Colorín, colorado

I'm down to my last few days here - hard to believe! I'm definitely going to be sad to leave after such an enjoyable year...I've made a lot of good friends and feel really comfortable here! I'm getting more and more excited to see my family, though, and my goodbyes here are spread out, so that's making it easier to leave.

This weekend I've been packing and saying goodbye to friends, tomorrow will be my last day in the lab (I'm working up until the very end!!), Tuesday I'm packing, then that night I'm leaving!

I figured I may as well start with a wrapping-up post…

Research-wise, this year has been incredibly valuable. I've had the whole year to focus on doing research, without classes or teaching. I've learned a lot about what kind of research I want to do at Berkeley, where I'm starting grad school this fall - I still want to do computational physical chemistry, but I want to go into a more theory- and methods-based area. I've learned more about what things I like about how groups are run, how I like to manage things (like how I like to arrange my notebook and computer directories, and how I like to approach projects), and it's more clear to me what I want to get out of grad school and why I want to go.

I've loved having a really cohesive lab group this year, being friends outside the lab, eating lunch together every day, etc. I've also enjoyed the incredibly relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere in the lab. At the same time, this year has helped me realize I'm really looking forward to doing my PhD at Berkeley - being surrounded by a ton of intellectual, motivated people doing top-notch research - although the pace will be quite a bit faster and more stressful. Before I didn't think I needed a gap year before starting grad school, but now I see it's been so valuable for getting more perspective and experience, decompressing after undergraduate, and growing up a bit.

And I have an article published with my group!! My first one. I nearly have the story and results for a second one…and need to figure out how to get it done.

Changing topics: really improving my Spanish has definitely been one of the highlights of my year. I don't think I will ever feel like a native speaker, but I feel really proficient now! Before this year I knew all the basics about grammar, but this year I've learned so many nuances about words and phrases that people use here, grammatical structures, intonation, pronunciation…I've also learned a ton about the subtleties of different accents within Andalucía and within Spain. I'm going to miss speaking  and hearing Spanish Spanish once I leave!!

I've noticed how much I'm thinking in Spanish now especially when I talk or write in English - lots of times there are words or phrases that I can say in Spanish, but I can't figure out how to make it come out right in English! Which is fine when I'm talking to someone who speaks Spanish, but if they don't…then it can get frustrating. In the past few weeks I've said or written "explication" instead of "explanation" (it's explicación in Spanish), "traduction" instead of "translation" (Spanish: traducción), assistance instead of "attendance" (Spanish: asistencia), "you're pulling my hair" instead of "pulling my leg" (Spanish: me estás tomando el pelo - you're pulling my hair) … also I'm really struggling right now typing on my laptop, because after hours and hours every day in the lab on my Spanish keyboard, I'm much more used to the Spanish keyboard.

This year I've also talked and emailed/chatted more than I ever have with non-native English speakers. I've really learned to say exactly what I mean, cut out unnecessary words, eliminate vague or meaningless phrases, speak clearly, and gauge how much the other person is understanding. I really think this is useful not only for talking with non-native speakers but rather in absolutely any situation!

I will be enjoying my last few days here and will be back with another post before I leave this blog for the year!! Thanks for getting through a long post!

Getting close to the end...

I can't believe it's finally close to the end of my Fulbright year! I have two weeks left here and it's become a little frenetic - but in a good way - with trying to wrap stuff up at the lab, last-minute trips, and seeing friends here as much as possible!

Last weekend I went to Madrid (4th time this year? 5th? 6th?) and got to see a lot of the Madrid Fulbrighters at an informal goodbye/get-together event. Most of them I've only seen at orientation in September and at the mid-year meeting in March, so it was great to catch up with some of them. I'm reminded that I am so lucky to be part of the Fulbright group - great people doing some amazing things.

Fulbrighters!

In Madrid I went back to some of my favorite places: el Rastro market, Sol, Plaza Mayor, el Retiro, Mercado San Miguel, and saw some new things: the Salvador Dalí exhibit at the Reina Sofía museum, the botanical gardens next to the Prado, a 2200-year-old Egyptian temple that's randomly in the middle of the city.

