Category: Reflection (Page 2 of 3)

I’ve been house sitting in the Canary Islands for about two weeks. Here are some takeaways.  

Sunset on my first night on Tenerife

I planned on writing about a post a week while I was here, but lo and behold, I am already down to the end of my stay, so, instead I wrote four posts in a day. Efficient? Maybe. Procrastinatey? Definitely. The remaining three posts will surface in the days to come.

Originally, Oakland was supposed to be my first house sit; getting my feet wet in a city with which I’m familiar and friends just around the corner. For many reasons, that trip falling through was a blessing in disguise, but it lead to me starting this whole process here, on a foreign island in a foreign country in not my native tongue. I’ve already learned a few things.

Halfway up the volcano. There’s green up here!

Language Sidebar: My Spanish is decent. I’m very good at reading it, not terrible at listening to it, and less great at speaking it due to forgetting words. It definitely gets better as I practice, but upon arriving here, I experienced something I never experienced before. For the first two days of interacting solely in Spanish, I felt it getting better. It was exhausting, but I was improving. On the third day, however, something very strange happened.

This was the day where my host had to explain all the animal and house-related duties I would need to carry out over the next two weeks. After hours of absorbing information in my second language, something broke. More specifically, my Spanish skills broke and I was sent hurtling backward. All of a sudden, I was unable to recall so many words and grammar rules that I already knew. I had tried to store too much in my brain at once and it snapped. This lead to me feeling embarrassed when I had lunch with my new friends the next day and my Spanish was not up to par. So strange.

Also, let’s all remember this when talking to people who are struggling to get a handle on our language. It’s taxing. Experience empathy!

For the first week or so, when I talked to people back home, everyone was asking questions such as:

“What awesome things have you been doing?!”

“Is it totally amazing!?”

When I wasn’t able to answer with the grand adventures I was having or the amazing things I was seeing, I started to feel guilty. Am I not doing enough? Seeing enough? Everyone was expecting me to soak up everything, to be immediately meeting all the new people and experiencing all the things. I let myself feel guilty for a while until I realized, that’s not the entire point, is it? The point of this journey is not to be a hard-partying, super active tourist in every location I go to. If I treated every destination the way I would a week-long vacation, I’d be exhausted, I’d get nothing done, and frankly, I’d be out of money pretty quickly.

Sunset from the patio.

Yes, I could have gone whale watching or scuba diving and I could have taken a ferry to another island or even spent every day at the beach. I could have really hit the nightlife scene hard. But, for what? The point of this, at its core, is to give me a free place to stay so that I can get writing done; hopefully to create something worthwhile, but also to make my portfolio more robust so I become a competitive candidate for work that I really want to do. It is a (most excellent) bonus that I get to travel the world and do this in places that I’ve never seen before and experience cultures on a very local level.

So, I stopped feeling guilty. I’m sorry, y’all. I didn’t do all the tourist stuff. I didn’t go out and meet the random British partiers, or tons of locals. What I did do, was make a few awesome new friendships thanks to a connection facilitated by an old friend. I experienced generosity, was able to see a large part of the island due to this generosity (though it was still just the tip). Otherwise, I lived a pretty normal, kinda boring life… a lot of which involved caring for seven cats, seven birds, and two tanks full of fish.

Four out of seven cats

Over the next few days, I will go over my island experiences in a bit more detail. This was my starter gig, and it helped me to navigate things such as jet lag, time management, animal care, and striking a balance between tourist and temporary resident. As for now, I will leave you with a snapshot of things I miss from home and things I love about being here.

Things I miss most (besides humans because that goes without saying and y’all don’t need to hear that shit):

• Toaster ovens. Man, I really rely on a toaster oven. Making toast, making melts, reheating leftovers. A toaster oven can’t be beat. Sure, the “grill” setting on Spanish microwaves is cool, but it doesn’t really compare.
• Swiffer. How can someone have SEVEN cats and not have a Swiffer? Normal methods of dusting just don’t come close. No, they don’t sell Swiffer here… or Drano. Challenges.
• Fresh produce. I thought I was coming to Spain, so was excited about very affordable fruits and veggies like I used to get in Barcelona. What I forgot was, this is an island. An island essentially in Africa. I paid 4 Euro for an onion.

Things I love:

• Spanish window shades. I first encountered them in Barcelona a decade ago and I don’t know why they aren’t more prevalent. I think they are meant to keep the sun out for temperature purposes, but boy oh boy they are good for sleeping.
• Old friends like Schweppes Límon, Principe Estrella cookies, Non-USA Coca-Cola, Zumo de Melocotón (peach juice!), Receta de Campesina flavored Lay’s, decent chorizo for sandwiches. Also, somehow a Mars bar tastes way better than a Milky Way, even though they are the SAME THING.

Snacks I can get in Spain! Yay!