#romancinthelanguages

In high school, whenever I thought about Europe, my mind would kind of glaze over the Iberian Peninsula and omit it from the places I wanted to visit someday. It was only when a friend and I were planning out the trips we could take after we won the lottery that I realized how little I knew about Spain and its history compared to what I knew about France, the UK, and Italy. And now, knowing significantly less about the city I will be living in than last semester, and never having visited, I'm getting kind of nervous. 

First of all, I have a roommate next semester. I've never met her before, and I'm worried. My brain keeps providing me with what-ifs. What if she's a hipster? What if she's not chill? What if she's a neurotic mess? What if she's clingy?What if she's a neat freak? What if she doesn't like me? What if she doesn't get me? What if she judges me prematurely? What if I'm a terrible roommate? What if I fart in my sleep? What if I say mean things to her while I'm asleep? I don't know why I'm so nervous about it. I've had roommates before. We've gotten along. I certainly wasn't this nervous about meeting living with people last year. Maybe it's because it was a dorm and it was to be expected that I dorm with someone unknown. This time, we're living in someone's apartment. Sharing a room. Probably a small-ish room. I'm a messy person. Small-ish rooms and I don't mix. Especially when I'm sharing with someone else. I guess I'll have to be extra neat this semester. 

Second, I've never been to Madrid. What is the city like? I don't know. What are the big monuments? I don't know. Where should I go? I don't know. The only thing I know about Madrid is that they speak Spanish there, and that they have a good soccer team. Yep. That's it. Soccer and Spanish. Nothing else. My brain keeps trying to create an image of Madrid as a city, but what it ends up doing is combining New York, Paris, San Diego and Los Angeles into what it thinks--what I think--Madrid is and will be. Last night, I had a dream that I was late to the first day of orientation because I walked the wrong way when I tried to get to school. I walked for about 15 minutes down to the Opera Garnier, but that was the distance it was from my Paris homestay. Then I realized I walked south instead of north and turned around. I had to walk past Charles de Gaulle International Airport to get to the north side of town, where I saw a road that looked suspiciously like the one I live on now. Out of the blue, a fountain that strongly resembled one in Versailles popped up. I finally got to school five hours late. My brain is freaking out because I've never been in Spain, and from the get-go, I'll be expected to live there and function properly. "How can you be going to live in a city you've never been to?" screams my brain. "You're not prepared! Even the Spanish is different there!" *Le sigh* What can I do but endure these stressful dreams?

And finally, what if my Spanish doesn't measure up? Whenever I speak with my family, I speak Spanglish, but nowadays I'm speaking a strange combination of English, French and Spanish. They'll laugh me out of town when I get to Madrid. Plus, my accent isn't Spanish in the least. It's about as Mexican as you can get. I'll have to learn to speak the way do, and watch what I say so I don't insult someone unwittingly. 

Five years ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, or even what university was my first choice. I had a vague idea that going NYU would be cool. I had no clue as to what I would want to study or what direction I wanted to steer my life in. I was a freshman in high school at a new school that was crazy. "College oriented" they said; "academically obsessed" I thought. Most everyone knew what they were doing and where they saw themselves in five years. Me, I just wanted to get through high school. If someone had told me that I would be studying at NYU and getting the chance to study abroad twice in the same academic school year, well, I wouldn't have laughed in their face and backed away slowly, but I would have certainly thought it was an awesome life I could only dream about. 

Looking back at this semester, I'm jealous of myself. I don't mean in a "na-na-na-poo-poo look what I got to do and you didn't" sort of way, but in an incredulous "holy crap I actually lived this" kind of way. First of all, I got to live in Europe. But not just Europe, in Paris. Paris, the City of Lights, the City of Romance, where every cliché romance novel takes it's heroine to walk along the Seine munching on a croissant and sipping wine. The Paris of fairytales and love story. But that wasn't my Paris. My Paris was better than that. I didn't just visit Paris and stick to wandering around the Louvre. I made it my own. One of my friends once told me that home is where she is, not where she's from, and I think that it's a very good way to look at life. So I did. I rearranged my room, I picked out my grocery store, I made my daily commute, I wandered around Paris and discovered things that--while I was not the first to ever see them--became my own very important Parisian landmarks (almost as important as the Eiffel Tower). I loved Notre Dame (ok,ok, everyone goes there), the Pont des Arts, the Arènes de Lutece, that fountain at the end of that one road, that little café we found in the Marais, the Cluny-La Sorbonne metro stop, the Pont d'Europe, the walk down to the Opera, and so on. It's the little details I found that were amazing and will stay with me forever. 

