While the snow's been melting back home, I've noticed some very early signs of spring here. Today, as I was running down a small road between my town and the next one down I noticed two bushes with bright red flowers sprouting from the tips of their bare branches. We've been having a good amount of sunny days lately (today not included) and more to come. So, I guess that's another new experience for the list: spring in February.
Apart from that I've really began to appreciate the everyday life here. Lately time has been flying by, but I'm pretty sure it's because I've come to a point where everything has just become "normal." And yet, I'm absolutely okay with that. It might seem like a year abroad for an exchange student must be such an adventure, learning and doing new things every day, which, the first 5 months was kind of the case. But I've grown to feel that confidence inside where I'm not afraid to speak up in class, even if they're speaking in Euskera and I only partly understand the topic. I'm not afraid to buy myself a train ticket or walk through Donosti (San Sebastián) trying to calmly avoid the manifestations in the streets in support of officializing the use of Euskera in all facilities across the Basque Country (which actually went on the other day). I'm not afraid to buy myself a book or run down the Zurriola beach heading back for a friend's umbrella which in the end disappeared anyway. Here I am, sitting the same room where, only a few months back, I had to think twice before understanding, 3 times before writing and ten times before speaking. Everything I used to do got a second thought, and just 5 months later it's become second nature.
And the biggest revelation I've had lately was that the lifestyle people have here is beyond anything I could imagine asking for. In 15 minutes you could find yourself at the beach, in the mountain, the small town or the big city. The culture dates so far back historians have yet to discover where the people actually come from, the education system is organized in a way where the focus is working and studying what you like to earn money rather than studying and working just to earn money. Not to mention, no matter how different each of the individuals you'll encounter here is from the next one, each and every one speaks two languages fluently (when I say this, I'm mainly talking about those that go to my school and the many more that attend schools that teach in Euskera as there are schools that only teach in Spanish as well). I could go on with the list for a good amount of time, but the point is that all these luxuries aren't things you need to have money for, they're basics, just background music for the modest lives of my classmates. But the best part about it is that they know they're lucky to have all this, they appreciate it. And that's just another thing I love about this place.
