Midwesterner Abroad https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/ Wed, 8 Apr 2026 22:17:23 GMT World Nomads Adventures Photos of our first apartment in Barcelona https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/9383/Spain/apartment-piso Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/9383/Spain/apartment-piso#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/9383/Spain/apartment-piso Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:42:00 GMT 0 Okay, so here are some wedding videos where I don't look like I'm carrying twins. Buh. The aftershock of a wedding where you are still living with your in-laws is that nothing really changes. Until September nothing really can. So sad. Oh well, I'm lucky, I have someone (lots of someones) to love and a place to live. https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6957/Spain/Yay-Wedding-Videos Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6957/Spain/Yay-Wedding-Videos#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6957/Spain/Yay-Wedding-Videos Sat, 7 Jul 2007 19:36:00 GMT 1 Technically Spain is hardly foriegn anymore. I'm very used to Spain. Certain concepts, like that drinking cold water or having a fan on me, or going barefoot will give me pneumonia willl always annoy me. Just like the idea of no serving utensils and people peeing on the street. But even so, it's more familiar than foriegn. The hardest thing is being away from my people, my family and friends. My love for Jesus and his family is very strong and helps me through it, but first loves can't be substituted and your first love (hopefully, or at least if you are as lucky as I am) is the family you are born into. One of the better things about living so far away from your family, 7 time zone hours away to be exact, is that in the middle of the night when you have a terrible nightmare, it's not the middle of the night for them, so you can call your mom-brother-sister-father-best-friend and sob on the phone to them, and make them make sure your big brother wasn't in the horrible situation your crazy unconscious decided would be a good in-flight cliff-hanger for the 12am-8 sleep shift. The bad part is that with housing so expensive there's nowhere in the apartment you can go without waking up someone in the time zone while you're making your relatives phone around to calm your now hysterical waking self. I thank God everyday for making me a strong enough person to do this and then thank him again for my family, another essential ingredient in the mix. Oh how I miss them all. Please everyone be extra careful!!!! Let bad dreams and bad dreams come to nothing https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6950/Spain/Nightmares-in-a-foriegn-land Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6950/Spain/Nightmares-in-a-foriegn-land#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6950/Spain/Nightmares-in-a-foriegn-land Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:09:00 GMT 0 LALALA https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/4155/Spain/Boda-Espaa Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/4155/Spain/Boda-Espaa#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/4155/Spain/Boda-Espaa Fri, 6 Jul 2007 02:18:00 GMT 0 So I went and married Jesus. No vows of chastity required. Two wedding events down(here in Spain), another two to go(in JCMO). Friday in the courthouse was more relaxed and free. I made a deal with Jesus' dad that if he would let up on me about the piercings and not make my life difficult on Friday, I would take them out for the formal banquette on Saturday. The courthouse proceedings lasted tops 15-20 minutes. I was much less nervous about the actual legal marriage than all the craziness Saturday. I've never felt so examined. Oh well. All was and is well. Hopefully this is the beginning of a lifetime commitment or at least a long enough commitment we don't have to return any gifts with our apologies (drum roll and comedy club laughter here). I can't wait to come home on Tuesday even though I've just seen my parents, Bryon, Carla and Calla because they were able to make it to the wedding here. There is a video, but no one gets to see it, because I look as big as a big house, and strangely pregnant besides. I know my ass has never been small, but jeeze, I have a nice waistline. Lesigh. Love, Chris https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6870/Spain/Marriage-untranslated Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6870/Spain/Marriage-untranslated#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6870/Spain/Marriage-untranslated Thu, 5 Jul 2007 21:05:00 GMT 1 Painting was supposed to be a priority today, but I got home, and got distracted and now Sergio is in the bathroom and I am here suffering and desperate to pee...and I don't think I'll make it in time to get any work done. I'm not very organized or motivated lately, and in less than a month, i'm getting married here in Barcelona, and a month after that, another ceremony at home in Missouri. God. My mother is so unhappy with me. She feels that me falling in love with someone from another country is a conscious choice on my part to be far away from here. In the end, the truth is, I never planned to live next door or very nearby. And if I had, my idea would have been to travel a lot. I think she just never imagined it'd be quite so far away. Jesus and I are both very sure about this decision though. Otherwise we would have never gotten to this point, because we know, wherever we live it's going to be hard on at least one of our families. Yay, happy subjects. Maybe he's out of the bathroom now....I can hope. https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6170/Spain/Transatlantic-Love Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6170/Spain/Transatlantic-Love#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/6170/Spain/Transatlantic-Love Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:58:00 GMT 0 God my head hurts. When my head hurts I hate Barcelona, because no matter how beautiful and interesting it can be, it's loud, full or birds chirping, neighbors that yell, the sound of reggaeton (why Europe can't accept quality hip-hop...) and breaking glass from the bar downstairs (because almost anywhere you are there is a bar downstairs) and it's full of strong smells. As I have often and not particularly politely confided in Jesus (my boyfriend, not our lord an savior), Spain smells like pee and mildew to me. I think it's all that ancient pavement that has been peed over so many times by dogs and drunk men. And alcohol based pee is the worst, the stinkiest, and that's what Spain, or at least my neighborhood in Barcelona smells like to me. Some days are better than others for the breeze or because someone nearby is cooking with a lot of garlic or spices and the smell of the cooking food almost obliterates the nasty smell of pee-soaked pavement and clothes hung to dry that often smell of mildew, and too often smell of body odor as the Spanish seem to be generally less obsessed with showering and underarm deodorant than we are. Aren't I an awful pill to swallow? So much for all my intercultural experience and the tolerance it's supposed to bring. Sometimes I almost feel Spanish. Which is funny, because I live in Catalonia, and as the graffiti says, in English even, Catalonia is not Spain. Anyway, I sometimes feel very at home and even annoyed by tourists. But my nose is always protesting and reminding me of how much I miss clothes dryers and normalized use of anti-perspirant. https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/4950/Spain/International-Headaches Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/4950/Spain/International-Headaches#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/story/4950/Spain/International-Headaches Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:41:00 GMT 1 St. George: Catalonian valentine's day https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2992/Spain/St-Jordi-in-Barcelona Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2992/Spain/St-Jordi-in-Barcelona#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2992/Spain/St-Jordi-in-Barcelona Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:02:00 GMT 0 Photos from my trip to India https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2967/India/India-2005 Travel India graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2967/India/India-2005#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2967/India/India-2005 Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:00:00 GMT 0 My paintings while in Catalunya https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2966/Spain/Barcelona-Artwork Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2966/Spain/Barcelona-Artwork#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2966/Spain/Barcelona-Artwork Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:51:00 GMT 0 Pictures in and around Barcelona https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2580/Spain/Carnival-and-Other-Wonders-of-Catalunya Travel Spain graciejean1982 https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2580/Spain/Carnival-and-Other-Wonders-of-Catalunya#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/graciejean1982/photos/2580/Spain/Carnival-and-Other-Wonders-of-Catalunya Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:31:00 GMT 0