New Beginnings

At this point many of you know that I am traveling to Spain for my junior year of High School. To be exact Granada… to be precise, Jun.  I will be there for an entire school year attending “La Madraza” (a school). The length of the trip will be about 10 months. This is an experience of a life time and I am extremely exited to go! I’m going to meet new people, go to new places, and do new things. I'm expanding my horizons, or whatever the expression is. I already have a host family and they seem very cool, and all I can say is I can't wait to meet them. I’m just waiting for the day that I leave this place for good!…. well at least for a year. This will be my blog while I am gone… here is my intro! 

Am I going to miss Denver and the people I’ve come to know? Not one damn bit… no I’m just kidding, of course I’ll miss people, places, just and old time tradtions that I regularly do. One thing I will miss is when me
and my friends would all go out to eat at McDonald’s after a long fun day and just BS about stuff we did and people we meat. It was just a way to waste our time away that I consider to be fun. I will also miss my family a lot, they have been there for me when I was the victim, and they have been there for me when I was the criminal. I guess it works both ways, and I have to thank my mom and dad a lot for actually letting me go on this trip, I know many parents who did not let their children go off. But I’ll miss the Mile High City of Denver, because I was raised here and I have known no other city to be home. Despite all of this I’m defiantly willing to let go and start not a new life, but a new chapter of my current life! So in this sense I’m willing to let go…   

Although every adventure starts with a beginning, no one said beginnings are easy. In fact my beginning really kinda sucks! I had a very hard time getting a visa for Spain, because of all the requirements. I was first required to have and FBI fingerprint done, I guess this way they know they aren’t going to get (as many) screw ups in their country. Another requirement was that I had to go to Los Angeles to apply for my visa. The trip was scheduled to be a 10 minute meeting. Before we went we had spent days making sure that we had all of the right papers we needed so the Spanish Consulate would except me and grant me a visa. Then finally the day to fly to LA came and we were off confident that we had what I needed to get my visa. At first it went well and the guy checked off all of the stuff we needed, and than he comes to us (us is me and my mom by the way) and says “you are missing a paper that tell us what your insurance covers, you are denied!” So we made some phone calls out of desperation and finally we are able to get a hold of someone who got us the paper. So then they finally agreed to hold on to my application. By mire chance, luck, or just destiny, I met another student at the consulate who happens to be going to Granada with me, and is going to be attending the same school I will be. This was one positive thing out of this whole stressful experience. A week later I was approved, and the following week I got my visa, so I was finally able to legally enter the country! With all my papers ready now, I just need to get myself ready! 

So why did I pick Spain if I knew I would have a hard time trying to get a visa? Well first of all I wanted to become fluent in Spanish, become more culturally aware, and above all, see the world. Secondly I had no idea it would be hard! XD!!! (a joke to myself) But here is the way I look at the world, you can only study so much to gain knowledge, but you must experience your studies to become a part of it. In this sense if I want to say I am a true citizen of the world, I have to go to other places than just downtown, or Mr. G’s Neighborhood Corner Store, I had to travel farther, and for a longer period of time. Maybe this is why rotary really seemed like a good option for me. I felt like normal school life in Denver bored me, and became redundant in the sense that I just like every kid who goes to my school will move up a grade, and continue to go to school with the same students. Especially after going to school with the same people since middle school, I felt like I needed to meet new people and do new things. I kept thinking to my self: how many people do you meet that can say that they went to an other country to study a year abroad? Not many, so I decide to commit myself to this unique rewarding experience, and I thank rotary for it! The places I go and the things I do in life are the stories I will pass on to the next generation… So why live the same every day life? Let me go out into the world and grow as a man, and become the person who I want to be! Why stick to a trivial way of life? Well I could go on about what emotions I am feeling or what exactly is going through my mind for ever, but that just wouldn’t be my style, so I’ll just say that I’m so excited to be going on this trip! By saying this, I save you (the reader) a few minutes of long paragraphs that are in some sense repetative and time consuming.  

So I am leaving on September 5th, Going to fly to New York I think, then Madrid, from Madrid I will be going to Granada! All I can say is I’ll be half a world away, but still in the same world! So I shall end with this: 

I’ll be thinking of the city of Denver, and the people I’ve come to know, and I will use my skills that God, Allah, Jehovah, The Sun God Ra, The Creater, science, or whatever religion fits me best, to become the person I was meant to be!

Jose

a.k.a

Guti