Little things

Time has gone by so fast, suddenly it's May! I've been thinking a lot about that first week I was here and how different everything felt. It seems that little things from the memory of your old city quickly, and without you noticing, begin to get replaced by all the new things about your new place.

I think the first thing was transportation, I used to know almost every stop from the bart map and now all I can think of are the linea roja, amarilla, verde y lila and where the transfer points are.

Small words in spanish have been changed to those used more commonly here, like coche (carro), vale (bueno), chaqueta (chamarra), o adéu (adios). And a big one was getting used to saying dollars instead of Euros! pff that was confusing.

The grocery stores were also so silly to me at first too, the milk is tiny and so is the flour but the bread is always fresh and cheese is delicious. I also started to nocitce that everyone eats a lot of yogurt... I didnt know why people ate so much yogurt...until I became addicted to yogurt with honey and strawberries, delicious! Then there are also 2 different kinds of bakeries, those that make bread (panaderias) and those that make deserts (pastelerias)

At first it was so strange not knowing anyone but once I started meeting people I realized how free it made me feel and how amazing it is to be able to meet people from different countries and different backgrounds everyday. Before I didn't know the difference between Belgium and the Netherlands or the different languages and accents that come from different regions but you start to hear it. You start hearing and recognizing different languages in the street.

I have also realized how lucky I am to come from California. I had forgotten how nice warm weather is and how much happier it makes everyone feel. I have finally experienced a winter and spring, one where you see the leaves grow over the course of a week or 2 and realize how different a little bit of green in the trees makes everything look.

I am finally getting used to what 20 degrees celsius means, although it is still a bit strange to see people sunbathing at the park or how the sun rises over the ocean or how the majority of women here do tan topless.

It is still amazing to think about how old everything is and how people have adapted the city around the old buildings and systems or organization.

One last thing I have been thinking about is how people are people everywhere, no matter how different we might think we are from one another, happiness love family childhood friendship marriage food (haha), it's the same everywhere, we are all searching for the same things, it's beautiful