Flashback time

As I prepare to go back to Spain, I'm reflecting on the times when I've been to Europe, especially when I studied for 5 weeks in Valladolid in May of 2005. I found my old blog and want to paste my old entires here for old time's sake. Now, please note these were written when I was a senior in college, I was 22, in serious relationship (that ended 2 weeks after I got returned). I find it entertaining to see how I have grown, and how I saw Europe for the first time in my life.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Well here is my first entry! I'm not even there yet, but I figure a countdown till I leave would be fun. I leave in one week. I have so much to do before I go, I really hope I can get it all done. While I'm in Spain I will have access to the internet and will hope to update this as often as I can. I will also have an additional email account, but I haven't picked one yet.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

My email in Spain is going to be SabsinSpain@hotmail.com Give me an email so I can add you to my contacts! *

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Crap! I'm going to Houston on Tuesday, and I still have a lot of housework and packing to do. I think since I am going to be in Houston for a couple days and then in Houston/Conroe for the 2 weeks afterwards, that I'm just going to take home a lot of crap and then decide later what's actually coming with me overseas. I'm for sure taking the following things: my iPod, my Winnie the Pooh, and my Spanish Dictionary. Those are the most important things. After that would be my digital camera, some extra clothes, and Matt. I wish he would fit in a suitcase. I also am going to cut my hair again before I go since it's been almost 5 months. My stylist also has been to Spain many times and I want to talk to him about it. Here is a link to the site about the university I am going to be at. Scroll to the bottom for the links to pages in English.   http://www.universitascastellae.es/esp%20main.htm Here is a link to the promotional video for the school. It has english subtitles. It is huge, and use quicktime. http://media.modlang.txstate.edu/grajera.html I'm going to be staying in a 16th century castle turned dorm. How cool is that! Mucho cool.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Hey Everyone!  I am totally in Spain! the flight was good, I got to see the Phantom of the Opera, and eat yummy airplane food. We got to our dorms and they are sooo small. think small, and then cut that in half, and then cut that in half again. I don´t mind, at least I have my own room, and internet in the basement. I got no sleep on the plane and i´m off my 7 hours, so i´m exhausted. Some of the kids and I are going to wander until dinner which is served at 9:30. Miss some of yall already. Tell you more later. I gtg. Okay, now I have a little more time to tell you about what´s going on. Sorry if the typing is bad, but the keyboards here are Spanish keyboards and they have cool things like ñ and ç but a lot of the punctuation are in the wrong spots. Anyways, I had 2 flights, one to Newark and then one to Spain. (about 3 and a half, and 6 and a half, respectively). Not too¨bad. The food was good, but I couldn´t sleep. I was going to go out tonight but I am really tired. Just so you know, there are about 25 of us who came from Texas State University, and 8 of us are in the dorms. We are really just meeting each other right now, so it´s fun being with people you hardly know. After we got to Madrid we had to wait in the airport forever to get our luggage, and then for 5 hours for the rest of the kids to finish arriving. Everyone got to choose their own flights since we are all coming from different parts of Texas and some people want to stay longer, and such. Then we took the 2 hourdrive to Valladolid, and it was pretty. I got to sleep a little on the bus. We got to the rooms and boy are they tiny. It has a bed, sink, mirror, a couple shelfs, a tiny desk and chair, and a closet with 4 or 5 hangers. Cute, old and clean. I´m glad that I brought pics of my mom and dad, Daniel and Jess, and a big framed one of me and Matt to put by my bed. I also brought my Winnie the Pooh, so it almost feels like home. Then a couple of us (2 guys and one other girl and me) went on a 2 hour walk around Valladolid. They got some beer, and we saw a bunch of architecture, churches and people. The people here like to get dressed nice and walk around town, almost parading. Old men and women walk around, as well as families and couples--dressed real trendy. I´ll probably have a 15 minute walk every day to and from school. Dinner was a lental bean soup with frnech bread, some fried potatoe balls and some small meat patties that kinda tasted like steak fingers. I had some yogurt too. Breakfast here is self serve pasties and coffee from 7 till 11:30, lunch at 2, and dinner at 9:30. It´s actually pretty chilly here, I wish I had an extra blanket. Some people are going out tonight, but I´m tired and would rather get caught up on my sleep than go out. Tomorrow our teacher is going to take us on a tour of Valladolid round 11, and then we have orientation at 5 at the school. I am exicted and nervous. So far I am doing fine on my Spanish. I like talking to people in Spanish. Nothing too interesting yet, but I´ll keep you peoples informed. Please let me know what you´re u¨p to! check out these cool things. ¿¡ÇÑ ¨ hehe weee!

