I hate running, so I ran a 10K in Spain.

Yeah, you read that right. I ran a 10K. Okay, really it was more like a 10.5K which is somewhere around 6 miles. And granted, I didn't run the whole time, but I did finish it and I certainly wasn't the last person to finish, either. So, yay!


Here is a group of us "very serious" runners pre-race:






And this is pre-race at the Carrera Nocturnal Guadalquivir...with about 15,000 other people waiting for the race to start. I'm serious...I really did participate in this race. It was kind of a big deal, I guess.

Okay, so this is how the story goes...

Our school had a sign up for this totally free race that takes place at night and goes along the river that runs through the city. They block off tons of busy streets because there are tons of runners and every body starts by this waterpark called Isla Mágica (which I've heard isn't really magical) and ends up in the Estadio Olympico in Sevilla. Like I was saying, this is a pretty big deal. Well, I didn't actually sign up for it because for the 3 weeks before I was thinking, that would be fun, but running and I get along worse than the sun and I get along, and the sun and I don't get along well at all. Whereas the sun and I have a love-hate relationship where I love it, but it hates me, running and I have a mutual disregard for each other. And so far, we've both been pretty happy just avoiding each other, let me tell you.

Well, even though running and I severely dislike each other, I was being bombarded with people who kept asking me if I was going to run in the race (since it was free and they gave you free t-shirts and goodie bags at the end) and they all began to plant seeds of doubt in my mind. Afterall, I though, it would be cool to say that I ran in a 10K in Spain. None of my friends back home could say that and that could be another cool accomplishment that I could add to my list here. So for days I kept going back and forth between doing it and not doing it, completely unable to decide (as always), but leaning towards not doing it because my last few experiences with running always ended with me feeling like I needed to puke my guts out after an embarassingly short amount of time.

Somehow, a bunch of the girls (mainly Heather) talked me into it by saying that they can't really run either, so the idea was to fast walk/power walk as much of the race as possible. Well power walking is one thing that I can do, so I figured, heck, why not! Granted I never signed up, but I could still participate, right? Right!

And that's how I ended up going to the race in the first place: completely unprepared. I hadn't run any distance in a long time, and although I walk tons everyday to get to class, go home, and go out with my friends, running and walking are definitely not equivalent. Definitely. So race day rolled around and I finally told myself, "Self, you're going to do this, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Get excited!" And I was excited. That morning at school when everybody asked me for the 10th time if I was going I told them yes and we all made plans to meet at a bus stop at one of the big plazas and take a bus where the race was going to start. We went home and ate our lunches with our señoras (we had pasta--bad idea!), spent the rest of the day not doing homework or studying for our tests that were coming up, and either ate an early supper (8 o'clock is early for supper) or didn't really eat much of a supper at all (we eat at 10 o'clock at my house...and that's when the race started), and finally met up at 9 to head out to the race.

When we arrived, we were immediately surprised by the mass of people that was crowding around. Our group of 20 or so Americans tried to stick together some, but there were tons of people for as far as the eye could see and then farther beyond that too. After waiting for nearly 1/2 an hour for the race to start, it did with a bang and we all shoved our way into the road where we joined our fellow runners. My friend Heather and I decided we were sticking together through thick or thin because a) we knew running that far alone would be super boring for us and it would probably make it even less fun than it was already going to be, b) she was keeping my inhaler in her bag, and c) we figured it would be a good idea to have a teammate in case anything happened and one of us couldn't communicate with emergency personnel. Hey, even though you pronounce "asthma" and "inhaler" similarly in English and Spanish, it's possible that in freaking out you wouldn't actually get those words out. We were prepared, let me tell you!

So we began. And we jogged with the masses. And we were cut off by people. And we had people wipe sweaty arms on us as they passed. And we cheered for camera men who were filming. And we power walked. And we had old ladies passing us. And we were encouraged by all the people cheering on the sides of the road. And we had cars honking their horns for us. And we jogged some more. And we passed some people. And we never saw the end of the runners. And we finally finished the race. After going through all of the ups and downs of the race including dealing with bleeding blisters and shin splints, Heather and I finally finished, got our goodie bags (they gave me one even though I didn't have a number) and reunited with our group. Yay!

By the time we all left the stadium busses weren't running and we were going to have to walk the hour and half to get home. Our reaction: O_O YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! By that time we were completely dead and our legs didn't really function anymore. Well, one of the student ministries directors at the school told us if we followed her (instead of walking the direction towards our barrios (neighborhoods)) we had a chance of finding a cab that (for a kind of high price since it was so late) could take us to our homes. We chanced it with the cab, unlike most of our group, and about 10 minutes after splitting up we were greated with taxi heaven. I was so happy to be in a cab. So happy! So instead of arriving at home at 2 like everyone else in our group, my tired worn out body crawled into my cama at 1 after taking a few tylenol. Laying down has also never felt so good in my whole life.

And now here I am today. I'm still a little sore, although today was much better since I could actually walk down stairs for the first time since Friday without having to hold onto both the rail and the wall. I don't think I'll be running another race soon. This is definitely my first and last race....at least for a while. Maybe in a few years when I have again given up on running someone else will convince me to give it another try. I draw the line at 10Ks though. There is no way I'm even going near a marathon!

Bus Station Adventures

Today was a day of some firsts.

My first time at the Plaza de Armas Bus Station.

My first time buying a ticket for and riding a public bus (think greyhound) for a substantial period of time.

My first time actually swimming in the Atlantic Ocean (and on the other side of the world, no less).

And, my day wouldn't have been complete without also having met my first Spanish creeper. Very fulfilling, I must say.

