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Published: October 5th 2011
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Carlos 43 secs
Url and I
Just before I left for Spain Hi everyone!
Today has been…ugh, frustrating. My Mom sent me two packages at the end of August, literally right after I got here. One arrived in a very timely fashion…the other is beyond fashionably late. Finally I worked on tracking it down yesterday and with the help of my Mom we discovered that it has just been sitting in the Spanish Customs office for one MONTH. It has just been sitting there! I looked on the website and when a package gets detained like that they are supposed to send you a document so that you can declare that what is in the package is yours and then they will send it to you. Guess who just decided not to send me my document? Apparently Spain decided to not send me my document, so I spent yesterday and this morning on the phone, on the internet trying to track down my package. Finally a nice lady in the customs office was able to send me a copy of the declaration document to my e-mail. However, I have to sign it, meaning I have to print it. The only way to print things at the university is that you have to
UR the Best
That is is real name, but Deb calls him "Url" for short. Isn't he cute?! go to the “copesteria” (the copy store) and print it off there. Problem it’s a copy store and stores are closed during siesta, so I have to wait until tomorrow to print off my document just so that I can sign it and then scan it back into my computer and send it off to the customs office. Then it should only take about a week for my package to FINALLY arrive.
Needless to say I am not happy with Spain today. However, it’s a nice day outside and class was good. My mythology class is pretty interesting and both of the professors are very nice, but I really need to take a minute to talk about my literature professor. What a spicy Spanish lady!! You know the fans that fold out that Spain is famous for? Well they actually use those here in Spain, very regularly. It is pretty warm out today and the AC was not really working in our room. Our literature professor got out her fan and was waving that thing all over the place! It made her hand gestures so much more dramatic! Haha! She is really a cute lady, but tough. She spends most of the class just lecturing, but when she does ask a question she wants the answer and she doesn’t want to wait. It’s also particularly difficult because it is literature of oral tradition, so some of the texts we have in front of us, others we do not. So you have to really be on the ball to be able to catch everything she says and the components of the stories. However, I am learning a lot! I’ve never taken so many language classes as once, so I definitely fell as if I am getting my fill of language and humanities studies 😊
Today I also had my first Spanish riding lesson. I like riding because most of the time it brings me a bit of peace, I would say. It gives me an outlet and is something that I love to do, like running only not so painful…sometimes. I decided to ride with Carlos. He is a really nice guy, but I’m not so sure I made the best riding impression. First of all I was really thrown off by not having MY boots here, and my temporary boots that I bought for the dirt cheap price of 15euro (which is the same amount my plane ticket to Italy cost by the way) work about as well as, well, 15euro boots. Super uncomfortable and no support.
He put me on a cute gray horse, but I don’t think she thought I was as cute. Then I figured out it was a mare, which explained the moodiness. Also surprising was that in the US everyone is so anal about their horses and tack and here, they were really nonchalant about it. We are always like “This horse can only use this bridle, and use only these boots, and this saddle is his saddle, but only for jumping, etc.” So Carlos was just sort of like, ok, here’s where everything is and go ahead and tack up. Everything was fine until I had to bridle the horse. The way I do it is that I put my hand between the horse’s ears and with just a bit of pressure usually the horse gives and puts their head down. This horse fought that. Carlos showed me that you have to put pressure on the nose, not the head. Ok, doable. Small difference that could happen to anybody. Then as I was putting on the bridle he came up and started changing a few things and I go nervous and discombobulated and there were a few extra straps and I couldn’t find Carlos so I just synched them up where I thought they went and got on. Turns out they were wrong. Carlos was like, “this is pretty basic.” Yeah, Devin feels dumb. I just told him that I was really sorry and I am a better rider than that I’m just really nervous. “Relate, Devin, Relate.” (Relax, Devin, Relax). Yeah, I’ll relax when I can prove that I do know how to put on a bridle.
The lesson went just ok. I was really nervous about what he would think of my riding. Once we got to jumping I felt much better, because I’m actually better at jumping than I am at dressage, or just doing flat work. I was surprised how well I was catching what he was saying though; he had to repeat very few things. I untacked and there is a guy who goes to the barn named, well his name is actually Carlos but everyone calls him “Yoyo.” He got Yoyo as a name because “yo” is the word for “I” in Spanish, so he explained it has people would say “Who are you?” and he would say, “Soy yo” (I’m me), so somehow he got the name Yoyo…I’m not entirely sure, but that’s the gist of it. Anyways, he lives in Càdiz so I didn’t have to take the bus home, he could give me a ride which was really, really nice. He is a student studying law and finance. He has actually traveled quite a bit for both riding and for school. He studied in Poland and lived in Denmark for 4 months simply for riding. He was nice enough to offer that I could call him on the days when I’m riding to see if he is going out to the barn and then I won’t have to take the bus so often.
After I got home from the barn I was feeling pretty blue. I was so worried about what Carlos was thinking about my riding it got in the way of me riding. Of course, I wanted to talk to my Mom. She does a pretty good job of putting things back into perspective for me. She reminded me of the movie Hoosiers (oh my family and movie references…so many life lessons) where the team goes to the state championships and are so overwhelmed by the arena they have to play in. Gene Hackman, who plays their coach, gets out a measuring tape and shows that the court is the same length and width and the basket is the same height as their court back home. No matter how many seats may have surrounded it, it was exactly the same, just a basketball court, nothing more. She told me that I may be intimidated by a new country, a new barn where the riders are a lot more accomplished than I am used to, but in the end it is just a saddle on a horse, and I can handle a saddle on a horse, I know I can because I’ve done it before. On the bright side I already made some pretty stupid mistakes, so I really can’t get much dumber. Haha!
It was a pretty mentally exhausting day today, but sometimes that’s how it is here. Some days are perfectly nice, and others are just a battle from start to finish. However it all pays off on the weekends! We leave for Portugal tomorrow! It will be fun to go see another country for the weekend and I have heard nothing but great things about Lagos and Portugal so I am pretty excited!
Can’t wait to tell you all about it!
Love always,
Devin 😊
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