We had our first meeting today with our Field Studies and Seminar professor, Katrin (probs spelling it wrong).  She is pretty much as neat-o as rumored.  Mostly, I’m really glad this class will lend some context to the things I’m seeing here in Barcelona, and elsewhere.  She asked us to go around the room and share our expectations for our study abroad here, and I realized once again that I really have no expectations.  I have brought very few preconceptions to Europe.  I know nothing about it.  When I was a kid reading National Geographic, I skipped to the articles involving jungles, volcanoes, savannas, and tiny east Asian villages.  Europe was booooorrinnnngggg.  My family is medium-large and frugal so my idea of traveling was packing my favorite stuffed animal and climbing into a minivan with my parents and 3 siblings for a 16-hour drive to relatives in Texas, or, for a special occasion, 24 to Colorado.  I have always wanted to visit foreign places, but I certainly never saw myself going to Europe.  That was someone else’s dream.

The Clemson Architecture program sends nearly all of its undergrads abroad — to Barcelona, Genoa, or Charleston.  Charleston is a really great (and, I hear, really challenging) program but I wanted to be more adventurous.  I’m sure Genoa is fantastic, but at the time these decisions were being made, I thought if I had to see/hear about Classical and Renaissance architecture one more time I might throw up.  Y por supuesto queraba utilizar mis semesters estudiando Español.

So here I am.  An opportunity unique in every way, and especially in that I will be imagining new places and seeing them with an instant gratification that is antithetical to the months and years of waiting, saving, and planning that normally precedes a tour of Europe.  The dreams are improvised in the face of their imminent fulfillment.  This afternoon I stared at a map and decided that I want to see Northern Spain and a bit of Portugal.  And you know what?  One of these days I’m just gonna do it.

Three things of myself that I have had in the past:

1. An ability to find contentment wherever I was and in whatever circumstances
2. Eagerness for new and challenging experiences
3. Confidence to imagine a unique and satisfying future for myself

These elements have been missing from my life for a little while now.  Their waning is perhaps symptomatic of a lot of spiritual and emotional turbulence in recent years, which needs its own cure. Recovering those 3 things is my non-geographic goal for this trip.  Strangely, I made great progress today by doing a little sketching.  It’s a quiet, intense little exercise I have neglected too long.

This post is called “Katrin y la Cocina del Diablo” (Katrin and the Stove from the Devil) because the stove has sabotaged our electricity again, this time with a loud SNAP, a flash of light, and enough smoke to thoroughly freak out Ellis and I.  The Desk People say no one will fix it till tomorrow.  I’m not sure I made clear that the electricity won’t reset this time.  Lol.  It’s pretty dark.