With the sun comes ganas...

Hello strangers... it has been forever since I've written... Ally has been dominating me on the whole writing thing... but I'm back. I guess I haven't written because nothing has really happened or nothing that I had enough "ganas" to write about. However, since the sun has finally appeared in Huelva, I thought I'd take the opportunity to fill everyone in on the happenings of my Spanish life lately.

I just got back from Seattle... it never occurred to me how far away Seattle is from Spain. I KNOW it's on the other side of the United States, but you can't really grasp how far away that is until you've made the trip. I began my trip in Huelva and a 7 hour bus ride to Madrid. From there I hung out with Julio for a bit and then took the flight to Philly which was about 8 hours and then i had to wait 4 hours in the Philly airport and then another 5 hours to get from Philly to Seattle. For those who don't feel like adding up those numbers that is 24 hours of traveling!!!!! That's a day of my life... I arrived in Sea-Tac a little earlier than expected... however without any American money or cell phone I couldn't call my parents. I attempted to use my bank of america card to make a call... but guess what those payphones in Sea -Tac don't take VISA.... who would have guessed that? Either way, after 20 minutes of wondering, trying to figure out how i could get 50 cents to make a call I got up the nerve to ask the this guy to use his cell phone... luckily he was nice and it all worked out. Walking out of Sea-Tac was a shock... it was cold!!!! I know I haven't been gone for that long... but come on i couldn't have gotten a little bit of nice weather. There was also a little bit of snow on the ground and yeah... i'm going to say it's not like being in the 20C in Madrid.

Arriving home it seemed surreal... although I've only been gone about 6 months... it just felt so different... when i'm in Huelva, I can't really remember what my life was like in Seattle. Walking into my house nothing had really changed... Ngu happened to be home the same weekend, and it was the first time we had seen each other in a long time... so it was nice to chat it up with my sisters again. My room was how I left it... although I thought I cleaned it better... but obviously not. It was just so weird to be in my room, with all my photos and my books... it was nice, but at the same time it didn't feel like it was mine... although the walls of photos definitely had my name written all over it.

Over the weekend, I hung out with my family, Nhan came home from Western and it was a Nguyen family reunion. I didn't really realize how much I missed my family until we were all there, laughing, joking, and being loud (our specialty). It felt nice to be myself again... here I feel so grown up living my life, making my own decisions, at home I'm just another kid... I don't need to cook, clean or do anything... life is GREAT! We went to play lazer tag with Ni (my cousin) and our new friend, Dung. He's a foreign exchange student from Japan, but get this he's Vietnamese!!!! He's the son of my mom's friend, but yeah, he's cool. We definitely introduced him to our family and how it functions... if you don't grab what you want to eat, it's going to be gone. If you don't make your intentions known, no one will wait for you!!! Apparently there is no lazer tag in Japan, and he loved it. But I have to say lazer tag is the favorite hobby in the Nguyen household. I will never get tired of the game... chasing people in the dark shooting lazers at them. It seemed that everyone and their mom was at Family Fun Center, and so we had to play with other people... when i say other people I mean little 8-9 years-old kids... and there were tons of them. However, as a Nguyen we don't take the age in consideration when playing lazer tag... we show no mercy for anyone. So imagine us... Ni (17), Bi (16), Ti (19), Dung and me (22) and Ngu (25) running around, chasing the little kids, it's very funny. I think it came to the point where we scared a few of them... but no one cried so i guess we didn't bring our A-game that night! :)

Apart from spending quality time with my family I got to do things that I couldn't do here... like eat food that i really, really like.. for example Thai food... going to Thai Tom's was amazing... and i should have eaten more because i will definitely not be having any good Thai food anytime soon. On the subject of food... I'm going to say that I all the weight that I lost in my time in Spain was quickly gained back from all the food I ate at home... It's a little sad, someone should have said, "Ngoc, step away from the food". It was sooo hard to say no, although my stomach was about to explode... I kept thinking, I could be like a bear and eat tons of food and then when I'm in Spain go into hibernation mode... yeah that doesn't quite work... but in the end, when I think back on my one week trip to Seattle... i was in a complete stage of food coma.

Besides food I got to indulge in my other favorite past time... shopping... I have missed Nordstorms so much... they need to bring it to Spain. As always I had no self control, but I felt that I had been doing a good job since being in Spain, so I deserved to treat myself. Besides, what was I going to do when the whole world was busy with work, or school... and I had absolutely NOTHING to do...????

Driving my car was also a nice thing, it felt so liberating, to be able to go where ever i wanted without having to look up the Damas schedule or walking miles and miles. I don't mind walking in huelva, but imagine walking in Seattle... yeah you can't! I didn't realized how much I missed the Honda CRV until I got in there... I thought I wouldn't be able to drive... but i was fine, no one was harmed while I was on the road... unfortunately I still suck at parking, but i guess that will never change.

All in all my trip was a great, however, without anytime to do during most of the day, and being unable to hang out with my friends during the day because they worked was kinda boring. After a week i was ready to get back to Spain and go to my current "home". It was weird when I said I'm going "home" and I was referring to Huelva.

It was nice to see my family, and my friends. It was nice to be back in my city, but I feel that for right now my life is here in Spain. I only have 3 more months before I'm back in the states and I'm just trying to make the most of it... improving my Spanish, enjoying this opportunity (who knows when I'll be back to Spain) and enjoying my freedom from real responsibilities and life. With the sun finally out... I'm looking forward to going to the beach... getting tanner than Ally (sorry Chica, I just had to put that in there), seeing more of Spain and finishing off this experience with fond memories.

I promise to write more, but if not there's always Ally's amazing blogs to entertain the masses. As always, I'm sending hugs and kisses to everyone at home... I miss you guys, although I just saw you. I always wished you were here enjoying this experience with me... and hope all is well.

Besitos,
Ngoc :)