aqua fortis

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Self-Conscious Blogging

Sometimes I'm too self-conscious to blog.

It's true. Lame, but true. I'll question every word, every sentence, every thought. If I write about what I've been doing lately, I'll fret that it's dry and boring, a mere laundry list of daily minutiae. If I write about my innermost thoughts, I usually end up deleting them or being as embarrassed as a teenager getting called on while daydreaming during class. (Yes, of course that happened to me. My AP/IB Biology teacher had some kind of radar.) I have a weird arbitrary boundary when it comes to divulging my true and deep feelings--up to a point, I'm really not worried about what people think about any of it, but beyond that line, I'm very guarded. And I'm very good at keeping those things under guard, such that even some people who know me well might not know as much as they think. But basically, every time I sit down to write a post, I worry about crossing that line, and I get a little uncomfortable. So there you have it.

In other news, of the laundry list variety, I can hardly believe it's less than a month until we leave for Italy and Spain. I haven't been out of the country for more than 2.5 weeks or so since 1996, when I was in college and spent a summer in London. We'll be away for a month this time, two weeks in each country. Neither Rob nor I has ever been to Spain, so we're excited about that, but perhaps most of all I'm excited about seeing Rome and environs. I love visiting world-famous cities (I love traveling, period, really--nature's good, too) and I've never been to Rome. The Clipboard of Fun is rapidly taking shape, though it's really more of a Spreadsheet of Fun right now. I made my shopping list of assorted crap I gotta buy before we leave, like fun-sized toiletries and a bottle of vitamin C to protect us from swine flu (since the vaccine doesn't come out until after we leave).

A couple of things put a small damper on my excitement. One was that the transmission went out on our Honda, which we ended up having to replace (the transmission, not the car) at a cost I'm embarrassed to repeat. The other is that I'm having a hell of a time getting our overnight train tickets from Barcelona to Sevilla. Rail Europe wants me to wait until only 2 weeks prior to our trip and only sells certain ticket classes, Renfe website keeps saying esta bloqueado every time I try to choose any kind of ticket class, which seems bizarre, and the Renfe U.S. agent wants to charge a somewhat ridiculous booking fee but I'm willing to pay that in order to put my mind at ease, except they're encountering some weird booking problem, too. Perhaps they, too, are bloqueado. If they solve the problem, though, I'll happily pay the extra 40 bucks, since I don't want to try to call Spain and argue with someone in my doofus Spanish.

Still, though, I'm excited. I'm also working my ass off on freelance work so I can try to chip away at this transmission payment.

8 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

Hand sanitizer and Vit C. -- these are the things a great vacation are made of...

Anonymous said...

Remember that in Spain, EspaƱol is also called Castellano.

Where are you going in Spain?

Sarah Stevenson said...

We're starting off in Barcelona (with a side trip to Figueres & environs), then off to Sevilla (with day trips to Cordova, Granada, and hopefully Ronda to see prehistoric cave paintings), and ending up in Madrid (with day trips to Toledo and Segovia).

I'm trying to brush up on my Castellano, though I'm sure I'll end up sounding like a Latin American Spanish speaker anyway (can't quite master that lisp!). My chances of learning Catalan, though, are approximately zero. :)

Anonymous said...

Cool. Barcelona I know. Never been as far south as Seville.

Sarah Stevenson said...

We're going to check out some Islamic architecture down there. I'll put up photos. :)

Let me know if you have any Barcelona recommendations.

Anonymous said...

A travel guide would be much more use than me with Barcelona, I only have a passing acquaintance with it. I will say that you can expect to hear a lot of people speaking Catalan. It's the only minority language I can think of that's actually a majority language in its own country.

Beth Kephart said...

Sometimes I do wonder what that line is—divulging and not. I like the you that is here. Barcelona, Sevilla, Cordova, Granada, Ronda, Madrid, Toledo—-I can testify to their grandeur. You will have to teach me about Segovia. Safe travels.

Ker said...

Of course this is the first time I look at your blog (ever, sorry, bad friend) and the first thing I am inspired to say is, "Do you use a menstrual cup?"

Because well, hell, they're really handy if you're traveling.

(Also, I know that bloggy feeling exactly. How many times I feel like I'm oversharing or overposting or just flat-out boring... oy. Sometimes you just have to get over yourself and let other people decide if they're interested. :-) )