Vino Blanco, Por Favor ( White Wine Please)
Note: I’m a little behind with writing…so much has happened
since I got here! But the pictures are a preview of the blogs to come. Sevilla is too beautiful for words! ¡Muy muy bonita!
Finally,
finally I’ve set foot in España! I’m currently in Madrid eating a bocadillo
con jamón y queso (pretty much a ham and cheese sandwich). I need this moment
of peace and relaxation before I board the last flight of my journey. Luckily
the flight from Madrid to Sevilla is just over an hour compared to the other
painfully long flights I’ve already sat through. 40 hours of travel is just
terrible! I’m not going to lie, flying from Hawaii to Spain is not fun. It’s
stressful, especially if you’re alone, and requires an incredible amount of
patience. The worst thing you can do when travelling solo is to doubt that you
can make a long journey alone. I had this mindset when I first set out and
that’s when the butterflies in the stomach started to kick in. I started to
wish I was back home with my family or in college with the comfort of knowing I
had close friends. But to release the anxiety I was feeling, I wrote in my
journal ‘I CAN DO THIS.’ It may sound
silly but sometimes a little self-reassurance can go a long way. In order to do
anything gutsy in your life, you need to have confidence in yourself or else
you really will end up letting yourself down or never taking the risk. But now
that I’ve made it, it feels like big accomplishment.
On the
flight from New York to Madrid, I had a monumental moment (or maybe it just
felt like it at the time). One of the flight attendants was coming down the
aisle asking people if they wanted a drink. I noticed some of the Spaniards being
handed a rather large cup (in airplane standards) of cerzeva (beer) or
different types of vino (wine). And surprisingly it didn’t cost them anything!
When the flight attendant came to me, I thought I would be automatically
excluded from either drink so I asked for water. But instead the attendant
asked if I wanted white or red wine. So I was handed large cup of white wine,
which the flight attendant generously filled to the brim. Even though it’s far
from sophisticated, I felt rather classy and grown up drinking cheap white wine
from a plastic cup. I’m not sure if the flight attendant had just mistaken me
as twenty-one or he figured ‘well she’s going to be legal in Spain anyways’ but
it felt like an initiation to Spain. Maybe this is how Spaniards endure long
flights. They sit back and relax with a cup of wine or beer while watching a TV
show or film on the screen on the back of the seat (they were free too!). Now
that’s good jet setting if you ask me!
Hola Mi Sobrina Dulce!
ReplyDeleteHow's that for my first try at Spanish?! So glad you have arrived safely from your journey across the pond or shall I say vast sea? Love your blog and you had me in stitches when you wrote about the "big plastic cup of cheap white wine" Ditto on looking sooo cute in your outfits! You have your Aunty Vic's nod of approval, haha. You go fashionista! I read a quote recently that made me think of you. "once you have traveled the voyage never ends...the mind can never break off from the journey" So, cheer's to you dear niece as you embark on this new and exciting journey! oxox, Aunty Vic
Hey Terah,
ReplyDeleteThis is Dad and Ali, sittin' in Ali's room reading your blog and wishin' we were there to partake in the fun and adventure. Where are the photos taken? And what is that beautiful building in the photo? Is it a square or the University of Seville? We liked the story of you drinking. Dad approves. :) Just kidding. He now has to check to see if you updated your blog every couple of hours.
The blog is great- kind of like a Rick Steve's travel journey. We are glad that you email us once in a while, but it sounds like you are keeping busy which is good. A lot of people have been asking me about how you are doing in Spain too. Even Ms. Oshiro and Mr. Clarke are curious and they told me to say hi and good luck! :) Talk to you soon, and I figured out my Skype password for alisha.summers2 so use that one instead of Alisha Winters because that one is lame. -.- Love you!
Dad and Ali