Allá

From My Dorm:

Today I am excited.
As in, hopeful, looking forward. The least amount of homesick that I've been for the past week.
Why? you ask.
What makes tonight so different than all the other nights?
One word:
PLANS.
That's right! I have plans. Travel plans.
To Edinburgh I go! And only a few weekends away.
And next weekend I get to (hopefully) go visit my friend Sarah who goes to UEA.
And there will be a day trip to the Lake District, a day trip to Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's hometown) and the U of I sponsored London Weekend and let's not forget (as if I could) the all important Doctor Who Convention weekend in Cardiff!!!

I am GOING places; Which, if I think about it, is exactly what I came here to do.
To see things, to write, to read, to learn.

I called my grandmother today (it's part of my wierd homesickness where everynight now before bed I want to talk to a few family members to hear there voices and tell them I love them...it's probably one of those 'you don't know what you have til it's gone things', but suddenly telling them I love them has become very important to me)
Anyhow: I called my grandmother today, and in the background I could hear my 19 month old sister shouting in Spanish "Allá" which translates to "there" or even "over there". She was saying she wanted to go "Allá" to get the food my grandma had made but which was still too hot for her to eat.
It was a relentless cry in her lispy pout "A-llá. A-llá. A-llá!"

I understand my almost 2 year old sister. I too am anxious to go "There". There is where the food (or, fun) resides.
I am excited.
So, as a famous (and my favorite) Doctor said: Allons-y!
I am ready to go Allá, whether that be Wales, Scotland, London, or Spain.



P.S:






I TOLD YOU!!! Box of Chicken Bones!

I love taking photos yet don't want to feel like a tourist

The View From my Window



Lots of Nice Looking Churches




The Beautiful Entrance to the English Building

Living on PB&J Sandwiches and Tears

To anyone reading this (and myself) my first few days here would be a disappointment.
Or, I suppose, my first few nights.
The first two days were spent on campus, busily running around from getting my student ID to taking campus tours to having my first pint in The Old Bar in the union (which reaffirmed my belief that all beer tastes disgusting).
But my evenings have been spent in my quiet, distanced, cold dorm. Where for the first two nights my window was broken so the heavy winds went through it like a sieve and made a noise the equivalent of a shrieking tea kettle. My first night, I simply put in my headphones and blasted Coldplay's The Scientist and when I'd fall asleep the earbuds would fall out and the wailing, piercing wind would wake me. I'd just put in the headphones again and continue the process 5 more times through the night.
The second night, despite my reporting the window to the front desk (where I was told that the window had been reported broken DAYS before I'd even moved in) the window was still broken. When I was walking down the hall towards my room and with the door closed I could still hear the piercing shriek of my window, I decided to sleep on the couch in our living room.
It was stiff, and I woke up a few times from the pattering of the rain on the wall sized window, but all of that was less disturbing than the box (I shit you not) of chicken bones, completely devoid of any meat on them, that my two Chinese flatmates had stuck in the corner of the living room.
As I dozed off, I imagined the ghosts of all those angry chickens, pecking at me.

My evenings were bad because I'd become overwhelmed with homesickness. I skyped my aunt each night, sobbing about my misery. It must have been very hard on her, and my Canadian flatmate that lives beside me actually heard me and asked if I was alright. (Needless to say, I was properly embarrassed.)
But last night, for the first time, I had a good night.
I still felt the homesickness and sadness that seems to take me over in the evenings, but instead of letting myself be overwhelmed, I took out my security blanket: Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted which was my favorite book when I was a kid and has been read so many times, the binding is cracked. I got into bed, read my familiar and comforting story for a few chapters, and peacefully went off to sleep.

My days, however, have been a different experience.
Leeds is an absolutely gorgeous city and the campus is equally beautiful and lively.

I've met a lot of new people and have managed to remember most of their names (thanks to Mindy Kaling's audiobook chiding people that 'aren't good with names').

I've done the "British" things. I've had a pint at a pub. I've been called 'Love' by multiple shops people. I've had discussions about Sherlock, Harry Potter, Hugh Laurie, Doctor Who and (surprisingly) Buffy.

The homesickness takes a lot. Almost like I'm not letting myself have fun. But now, it is 10 PM (I hate those dreadful 24 hr clocks) I have eaten my 3rd PB&J sandwich of the day and am going to a night club called Halo which is in an old church (yeah...how awesome is that?) And maybe I'll come home so knackered I won't remember homesickness or skyping, but only the comfort of my springy mattress.

Stumped, Stuffed, and Slightly Nauseous

They said at all the study abroad meetings that you should really only bring 1 suitcase. And when you pack it, you should unpack it and take about 1/2 the stuff out.
At risk of sounding redundant (or making it my mantra) the study abroad people forgot one thing:
I am Cuban.

I do not 'pack light'. We arrive with boatloads of stuff, we leave with boatloads more.

