Out to the Ocean

I can't believe my eyes when I look at the calendar anymore: July 20... July 22... July 23... etc. Where in the world has my summer gone?! I am completely and utterly confused as it felt like yesterday Hunter gave me his Spanish flag to hang up in my room. News flash: that was three months ago. I remember posting a picture to Instagram with the hashtag #4monthsleft and that felt like forever away, but here I am today realizing I have nothing more than probably a month, perhaps a month and a week. My adventure is nearing its beginning which is so incredibly exciting but also so incredibly frightening. I am a fan of the "Traveling" page on Facebook and the page posts inspiring quotes frequently, things that usually make me forget how scared I am to leave.

Some of you might be wondering why I would be scared at all. Well, it depends on the day and the time of day, as odd as that sounds. One moment I can be jumping up an down, so enthralled that Spain is so close, and then 20 minutes later I will not want to leave my house ever again. Why? The longest time I have ever spent away from my family was 10 days when I first traveled to Europe (Germany and Holland specifically,) but even then I was with friends who were successfully able to keep me entertained and feeling like I still had a sense of home. This time, I will jumping into a place where I have limited information about (compared to Hamburg, Germany and Den Haag, Holland where they are two are the largest cities in those countries; Cedeira, Spain has a short wikipedia page and few pictures,) a family whom I have emailed once so far (which was nearly two months ago,) my friends are scattered across the country (and the closest "friend," aka person who I have not met but we are Facebook friends, lives an hour and a half away from me,) and I will be thrown into complete Spanish/Galician immersion. Oh, did I forget to mention that my region of Spain speaks a different kind of Spanish? Take French, Portugese, Celtic, and Spanish, put them into a blender, and wait until they make a beautiful puree. That is what Galician is like. For example, "the giraffe" in Spanish is "una girafa." Simple, right? In Galician it is "a xirafa." Kind of similar... The x's throw me off though. "Red" is "rojo" in Spanish while in Galician it's "vermello." Some things are very similar, and some are not. All of this combined can be overwhelming and scares me sometimes. Having to create a home in a desert place (to me at least) where I am very different and most likely won't blend in is why I am scared. However, there is a bright side that I try to focus on: if I am going to start life, my own life, then I might as well dive in head first. There are many ways to enter a pool (if you're following my metaphor) and the stairs are NOT one of them. So, I make my way to the diving board and if I am going to live away from home and make my life mine, then I want to be totally submerged and all at once, shock my system.

But enough about that, let's see some pictures and learn some facts!

 

See that "A"? That's me! Right on the ocean! Speaking of the ocean...

 

  

There are very few things in life that make me as happy as the ocean. Doesn't even have to be a beach, but simply being at the ocean, any ocean, just makes me feel... AH! I can't even describe it. So in conclusion: huzzah ocean!

 

 

Did I also mention that they have beautiful fields/hills like this one? I get the privilege of having both! 

 

 

And they fish... A lot... As mentioned in my previous post, they are known for their Tuna fishing and in fact hold a Percebe festival every year! What is Percebe you ask?

 

 

Well... It's this... Cool looking, but aparently they are eaten during the festival. Percebe is literally translated to "notices" from Portugese but are more commonly known to people around the world as Goose Barnacle. We'll see how willing I am to eat the various kinds of shellfish and sea life they have...

 

The travels have begun: Hunter has left for Paraguay (as well as all the others from my district who are headed to Peru, Argentina, South America in general) and my Facebook friends who are also going to Spain have begun to put in their notices for work, coundting down days, and packing, not to mention the hundreds of people who post in the international Rotary Facebook group asking where people are going, giving advice for future outbound students, and attempting to readjust to life back home. And me? Still sitting here at work wondering more about what my mom is making for dinner rather than when I'm going to have my suitcase ready to go. I did finally pay off my trip last week which means I can now, patiently, wait for my itinerary to be issued to me! I will send in my transcripts soon and hopefully sign up for classes and hear from my host family again soon.

 

Despite my love of oceans (side note: shark week is approaching... SHARK WEEK. HOO HA HA.) I know that I do fail and I do sink in my faith. Easily I can make it seem like my hard work has gotten me to this point and my life will be controlled by me, but as much as I sometimes wish that were the case, Jesus is calling me to walk on the water with Him and all I can ask is that He keeps my eyes above the waves but that I would also submit to the ocean of grace He wants me to drown in. Trust is hard, but at this point, it's all I have since there is nothing left to lose.

 

~Ashlyn