Of course, we can't forget about the classes. After all, that's what I was there for. Writing. History. Architecture. Literature. They all contributed not only to my academic enrichment, but to my cultural and overall experience in Paris. To paraphrase Easy A: What we study in class often seems to have some sort of weird correlation with our lives at the moment. To be fair, I was in France, learning about France and French. We could go look at the flying buttresses, or visit museums to complement our lessons, or go to the Opera. The Opera. I regret not going to the Opera Garnier for something, but seeing Gounod's Faust and Nouriyev's Cendrillon at the Opera Bastille wasn't too shabby. The cultural opportunities provided by NYU in France were amazing. Meeting renowned storytellers like Mimi Barthelemy and bestselling authors like Faïza Guène are not everyday experiences. The overnight trips provided for were 1) free and 2) a great opportunity to have guided tours of other notable French cities and landmarks. I was able to attend three out of the four trips (and one could go on all four if one tried hard enough). I got to go to the Loire Valley (the land of castles and more castles), Lyon (the second largest city in France), and--my favorite trip--the Dordogne. There, we saw cave paintings, ancient cave paintings that were kilometers into the earth, painted high above our heads, and the first use of perspective in art. And not only that, it was a fantastic trip to go on because it was so small, only twelve people, and it was the longest, a whole weekend. A spontaneous trip to some elevated gardens, Les Jardins Suspendus de Marqueyssac, provided some much-needed inspiration to a then-uninspired idea. Sure, we spent a lot of time on the bus on that trip, but the scenery was worth it. 

At the moment, I'm in New York for a day, visiting my school friends. I leave tomorrow morning for California, bright and early. However, let me tell you about my day. 

I woke up at the ungodly hour of 8 am because of the twice accursed jet-lag. Not wanting to wake the whole apartment/room/suite, I went online just to kill some time and see what everyone was up to post-Paris. I happened upon this link, a tweet by Darren Criss. Now I adore Darren Criss and his music, so idly, I clicked it, just to see what it was. It turned out to be a concert information page. Of course I wanted to go! Having recently rediscovered Darren's music, I checked the information, thinking in the back of my mind that I wouldn't be able to go or it would be sold out. But it was in NY, within walking distance of my friend's dorm. So of course, I proceeded to proposition a proposal to the friends I'm staying with: Darren Criss concert on my only day in NYC, yay or nay? 

Eventually, only one of my friends was able to go (curse finals). In any case, the concert was wonderful. It was at Joe's Pub, a fantastic little place on Lafayette St. It sits about 200 people (I think... I suck at guesstimating), which is a different experience than a huge arena, so that was nice. During the concert, Darren said he was super tired, only having slept a couple hours the night before. During Jealousy, his exhausted started showing, messing up and forgetting the lyrics, but making a huge deal out of it. We didn't mind of course, but he seemed to be beating himself up over it internally. However, afterwards, the whole aura/vibe of the show became a little more relaxed and easygoing. He seemed a little sad afterwards, maybe because of the Jealousy fiasco. 

I got some footage of his songs, a bit of Jealousy, Don't You, and Teenage Dream (found here). He's every bit as nice and awesome and talented in person as he seems in his videos and interviews. We got to meet him, Charlene Kaye and Theo Katzman afterwards. My friend and I didn't really get to talk to any of them really, or get pictures (no cameras allowed); they were in the middle of a conversation amongst themselves. But you know what, we got to see an honest-to-goodness live Darren Criss show, which was every bit as fantastic as you think it is. 

Kind of meeting him made me realize something that I re-realize every time I meet a celebrity; they're just people. Seriously, everyone says that ALL THE TIME with regards to a celebrity, but we don't realize it until we see that this celebrity isn't perfect like we like to think. It's a weird thought, to think that these people to whom we ascribe numerous traits (whether they be deserved or not) are just people like you and me, with weird thoughts, bad days, and flaws. 

Goodbye Paris, it's been fun. Thanks for having sunshine today on this, the day of my departure. I'll miss your baguettes and rivers and monuments, but I won't miss the creepers and being packed like a sardine on the train. I'll miss the people, my friends, but thank goodness school's done and I get to go see my family. 

I'll be in New York for a day, with my friends. Then on to home to see my little sister, hug my mom and dad, eat mexican food and have fun. 

I'm really going to miss everyone here.

Curse finals for ruining our last week with tests and papers.

Can't wait to go home.