By Oceana Minthorne

I live on the tenth floor of an apartment building.  There are sixteen stairs on each floor.  It’s one hundred sixty steps to my front door and I have boycotted the elevator.  I do this trek a minimum of twice a day.  I’m about to have the roundest bum in all of Andalucia Province. Rounder than any of the oranges that grows on the beautiful trees that line the streets.

I’ve been going on myself titled “photography runs” daily.  I try to take a new route each time. I send my heart rate sky rocketing while romping through the streets and try to calm in down when I see something breathtaking and stop to take a picture of it, but it doesn’t work because these sights make it flutter even quicker and I’m on the brink of extinction. Cause: severe heart palpitation. Mark me down as having died a beautiful death.

In order to attend my program, it’s mandatory to live with a “house mother.” Mine goes by the name of Ester.  She’s 49 years old and loves me dearly.  She does my laundry every Monday and Friday.  She cleans my room and bathroom on Wednesdays, changes my sheets, mops the floor and gives me new towels. She’s got a pot of coffee ready for me every morning, knows I come home from school at 3 to eat lunch, and leaves dinner on the stove for me to devour whenever I do so please.

A big part of this makes me feel uncomfortable because I don’t think anyone’s cooked for me since I learned how to wield a knife at 6 years old, and growing up, I would come home to piles of laundry on my bed to fold for my father and brother before going to sleep. My dad instilled it in me that these were women’s duties. This instillation I later crumpled up and tossed in the trash, but nevertheless.

My classes are incredible. International Relations, Culture and Society of Spain, Art History, and Intro to Film.  Today I signed up for an intensive beginner’s Spanish course. It’s three hours a day Monday through Thursday. 12 Hours a week, 156 hours a semester, 6.5 straight days of studying. I better be fluent at the end of this whole ordeal.

My favorite professor is a man named John Boyle.  He teaches both International Relations and Culture and Society and offers a unique perspective on both subjects because he’s neither a Spaniard nor an American.  Rather, he’s from Scotland and just a fountain of knowledge.  It helps that he’s absolutely (whilst subtly) hilarious. Classes are two hours in length and I’m beaming from ear to ear the whole time. My cheeks always hurt when I walk out the door.

I’ve had a “head in the clouds” demeanor the entire length of my stay.  Everything seems to be going grand.

So grand, in fact, that I went on a school outing and won a weekend trip to Portugal! I was planning on going anyways but now it’s a definite. The move is to go for my birthday weekend, April 20, when the weather gets a little warmer. Veinticuatro años here I come!!!

My days seem to go by so quickly here. I blink my eyes and the sun is already setting. The tenth floor makes for a perfect perch to view these, by the way. I’ve only got the first week in the books and I’m feeling nervous about running out of time. So much to do, so much to see, so little time. Back East three and a half months during this time of year feels like an eternity. Like, I’d rather do anything else than forge through another winter. Like, my skin wasn’t meant to tough those elements and my bones most certainly weren’t meant to feel the hurt of the cold.

There’s something about roaming these streets that aren’t mine, that makes me feel completely at home.