Things are coming together... or so it seems

As my day works towards its 19th hour I reflect on how much today is a great example of how my summer has been. At the beginning of the summer I gratefully took hours at Valu Home Centers, my place of employment for the summer months of last year. Originally they thought that there may not be any hours for me this summer, so when they were offering me hours I took every one I could get. I quickly started juggling my time between friends and a sporadic work schedule, different every week, but still felt anxious about the fact that I could only get 30 hours a week, at most. With thoughts of Spain on my mind, the search for a second job started, and to make a long story short, ended at the beginning of July as I accepted a job as a convience store cashier. Ever since then I've worked at least one double day a week going from one job to the next with only a couple hours to relax and/or eat. At the beginning it was quite tiring, and I had my doubts of whether or not accepting the second job was a good idea.

Over a month later, I've finally gotten used to having the 2 jobs, and today was the last of my double shift days. I can't say its overly depressing, saying goodbye to 14 hour work days. A typical day would look like this:

1. Wake up at 4:15 AM
   
2. Ride into work with Mom
3. Work 8 hours
4. Eat quickly/get changed/check facebook/email...
5. Work 5-6 hours at second job
6. Home at 10:15 PM

Today had the added bonus of fighting with Fedex and ordering Euros.

Fedex told me my passport would be delivered today, Friday before 7 pm. They also said that if I needed a different time of delivery, to let them know. I called to make sure the passport was dropped off in the afternoon after I was home from my first job and they were more than happy to oblige. Or so they said. I came home YESTERDAY to a door hang stating that the Fedex delivery had missed me, please come pick it up after 5. Somehow the fact that the package came early was my problem. I called again, requested it to be delivered this afternoon, only to come home today to an identical door hang. I guess the requests for special deliveries are only so you feel convienced. Anyways, I got my passport, it has a Spanish visa in it (yay!) and it is all set to make the journey.

Ordering Euros was also fun as I realized that for 150 U.S. dollars, I will receive 100 Euros. Yikes. It seems in this way that money will leave the wallet quicker in Spain... but such is life. As my mom said, I've worked a lot this summer to save money for the trip, and I'll probably end up using it, but that's what I earned it for. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to spend a semester in Spain, learn Spanish, the culture, everything. I've been looking forward to this my whole life. Its starting to finally kick in that I'm leaving the U.S. in under a month. In 2 months I will be having daily conversations and making shopping transactions comfortably (hopefully, anyways) in Spanish. In 3 months I may be homesick for the U.S. but in 4 months I'll probably be homesick for Spain. Of course, this is all speculation. We'll just have to wait and see...