Cha-Cha-Changes!

"I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild"
-David Bowie

Greetings! I have decided to resurrect my long-dormant blog. I know what you're thinking: I'll probably flake out again after another handful or so of posts -- like a drunk who promises to get clean and then does ok for a few weeks before boredly watching the jersey shore, deciding the nadir of humanity has been hit, drinking a fifth of Campari, and then driving their Dodge Caliber through the glass foyer of a 7/11.* But it's not like that, baby. I'm gonna change this time...for real. I promise.

Since my last post back in November, quite a few things have happened to me to change my life pretty significantly. Hence, the blog update. Hold onto your pantaloons...

#1: I applied and was accepted into law school. I'm really looking forward to joining the pretentious hordes of the unemployed and unemployable after my three years in the joint are up. I actually miss being a student. While I have LOVED working at my job for the last year, I realized that in order to be better at my job and to be able to exert the level of control I wanted over my cases, I needed to go to law school to be qualified to do so. I'm so grateful to my former employers and coworkers for everything I learned and the experiences that have inspired me to keep going with my education. ::tear:: Anyway, I start school in late September. I think it's too soon to definitively say what I want to do with my law degree, but I'm toying with immigration law (which I LOVE), internationally-focused law (like the huge international relations geek I am), or who knows maybe I'll discover I love tax law! Probably not, but I'm trying to approach this experience with an open mind.

#2: I quit my job (See #1). I obviously couldn't go to school full time while working in a position that de facto requires 60-70 hours of work per week. School doesn't start until late September, but I quit last week so that I could spend over a month in....

#3: ....SPAIN! I went backpacking with some of my buddies from high school the summer following our sophomore year of college.

The real "A" Team

A much better representation of our maturity level.

Anyway, on my last 40+ day trip backpacking around Europe, I intentionally avoided Spain. I always thought Spain deserved its own trip, and I didn't want to shortchange my experience there by sandwiching all the vibrancy of the entire nation between the culture overload of Paris and Rome. As a shameless Latino-phile, Spain has always held a sense of exotic curiosity for me as the mother, conqueror, bloated sovereign, and/or disgraced autocrat of the majority of the Western Hemisphere (depending on whose perspective you take). As a Latin American Studies major (nerd alert!) most of what I learned about Spain came from a very Latin American frame of reference. I think it will be incredibly interesting to see how Spanish art museums and architectural wonders from the Renaissance address the origin of the profound wealth that made the Spanish empire flourish, if it is addressed at all. For this reason, one of the places I am dying to see in Spain is the museum of Latin American art in Madrid. I hope to take a few hours every three days or so to update my blog and keep all of you posted on my time there. I leave tomorrow morning and will return on August 11th. If you have any recommendations for places to go or sites to see, please shoot me an email or hit me up on the facebook. I should be checking those fairly frequently. Kev is flying out with me and we are spending the first week together in southern Spain: Cordoba, Granada, Sevilla, a day trip to Morocco, Gibraltar, etc., then he flies back to the States and I'll be figuring out where to go from there. I know I want to hit up Cadiz and Murcia in the south, then maybe go straight north and hike part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail for about a week, then skip across the northern coast and hang out in Basque country: Santander, Bilbao, San Sebastian, maybe Pamplona, then skirt on down to Barcelona to meet up with a few friends from college who will happily have about 5 days of overlap with my trip. I'd love any recs for specific places to see, restaurants to try, or types of food to eat. HOLLER AT ME!

#4: Moving time. Kev and I are moving into the city! We found this cute house to rent that has giant windows, an open floorplan, and a fenced in yard. Pretty much my big three. Our current neighborhood is secluded, boring, and right by the interstate (which is convenient but LOUD). The new neighborood is near Lake Washington, has a lot of waterfront parks, is an easy commute or bus ride to school, is located within walking distance of a good amount of bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and did I mention PARKS?! This all becomes very important because we are also getting...

#5: A puppy! Within a few days of my return from Spain, we will be picking up our brand new Alaskan Malamute puppy. Her name is Tauntaun. Because she is a snow beast and her owners are colossal Star Wars geeks. Let's just hope she doesn't smell that bad...on the outside. We've had that name picked out since our drive across the country last January to move Kevin up to Seattle. We were on our way through Wyoming (P.S.: never go to Wyoming - it's full of snow and Dick Cheney), and, having recently re-watched the Empire Strikes Back for the 50th time, I remarked that only Tauntauns could ever live in such a icy hellhole. Kevin reminded me that malamutes would also be quite happy covered in 6 feet of snow, and thus the name for our future dog was born. She is only about 10 days old right now, and I don't have any pictures of her yet, but this is what she will probably look like in a couple of weeks:

Who wants to come visit me now? Hmmm???

Maybe after I get back from Spain this blog will morph into a "I HATE LAW SCHOOL OMG WHY WON'T THIS DOG STOP HOWLING I NEED XANAX!!!" semi-annual update. Fingers crossed!

So that's about it for now. Check back in here in a few days and ::hopefully:: I'll have kicked that nasty Campari habit and will have a Spain update ready for your eager and attentive eyes. Love to you all, and hope to hear about your summer plans soon!

-Abear

*No Ethiopians were harmed in the writing of this blog. You're welcome, Alex.