Expect the Unexpected

HOW GOD "TRICKED" ME INTO ATTENDING WYD


Yes, I feel like I got tricked. But it was a good trick. More like a surprise that grows with time.

At this point, it's around April 2010 and I am discerning heavily about going to Madrid. I did some research and found out that World Youth Day is a very misleading title. WYD is actually for Young Adults (ages 18-39), not Youth (Jr. and Sr. High School). It also lasts about a week, not one day. Interesting, no?

I also found out about a program called Days in the Diocese where one diocese in the world is paired with a diocese in Spain and have a pre-WYD program full of cultural activities in a small intimate environment. This sounded like an excellent opportunity to me and I read everything I could about it. This option was not available in Austin, or if Ashley and I tried to travel with a random national group as individuals. Then I found the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

San Antonio is about 70 miles south of where I live in Austin. They were offering the DID program and had very affordable plans. I would be able to go to Spain for 2 weeks for less than all the other options I had found. True, the conditions were "simple" (i.e. no hotel) but I was ready for a pilgrimage, not a vacation. Plus after my traveling experiences I was not afraid of roughing it. I'm young, right?

At the same time, I was offered two freelance graphic design jobs. Both would have helped me pay for the Spain payments. After talking with Ashley about San Antonio's travel plan and prices, we decided to sign up for WYD. Hooray! I was stoked because I had the extra money that was going to come in and help pay for it, we got a good deal, and we were going to Spain! Hip Hip Hooray!

About a month after we signed up and paid our deposit (August 2010) God threw me a curveball and BOTH graphic design jobs fell through before I could get started -- or paid. I already had committed to WYD and had been graciously given permission to miss 2.5 weeks of work. I was stuck.

I prayed about it a lot. After a lookover of my budget, I realized that if I gave up shopping and other extra luxuries like going out to eat, coffee at Starbucks and Jamba Juice runs, that I could afford the monthly payments. 10 monthly payments. I can do this. My boss even asked if I was looking for sponsors or doing any fund raising. After I thought about it, I told him that I wasn't planning on it. I figured that if I had a full-time job, I would be able to sacrifice what I didn't need in order to save up for this trip.

This was part of God's plan. Now that it's July 2011 and I am leaving in one month, I can honestly say that I have been preparing for this trip for over a year. Not only have I been sacrificing financially, I have been doing it for the preparation of this trip. I think once August comes and goes that I will have a much better experience knowing that I worked hard to be able to get to where I am.

Isn't that what life is all about?

fbt&<3
Sabrina

Let's start at the very beginning...

Hello world! This is my first entry in my Spain blog. I am not actually in Spain yet, but I wanted to share my journey to how I was called to go on this trip.

Before we get into the preparation of this trip, here is a little bit about who I am. My name is Sabrina, I'm 28 and I am from Texas. My passions include dance, traveling, musical theatre, graphic design, food and my cats. I am involved in pro-life work, and am involved with a Catholic ministry for young adults. I have traveled to Spain for school (2005) and to Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France (2007). I also enjoy trips to Boston, Los Angeles, Florida and most of all, New York City! I love exploring culture, tradition, food, art and history. I love journaling and taking pictures, and I collect postcards from all over the world.

WHY WORLD YOUTH DAY?

For the past 2 years I have grown deeper in my Catholic faith mostly due to my involvement with the Catholic-20somethings. It is such a great group of people who travel with me (in a sense) and help me learn, grow and become closer to God and the The Church.

When I found out about WYD being in Spain this year, I thought that I should go. I talked to a few friends about it and they all told me that it's too expensive to go to WYD. I did some research and saw that with the Austin Diocese it in fact was really expensive. So I just tried to get over it and figure the money is better spent elsewhere.

I kept going on with some small signs about WYD popping up into my head. I would pay extra attention to the ads I saw, or when people mentioned it. My coworker and her husband had been once or twice and she told me about their adventures. I still had it on the brain when one day in the summer my friend Ashley was talking about how she really wanted to go but that she was nervous about the language barrier and not knowing who to go with. We talked about it more later and once we figured out that be both wanted to go for the same reasons (to meet people, grow in our Faith, and experience the biggest Catholic event worldwide) we decided to discern (pray about it) and research some travel options.

Meanwhile, working for a nonprofit, I was wondering how I could afford this trip. I knew I wanted to go, especially before I turned 30. (They have WYDs every 2 years.) I had some things to figure out.

fbt&<3

Sabrina