This has had me struggling for the past two days.
I'll look at my suitcase, which is a little more than half my height (not that I'm that massive at a whopping 5'1) and I'll think
"Damnit! That's too much."
I'll begin removing things (question: who needs 7 pairs of jeans?) then I'll think
"I'm going to be there six months!" (answer: I do!)
I am bringing too much and not enough.
And let's not neglect to mention my Cuban grandmother who is like a Spanish speaking second person in my brain "Of COURSE you'll need that! Don't take that out! It'll all fit! Can you take this as your carry on? Will this go on your carry on? Are you taking this as your carry on?"

And my answer to her is often, "Yo no se". I don't know what I'm bringing and what I'm not. I'm not sure if I'll need my running shoes, an extra towel, my face cleanser. I am flummoxed.


Another thing (I'm not proud of) is that I'm a stress eater.
And I am immensely stressed.
My bonus Mom BZ made me the most delicious (no hyperbole) cake I have ever tasted for my going away party a few nights ago.


The frosting, the cake, the layer of ice cream, the layer of fudge....
Needless to say, I have been stuffing my face for the past couple of days.
I've been having my 'lasts'.
My last jibarito from Borinquen.
My last ceasar salad from Noodles.
My last ranch chicken.
Food that I very likely will not have until my return six long months from now.
The result: feeling overly full.



One of the joys of being me is my lovely habit of psychosomatic problems.
I am nervous and excited about my trip.
I am waking up earlier and falling asleep later (mostly because I can't turn my brain off).
I am in a constant mode of excitement which has lead to me being an anxious ball of energy. And when everything seems to be causing me trouble, the anxiety builds:
My laptop has failed (in the most literal way where it is now completely empty of all the songs/tv shows/movies I actually paid for on Itunes.) The energy converter I ordered still has not arrived in the mail. My suitcase might be too big and/or heavy. I don't understand my class schedule. And on and on and on.
All of this tension manifests itself as a feeling of tight nausea in my throat.


It's all so unimportant and ridiculous.
In the end, I will have a suitcase, I will have clothes to wear, I'll be fine,
I'll get to England in one piece.

It's the unknown.
Everything ahead of me is still up in the air (and over the ocean).
I don't really like the unknown.
But if there's anything I've learned about myself over the past 5 years (moving from suburbs to city, house to house, city to university) I've learned that I always land on my feet.

And I hope that when I'm miles in the air tomorrow, instead of feeling claustrophobic and panicking about the future,
I hope I take a moment to remember that this is not a frivolous trip. I did not randomly decide to study abroad in England. It's something I've literally dreamed about since child hood.
Rather than seeing it as being alone in a new country,
I'll try to see it as fulfilling my childhood dreams.

Spic: a Definition

I am Cuban.

That's what I normally say when people ask me.
It's not just a geographic location of my ancestors for me. It's my culture, my family, an all encompassing word meaning
family gathering for holidays
family meaning aunts, uncles, grandparents and my 30 thousand cousins (and they're all as close to me as an American's 'nuclear' family.)
It means that what others see as 'yelling' is our normal mode of speech.
We do everything passionately and loudly: whether it's love, eat, talk, laugh, cry or scream.

In less than a week, however, I will be embarking on my journey to Leeds, England for my semester abroad. When I'm asked what I am, I'll probably answer "American" because that is where I was born, that is where I grew up.
Being American hasn't ever really sat well with me.
I speak fluent English (and not fluent Spanish). I've got that Chicagoan accent where I hit my A's hard. I like most 'American' things, I've got American values instilled in me (mainly the notions that hard work and education are required to have a successful life in which after graduation you get a job and work til retirement). I've got all of those things down.
But I was aware, as I child, that we were different. I am not light skinned like all the blonde haired white girls flouncing around at recess. And I doubt many other American girls had someone approach their mother in a parking lot and tell her to go back to her country.

My point being,
I'm not just an American coed doing a semester abroad. I won't just have one cultural identity to learn to assimilate with the British. I have two.
I am a Spic. Yes, Spic, usually used as a derogatory term for Latino people (normally from Cuba or Puerto Rico) is a word I've taken as my own. It's something I'm proud of. It doesn't mean stupid, it doesn't mean we clean your houses and serve you meals at those 'authentic' restaurants people seem to adore.
We're people. We laugh. We love. We cry. And we've got our own set of values.

Family.

To the isolated American, I've noticed that leaving your family to go away for college is normal. Expected.
I decided to attend a University that's a 3 hour drive from home and for the year preceding college, I got asked multiple times (by multiple family members) "Are you sure you want to go so far away?"
Now I'm getting on a plane to attend a school that is an 8 hour plane ride away. To which 3 male family members (both grandfathers and my younger brother) said "Aren't there a lot of terrorist attacks in England?" Translating to: you should stay.

England has been a place I have longed to visit since my early years (yeah, it's stereotypical, but it did start with Harry Potter). So go, I will.

But don't mistake this for an 'Eat Pray Love' adventure. This is not a white woman's marvelous foray into strange new lands where at first she struggles but then meets a charming gang of locals and then has adventures and is accepted and has a readymade group of friends she can go out and dine with at her leisure. I am not Julia Roberts.

I will go out.
I will meet new people.
I will be in awe and excited about my new surroundings.
I will try to make new friends and have new experiences.

But all of those experiences will be perceived through the 2 lenses: that of an American college student
and
of a Spic.