Adventures Abroad: Being alone

There's something strangely comforting about being alone. There's no pressure to conform to the expectations of others, no obligations to fill--it's just you, your mind, and God. The past two days are days where I have been able to sneak away from everyone else and have time to myself. Time to relax, time to think, time to do what I want to do (as selfish as that sounds). Which, truthfully, has been mostly consisting of sleeping. I took a two hour nap yesterday, and a four hour nap today. Definitely taking advantage of the siesta times set out for us. But in the end, it's needed, right? At least that's what I keep on telling myself. On a more serious note though, the things that I find myself doing when I am by myself give me insight to how much I am not myself when I am around other people. A little example: you might have heard of the five love languages, right? Here's a link for the quiz if you don't know yours or haven't taken it yet: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/. Anyway, I have realized how much words of affirmation have an influence on how I interact with others and the decisions I make; it is becoming more of the case that I find myself constantly seeking out the affirmation and support for things I am doing, and appreciation for services that I have completed. And sure, everyone could use a few good supporting words here and there every now and again, but where is the boundary between healthy interactions with others in this capacity, and forever seeking the affirmation of others? When I am by myself, there's no need to make sure someone is giving me the go-ahead to do what I want to do--I just do it, and it's done. It's such a stark contrast with my group attitudes, where I find myself much more reserved and go-with-the-flow. Ah well, I guess these are just things to think about as we move to the half-way point of the first session. We're almost a quarter of the way through this experience!

On Tuesday, the marine environment students did not have class, which meant that I got to sleep in. And sleep in I did...to 10:30 at least. Wasn't the longest I have ever slept but considering the fact that I have been waking up naturally at 7am every day, I felt pretty good about the extra 3.5 hours of sleep. It was another perfect day, and what better thing to do on a perfect day than go to the beach?? So for the third time I headed to Cala Comtesa with the crew to lay out in the sun and get some tanning action on. Being a Tuesday, the beach was not terribly crowded, but there were still people out and about, giving it some life. And some smell...for the entire time we were there, there was a very pungent pot smell. If second-hand high is a thing, then I probably got it while I was there. Ah well...Anyway, we got to go out and do some exploring of the landscape around the beach while we were there, which proved to be quite the parkour challenge. It was really fun though, and hopefully we will be back again to do some snorkeling with the class. At night, we had a "Tapas Tuesday" at the Ruta Martiana. Several restaurants in the area were serving tapas/cervezas at reduced prices, so we all got to go out as a group with our Guardian Angels and experience that for ourselves. It was really crowded--an eclectic mix of tourists and locals, all taking in mixed Spanish/Catalan/English/German/French vying for the bartender's attention to get their drinks and tapas. And all this from 9-12 at night. The Spanish definitely know how to do nightlife. At this time of night most Americans would be going to bed after a long day of work, but here; the night seemed to only just be getting started.

(Standard beach visit)

Today for class we headed to Soller to visit the Natural History Museum and check out its collections of Foraminifera and sea grasses. In addition to learning about the marine and terrestrial life in the area with the exhibits throughout the museum, we also got to dissect three different species of fish which was very cool. In human physiology we always said that "form follows function." It was certainly true with these fish as well. We were able to quickly determine where the fish was commonly located, whether it was predator/prey, what things it commonly ate, etc. If there is anything at all that I am going to learn from this class, it's that nature certainly takes care of its organisms through adaptations. After coming back and taking my four hour nap (which by the way, was glorious), I headed out towards the Cathedral and shoreline to be super touristy and enjoy the scenery/take pictures, something I wouldn't dare doing as part of the larger CIEE group. As night fell, and it took quite a while for night to fall (the sun sets at 9:20 here...), the sky slowly turned from a bright orange to a red crimson, transitioning to a lavender purple and finally a navy blue. The colors of the sky plus the expansive waters made for an unforgettable scenery, perfect for picture taking. I would LOVE to live here and experience this every day. I would say its the same, if not better as a mountain sunset. Different, but beautiful just the same. As the lights of the city slowly became illuminated, I headed back for a late dinner which I got to eat with my host mom. Rare is the chance that I get to eat with her--she is always so busy running between her two jobs, and by the time she comes home, she is too tired to talk much let alone eat with all of us. Ah well, the joys of being alone I guess--she gets to do what she wants to do to relax, and I get some time to soak in the Mallorcan vibes.