Late Night Dreams

2 p.m. Housing details received.

Name of my host mom, my roomate, and my new home adress included.

6 p.m. Conversation with my close friend.

“Are you nervous and excited for Spain??”

“Hmm, honestly, I haven’t thought about it that much.”

“But you’ve been planning for a year. You had photoshopped a picture of yourself in Sevilla and put it above your bed.”

“….OK let me clarify, that was a gift from a friend. I don’t even know how to-”

“You just seem so calm about the whole thing.”

“I guess it just hasn’t hit me quite yet.”

8 p.m.

Should I take these boots? Will I need more shorts… or more jeans? This is a nice dress. I could wear that in Spain. Why is this suitcase so small???

Why do I still feel like I’m packing for a weekend trip to San Diego ?

Muffin… get out of my suitcase.

He can come with, right?

3 a.m.

My eyes open 6 hours earlier than they should. The room is pitch black. I can hear the waves of the ocean near my house crashing onto the shore. But that’s not what suddenly worries me.

OK. I’m living in Spain in 9 days. Oh.. my….goodness.

Passport. Euros. Packing. Calling home. School. New friends. Walking. Flying. Traveling. Eating. Culture.

It’s funny how everything suddenly seems so much more urgent late at night.

What if I get lost in Seville? What if I can’t communicate with other people? What if…

Thank the Lord I can’t keep my eyes open for more than a minute when I wake up at night. Otherwise, I don’t know how long this would go on for.

Today

I’m going to tell myself these little worries are normal. I’m more excited than anything else, and my only moments of anxiety appear at night when I have nothing else to distract me.

My confidence soared a little when I bartered in Spanish for a poncho in Little Mexico, a Spanish-speaking part of San Diego, last weekend. Okay, okay, maybe I can do this. 

In fact, I know I can because I am ready for a change of scenery.

A Spanish proverb reads:

“Con un cambio de actividad se renuevan las energías.”

“A change is as good as a rest.”

I’ll just say that a change is even better.

Can I get one Visa, please?

“You here for the Spanish Consulate?”

The bulky security guard reclining behind the desk tapped on two notebooks:

Spain Sign-In          Argentina Sign-in

I had obsessed over Sevilla long enough to know exactly where I was going.

I was going to the cultural center of Spain – the epicenter of bull fighting and gazpacho. I was going to the city where I would defeat clumsiness and learn how to flamenco dance, while overcoming my fear of foreign verb conjugations.

But first, I had to go that dang consulate.

The tales of the visa acquisition process had stressed me from afar. Feeling as though my appointment was already nail-biting close to my departure date (does it HAVE to take at least four weeks to get a stamp in my passport!?) I was left triple and quadruple checking my documents.

As I waited for my name to be called at the consulate, I watched others speak to the staff. Most of the people in the room were Spaniards, and I got shivers listening to their conversations.

Ah! I know what he just said!

Yes sir, you. I may look like a shortbread cookie American blonde but I can understand you perfectly well. Mmhmm.

Will it be the same in Spain?? Will I be able to communicate with people? What if I can’t order something in a restaurant? What if I need to ask for directions in Spanish…

KELSEY KLOSS!!

The shouting of my name cut my wild thoughts short.

Ugh, here we go… I hope I have all these documents…

The woman behind a glass window labeled VISADOS rapidly listed off the documents I had already organized.

“And your proof of funds?” she said.

“Well, that’s included in the letter from CC-CS,” I pointed out.

“No.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No.”

“Let me show you.. ‘La Señorita Kloss ha pagado todos los gastos asociados…'” I read to her in Spanish. “See?”

“I need a notarized letter from your parents,” she said.

“……You.. do!?”

GAH! I’m not going to get my Visa because I don’t have the notarized letter… I’m not going to go to Spain… I’m not going to learn how to flamenco….

“You can send it in,” she added shortly.

PHEW. Talk about being strung a little too tight over this whole thing. I walked away from the window feeling as though my heart had fallen off a treadmill.

Despite that small setback, everything else went smoothly and I left the consulate within 10 minutes. Now I’ll just be counting the days until I receive that little stamp…

A Spanish proverb reads:

La paciencia es un árbol de raíz amarga pero de frutos muy dulces.

Patience is a tree with a bitter root, yet of very sweet fruit.

The next 56 days of waiting until Sevilla may mean just that.