Midwesterner Abroad

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