demasiado frio

Categories: spain, tarheels, fire, library

So it´s still really really cold here. I keep telling myself it´s just as cold in Pennsylvania, but it´s one thing to be cold in a normally gray city, and another to be in a Mediterranean country where it´s been freezing, snowing, blowing wind, and otherwise downright cold for the last two weeks. I threw a fit about it today. I may throw another tomorrow.

My internship is going pretty well so far. I´ve worked* in the newspaper collection and acquisitions department, visited the science and medical libraries, and working on a translation of the library´s web site. I tend to understand most of what people are saying to me, but answering direct questions is still hard. You miss one little word (they say "when," i think i hear "why"), and my answer doesn´t make a whole lot of sense!

*work here signifies the librarians telling me what they do in their department. If you don´t think that´s work, you're probably fluent in 5 languages and i don't want to hear it.

I was thinking about the idea of homesickness this morning as I was REVELING in UNC´s defeat of Dook last night. I missed the game, as US sports are a blip on the map here (had i wanted to watch soccer, i´d have no problem, but NCAA hoops is not to be found. Not in Pamplona at least.), but we got a call around midnight last night from Tom´s dad confirming what we already knew. Dook fell in the Dean Dome last night. I read in the Herald-Sun this morning (yay online 24-7 news!) about the two bonfires on Franklin St. and the crowds of students out late. I would be there if i weren´t here...lighting my own couch on fire.

Anyway, I was bumming about missing the best UNC basketball season in a long while --checking the scores online ain´t the same as getting riser seats like some of my SILS friends did :( --and i was debating whether i was "homesick" or not. I don't think so...while I´m definitely sick for a Carolina spring, I'm glad i'm here, even if i´m periodically miserable about not being able to order a veggie burger (or able to find someone who knows what a vegetarian is), to go to the grocery store at 3pm, or get access to the university gym here. But i don´t have that longing for home that i had when i went to summer camp when I was 12, or when I went away to college. It´s nice that Tom and Meg are here--we can bask in each others' misery and scream in english in our apartment about how crazy things are.

Okay, i´m trying not to become a ranter. I´m trying to keep this blog more reflective than venting, so perhaps I sign off now. Plus, I´m almost out of time here at the public library.

Only 9 days before we go to England to visit my aunt! We´ve heard rumors that in England, they SPEAK ENGLISH and COOK FOR VEGETARIANS!!

Hasta luego--