Okay, so here is the long version of the story:

A few of the girls had invited me to go to the beach and I definitely wanted to hit a beach before it got too cold. I mean, swimming in the Atlantic on the other side of the ocean?! Sure! So we met this morning at the big bus station about 3 kilometers or so from our apartment. We bought our bus tickets and just missed the 10 o'clock bus that they didn't really tell us about, so we went down to the bus waiting area to get in line for the 11 o'clock bus. As we were waiting, a couple of girls and I decided we would sit down on the edge of the floor near where the busses park because what few benches that there were in the area were completely full. Well, out of nowhere this Rico Suave looking guy (think epitome of Spanish creeper: mostly unbuttoned shirt, lots of cologne, wearing a rosary around his neck) approches us. We thought he was going to tell us that we couldn't sit there, but when we asked he just started chatting with us and sat down between me and my friend Danielle. The rest of our group was staring from across the other side of the waiting area and laughing and when Javi (that was his name) wasn't looking at one of us, we would look back at them and make faces that said, more or less, "OH MY GOSH, what do we do?!?!?!". Well, eventually we got up because a bus was coming to park where we were sitting (thank goodness!) and, as he was waiting for another bus on the other side of the station, he left us after that. I told Danielle that I would never forget her because of that moment.

Then we had to wait for our bus. Well, the thing about busses in Spain (and perhaps all of Europe or everywhere, I wouldn't know) is that the concept of line doesn't really exist when there are no specified queues. So we all stood in a line for 20 0r 30 minutes or so in front of what we thought was our bus. Then, a group of about 20 or 30 people just moved to an adjacent spot that had no bus. We had no idea what was going on, and then we realized that the bus that we were in line for was not going to Matalascañas. So we tried to move to the other line too, but by that point the whole area was a relative moshpit of prospective bus passengers trying to get onto that bus. Miraculously two from our group were able to squeeze through, but the rest of us were left to wait for another bus that they were going to bring because there were so many people. I guess they don't keep track of how many tickets they sell either because I'm pretty sure everybody who was waiting couldn't fit on two buses either.

Anyway, we finally made it to the beach in Matalascañas and it was a wonderful day. The water was perfect and the breeze created a welcome break from the sweltering days in Sevilla. I did get sunburned a bit, mostly on my legs, but I expect that in a day or two I will be fine and slightly tan. Yay! Also, I finally got rid of my t-shirt sleeve lines that I've had all summer. Too bad it's almost fall! And the end of the day was perfect too. We walked to the bus stop in Matalascañas, prepared to enter another battle with the crazies in order to return, but instead we happened to make friends with a wonderful lady who had gotten there first and kept everyone in line and told them just exactly how this whole bus business was going to go down. She was fierce, I don't think she would have taken any crap from anybody. And she told the bus driver how everything was going to go down too. Spaniards are great.

¡Saludos desde Sevilla!

That's Greetings from Seville! for all of you guiris (foreigners)

I have successfully made it to Seville, Spain, my home for the next 3 1/2 months. Weird. VERY weird. I can already tell that this trip is going to shape me and mold me and I have only been here for one week! In all honesty, I don't know if I can describe all of the emotions that are pulsing through me, even now. It is a crazy mixture of feeling at home and completely comfortable while at the same time feeling like I am in an entirely different world with intracacies that I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. I guess it really feels like this is a home that I never new existed while at the same time being an completely foreign place, and somehow that makes sense to me.

Before we even left O'Hare I had begun to try to prepare myself for what awaited me at the end of our 8 hour flight to Madrid and then after we arrived in Sevilla. I knew from talking to other people who had been overseas and those who had studied with this program that many things were going to be very different and that I'd just have to jump in and be gung-ho about them in order to really appreciate all of it. In order to do that, I have had to pretty much throw all of my concepts of "normal" out the window and just start from scratch. So far that has worked pretty well...not having expectations means that everything is better than you imagined. That isn't to say that sometimes it isn't difficult to do things that you've always done a certain way differently.

I hope to put up another blog soon that is more anecdotal, but for now this will have to suffice. Here is some pertinent info that explains more of what's going on right now:

We did begin classes on Monday and I love them all and all of the
professors are fabulous. My host family is also fabulous (we have our señora and two other señoras (her good friends whom she just moved in with literally one week before we arrived). But that isn't all of the people in our house. I have two roommies (both of whom I go to school with at JBU) and there are two German students who will be living with us for the next month or so. One of their friends might also join us by the end of the week because her current living situation is subpar. So in a few days
we may become a casita of 9 women. It's bound to be interesting! For
now at least we have tons of fun and our apartment is very large
and sufficiently accomodates all of us.

Well, to end (and I think I'm going to start doing this at the end of all of my blogs), I would like to share a few of the things that are noticibly different here that I am having to adjust to:

• No going barefoot. EVER. Unless you are in your bed or in the bath, there is no reason for you to not be wearing some kind of footwear be in regular shoes, flip flops, or zapatillas (slippers).
  
• On time doesn't really exist. Stuff just happens when it's going to happen and people don't ever show up early.
  
• Meal times. We eat lunch between 2 or 3 and I don't think we've eaten supper before 10.
  
• Living in a city. Sevilla is a bustling city (not huge, but decently sized) and I live on one of the busy streets. It's normal to hear trash trucks coming around at 1am and sirens and horns at all hours of the day or night.
  
• The heat. It's super hot, at least this time of year, and at least this year. People keep telling us that this is uncommon, but it's been steadily warm since we've arrived. Today was the first cloudy day and the high was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We rejoiced. And since most buildings/stores/homes don't have airconditioning, you make do with what you've got: changing out of your nice clothes as soon as you get home for siesta, and abanicos (old-school Spanish fans)....I'm definitely going to have to buy one.