hope that they valued and learned from their journey here in Spain and that I was able to teach them something along the way.

From Salamanca to Salvador

         After all the time I spent with Brazilians in Spain, it was inevitable that one day I would travel to Brazil. After a few years of saving up, my mother, my sister and I all made the trip from the frozen tundra of Northern New York to the tropics of Bahia, Brazil. Anyone who knows anything about Bahia, or its capitol Salvador, will have heard that it is an enchanting place with warm and friendly people and a certain kind of magical happiness in the air. All of which is absolutely true and I find myself lost for words to describe it.  

A brief breakdown of the trip:     

                                                                

My snorkeling souvenir

Praia do Forte: We arrived in Salvador and were taken immediately from the airport to a hotel in Praia do Forte, small vacation town about an hour and a half north of the city. Highlights included the Projeto Tamar (a Sea turtle sanctuary), snorkeling, and the fort/ Garcia D’Avila Castle. Of these three activities, I’m fairly sure my mom enjoyed the castle the most, while Alyx obviously loved the sea turtles (turtle was one of her first words and has always been her favorite animal), and I loved snorkeling.  A success and a miracle: everyone was happy.

Projeto Tomar- We make some pretty awesome baby sea turtles

Garcia D'Avila Castle

Salvador: After a few days of beach and a mixture of sun and rain it was time to go to the big city. We spent the majority of the remainder of our trip in Salvador hitting up some tourist attractions (Igreja do Bomfim, Pelourinho, Forte Monte Serrat) and spending time with some pretty amazing people.

Igreja do Bomfim

Fitinhas do Bomfim

Forte Mont Serrat

Forte Mont Serrat from across the bay

Pelourinho

Praça

Jordão:  To escape from the enormity of Salvador we traveled twice to a small town in the interior; once for Christmas and then again a few days later for a memorable boat trip down a river. I say memorable because the battery died and we were stranded for a little bit. In true fashion, while everyone else was worried about being stranded I took this time to take some deep relaxing breaths of fresh air and focus on my tan. It seems (or at least I noticed a little while in Brazil) that sometimes I worry too much about the little things, and in some cases maybe I don’t worry enough about the big things (like being stranded in the middle of a river with no food and limited water, caffeine, and alcohol).

Sister

Bonding

Some General Comments/Insights:

1. My mom and sister are not as experienced travelers as I am.

2. It is difficult to travel with inexperienced travelers.

3. It was nice to take a family vacation together to somewhere new that didn’t involve me competing for skating.

4. Alyx seemed to have enjoyed her time (everyone spoiled her rotten) and I hope the trip has had a positive effect on her view of the world. She clearly missed out on the lesson on how she will not always been spoiled by everyone in life, but hopefully she learned something from the trip and grows from it.

A few extra pictures to brighten your day : ) 

Sometimes its the little trips...

In case you’ve been wondering, I’ve been sulking around the United States complaining about how I haven’t left the country for two years. This is incredibly distressing for someone like me who, bitten by the travel bug, had been on one big trip out of the country for the two years before I even started this blog (Peru’09, Mexico ’10: I should probably talk about those experiences sometime…).  I will admit that I did go to Canada 4 times (2 Ottawa, 2 Montreal) before losing my passport which left me stranded in the U.S. for a whole year. To make matters worse, I hardly count Canada as a foreign country considering I can see while standing in the middle of the street just outside my house. Also, I have been to Ottawa and Montreal more times than I can count and did not really visit anything new in these trips, but explored some old favorites that happened to have new exhibits.  For our purposes, you should assume that when I use “travel” or any variation thereof, that I mean left the country; and “the country” means US & Canada.

 Disclaimer: During the writing processing I started laughing at the realization of how unappreciative of my homeland and unpatriotic this first paragraph sounds; especially since this is the anniversary of our independence, the 4^th of July. My apologies to those especially patriotic, but this is a tribute to a recent revelation, and not to this country.

Back to Blog: So why write a blog post in my travel blog without having travelled?  On a trip (notice this not traveling, but taking a trip) to Long Island and New York City last week, or rather on the trip back, I realized something:  Although this wasn’t a trans-Atlantic experience, or some other voyage to explore a country unknown, it was meaningful and valuable.  I learned something new about myself and the world I live in and I spent some quality time with an important person in my life nurturing an emotional bond. So I’ve decided to share it. This revelation made me think back on another experience that I had previously undervalued.

Jair’s visit to the US:

Although for him it was a trans-Atlantic voyage to a country unknown, for me, it was still just bumming around the US, mainly the North Country.  The journey started with a riverside hike in Stone Valley.

There was an afternoon on an Uncle Sam’s Boat Tour and exploring Boldt Castle.

Thousand Islands Bridge

St. Lawrence

Power House

Play House at Boldt Castle

Finally, a trip to Providence, RI. 

Brown University

Jair at the John Carter Brown Library

Lesson Learned: Even though I had been to (almost) all of these places before, I enjoyed sharing them with someone else; someone who means a lot to me and for whom it was a completely new experience.  This second trip of mine to Stone Valley made me realize that I need to look in my own back yard more often for an escape to nature and not be afraid to explore.  The visit to the Heart of the 1000 Islands reminded me of how much I love St. Lawrence River. Finally, although I had been to Providence before, most of what I saw then was the inside of the rink, my hotel, and the mall. This time I was able to walk around the city. We visited Brown University, opportunity found for Jair and a reminder of opportunity lost for me. I had wanted to go there for my BA, the visit left me sliding down a pit of regret until I thought of how different my life would be if that were the path I had chosen. I found myself to be content with my life and therefore had no room for regret.

My trip NYC/LI:

Although I had been to both of these places before, New York City, even just Manhattan, is a concrete jungle to explore and I saw relatively little of Long Island on my first visit. This time it was a whirlwind adventure exploring most of Manhattan and venturing all the way out to the tip of LI. 

Balto

View from Battery Park: Ellis Island

View from Battery Park: Liberty Island

Lighthouse at Montauk

Lesson Learned: Even though my host had been to most every place we ventured, we both had an amazing time; and I, being the newbe, the inexperienced, the explorer, loved every minute of the adventure, also gained a great appreciation for my guide, my friend showing me around.  Practical lessons learned on this trip were a little Manhattan geography and that maybe big cities aren’t all that overwhelming; the trick is to find the right neighborhood and make your home there, not the entirety of the city itself.


In both of these experiences I was able to spend time with people who I do not get to see on a regular basis and do not always have the luxury of knowing when I will get to see them again.  It makes our tiny travels, our trips to known and unknown places all the more meaningful.  I will look back on these adventures with fond memories, not so much for the adventure itself, but for the people I shared them with.