A Brooklyn Dream Come True...

This is so long overdue, but here it goes! 

I've survived my first official week in Spain. I wake up everyday thinking that somehow I've traded places with someone else, and by chance I'm living their life. I remember telling my sister that, and her response was "you better pinch yourself", and believe me I did just that until my skin looked blueish-purple. LOL. I dreamt of this moment for a long time, I've desired to live in this moment for a while. I've always said to myself, or said to anyone who would listen to me dream with my eyes open that I wanted to move out of the country, embrace a new culture, learn a new language, and most importantly LIVE in a place that was so far in a dream, without realizing that it was so close to happening.

I'm currently living in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Spain (which is just 20 kilometers from the center of Madrid), and I am here after 2 1/2 years of hoping, wishing, and dreaming. Keep in mind that not everyday you hear about a friend, or a relative receiving a grant to move overseas and partake in something that is beautiful, exciting, new, different, and so many other things, but one thing I do know for sure, is that after this journey that I will share with all of you, I will be departing from Spain a wiser, dedicated, strong, and powerful young woman! Back in February 2013 I put in the application for a program named  Teach, Travel, and Learn as a Cultural Ambassador in Spain for the second time around after being wait listed the first time :-(. It was a very sad moment for me at that time because I thought I worked so hard in getting the application finally completed (mind you, the application was in SPANISH), and I just knew I was doing something! Tuh! WRONG! Yes, I fulfilled the requirement to complete the application, but my application number was so far in the sky, that they couldn't reach me, and besides submitting the day of the deadline probably didn't help me at all! In the words of mi madre "God Knows Best, and HE works in HIS own time". Yes he does! It just wasn't my time then, and I had to accept that. I had no choice but to accept that, because if I didn't I wouldn't have applied for the following year, and I wouldn't be here getting my feelings out about my first week in Spain. :-)

I've packed my whole life (or what I could pack in my suitcase), made it to JFK airport with a  hour and a half to spare, to depart from New York to Barajas airport in Madrid to work as a English Language Assistant to high school students. I remember that Thursday, the day of my leaving Brooklyn, my family, my boyfriend, friends, things that were so familiar to me, I packed and unpacked my suitcase at least 6 or 7 time. I was so nervous, I had no idea what would be on the other side of that plane door, I saw what it looked like through the window seat (which I didn't have to begin with, but my plane buddy Alex was so nice enough to switch..he probably saw that scared little girl looking back at him), but I didn't know what it would feel like, smell like, and be like. All I knew of Madrid was that was the place to be, and if you didn't want to be there, you better make your way there. It is the City Center, Life is happening there, all those parties, the people, the music. I know touching Spain's ground that it wouldn't happen that way, but the fact that I am living just 20 kilometers away, and I have no problem meeting friends, it makes this time here so much better.  Teaching in Spain as an English Language Assistant is just the half of it, I'll be living here for 9 months, I would be getting paid, I can travel all of Europe, I will drink the BEST wine, I will eat plenty of food, and great food at that. Most importantly I will enhance my knowledge of Spanish  Spaniards DO NOT speak English. Luckily I am staying with a family where the lady of the house and her children do speak English, but nonetheless I will LEARN and SPEAK Spanish. I mean why not? Spanish is such a sexy language, it's the language of LOVE!! And, I am a girl who loves, love. 

More to come though...

Ciao.