On this trip, especially, I remembered my first time in Madrid (in the summer of 2007 in high school with the Indiana University Honors program) - being in Plaza Mayor, taking the metro, standing in front of the Royal Palace. It seemed so big and exciting and foreign back then. Now, the city is so much more familiar to me and really has more of a pueblo feel. It makes me realize how much I've learned about Spain and how comfortable I've become here!

Last visit to Cádiz

This weekend I took my last trip to Cadiz, to see my Fulbrighter friends Lauren and Lindsey there. We've spent a lot of time together this year and I will miss these girls! I'll definitely be seeing them in the US, but we'll be farther apart there than we are now in Spain! Two Fulbright friends from Madrid also joined us this weekend.

It was an incredibly fun and relaxing weekend. We played volleyball on the beach and dipped our feet in (too cold to swim!), enjoyed pescaito frito (fried fish) at the famous pescaito frito restaurant that I hadn't made it to yet, and went again on my favorite walk out to the fort in the ocean. The fort has been closed all year and I finally got to go in it this time!

Playa :)

Pescaito frito (fried fish) - the place definitely lived up to its reputation!

Beautiful Cadiz. You can see the fort in this picture. If this is badly framed...it's because my camera is finally starting to go - screen is broken so I need to use the viewfinder. :)

Cadiz is small so I got to see pretty much all of it again. I had missed the city and will miss it! It makes me realize I will miss Sevilla even more! I have three weeks left now in Spain. I'll be doing a bit of last minute traveling in Spain to see friends, trying to wrap up research the best I can, and enjoying the last of my time in Sevilla. I'm definitely going to be sad to leave and am dreading leaving, but I'm trying not to think about it! :)

Trip to the States, follow-up

I'm back in Sevilla now, after my trip to the US!

First on the trip, I attended the Fundamentals of Adsorption research conference in Baltimore, along with a good portion of my group. I presented a poster, got to know a great group of PhD students from all over the world, got to talk more with some of my boss's collaborators, and listened to talks. The topic of the conference is somewhat specific, so I had background knowledge on most of the talks, which made them more interesting. It was also useful for thinking more about the kind of research I want to do in grad school and what I want to do after grad school!

With my group and some of our collaborators

Then, onto Washington, DC, with the three other PhD students in my group - we saw the Capitol, White House, monuments (Lincoln, MLK, Vietnam, Japanese-American), American Indian Museum and Natural History Museum, had a nice lunch from the food trucks, sitting on the lawn. It was SO exciting and a little surreal seeing the Mall, the White House, and the Lincoln Monument for the first time!

La Casa Blanca

Cheesecake Factory - they were astounded by the amount of food!

Finally we spent a few days in New York City! We saw the Statue of Liberty, 9/11 memorial, Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Central Park, MoMA, public library, Macy's, Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, UN center... obviously there's so much to see and we had a great time in the city! The four of us stayed in a room in a really sketchy hotel haha, but it was perfectly located right around the corner from Times Square.

Brooklyn Bridge

On the screen in Times Square

It was really fun for me to visit all these places with Spaniards who I've known all year. For all of them it was their first time in the US! They were amazed by the sheer diversity of people in New York, all mixed together. It was interesting to see what struck them as typically American: yellow school buses, fire hydrants, fire escape staircases, black kids playing basketball, the fact that all cars are huge, the continental breakfast at one of the hotels (they tried biscuits and grits, cinnamon rolls, bagels and cream cheese, ... hehe)

As for me, I was struck (as usual when I come back to the US after a while) by being able to talk to any random person and understand absolutely everything they said, be able to pick up on any accent they have, and be able to reference cultural/local events. I was also SO happy and relieved to eat American food that I've been missing in Spain: things like a hummus-and-roasted-vegetables pita sandwich, yogurt parfaits, Chipotle, and veggie burgers. :)

So even though the trip was fun, I'm really happy to be back in Spain. I was just a little surprised (pleasantly) when I got back to Sevilla by how extremely un-foreign-feeling it seems to me now. Actually, New York felt more foreign to me. I gave New York the basic "treatment" I've been giving any city I've visited this year - ask everyone I know who's been to New York about where to stay, what to see, etc., look up the major attractions, look up airport and local transportation online - and this probably contributed to New York seeming as foreign as any other European city I've visited!