Spain 2021 Recap (part 1)

Happy New Year! (LOL!). January came and went and the busyness of life got in the way so my first 2022 post is just happening! Better late than never, I guess! I hate when I can't find time to sit down and decompress my mind through written words although I am sure this isn't exclusively an "Adriana" problem. 🙈.  And here I am...rambling once more!

Last year was busy! Most people were still reeling from 2020 and trying to figure out their "new normal"; I guess we were all collectively trying to come out of the funk that COVID brought on. I know it was definitely harder for some people but we tried to make the best of it. 

In December, we went on our first international trip since the pandemic started. This time we chose to go to Spain for several reasons; first of all I was turning 40 (yay!), my mother in law happens to live in Madrid and Spain was one of the European countries with the less restrictive COVID measures.

I will recap some aspects of our trip for anyone interested in either knowing how it went or maybe even traveling to Spain in the near future. 

Airports & COVID

We flew out of Miami (MIA) via Portugal and had a 2 hour layover in Lisbon.  While Spain does not require a negative COVID test to enter, Portugal does even if you're just in transit. Both PCR and Antigen tests are accepted so we opted for a PCR, taken 3 days before our scheduled trip.  Most countries are also requiring some sort of QR code that is done in an app and then shown to be scanned upon arrival. The checking of the COVID test was a joke, I could have shown a drawing by Oliver and it would have been the same as the negative test; the agent merely glanced at it (both in Miami and Lisbon). 

Upon arriving at Spain, we showed our QR code previously generated; it was scanned and our entrance was approved. 

I will be honest and say that I was expecting the airport experience to be a traumatizing thing, but it was incredibly smooth and just another thing to do. 

I can't say the same about baggage claim, though! LOL

The flight(s)

For this trip we flew on TAP (a Portuguese airline); not only was it the cheaper option but also because it was the shortest out of the cheaper options! LOL. We had a layover in Lisbon both on our way to Spain and on our way back home. I'll be totally blunt; the mask enforcement on the plane was a joke! On such a long flight, I guess the flight attendants just don't have the patience (or the energy) to be policing every passenger.  Half the passengers were asleep with a blanket over their face, a quarter of them were "actively" eating or drinking and the remaining quarter had a mask that was covering their mouth but not their nose. So yes, I think mandating masks on planes is ridiculous and it only adds stress to an already stressful situation.  And nobody cares... not even the ones who pretend they do. 

The kids were angels on the flight; none of them slept and all they did was watch movies. The layover was a pain because our connecting flight was late so the exhaustion was unreal. Thank God for priority lounges, though...such life savers!

The jetlag

Jetlag is always a b**ch but this time it hit us extra hard. I don't know if it was the extra steps and precautions we needed to take for traveling in COVID times, the emotionally draining aspect of an overseas trip during Christmas, the flight delay, the change in weather or all of the above, but by the time we got to Madrid, we were beyond EXHAUSTED!!!  Poor Oliver quickly regretted not sleeping during the flight and we literally had to drag him around the airport because he was passed out!

                                           

The reunion

Aside from it being my 40th birthday trip (I officially turned 40 while on the flight Spain), traveling to Spain also meant reuniting with my in-laws for the first time since COVID hit. Iggy really missed his mom and the kids definitely missed their grandparents. They came to get us at the airport and we were all a collective mush with all the crying (happy tears, of course!). It was so nice to be able to squeeze each other hard and share the love. Spending time with my in-laws made for an interesting trip; they hosted us and took us around and it felt so good. Of course there was bickering and the occasional disagreement, but it was overall an amazing thing to be together and share Christmas with them. I was particularly moved by seeing the connection between Iggy, his mom and the kids; so refreshing!

My birthday celebration

Turning a year older while on a flight was definitely a first for me. I had been looking forward to this trip for months and I was naturally excited; but there was something about turning 40 away from my parents and sister that made me a bit sad. We've always celebrated milestone birthdays together so I will admit to feeling a little weird. Add the indescribable exhaustion to that and the combination can be lethal.  My actual birthday is a blur, I was literally a zombie all day and even after the 4 hour nap I was able to take upon checking into the apartment, I probably only remember about half of what I did or said on the night of my birthday.  My in-laws were excited to invite me to dinner so we went, but in hindsight, it would have probably been a better idea to call it a night and celebrate the next day. I am forever grateful to Iggy and all of my family and friends for making my day so special.  My dear sister organized a surprise birthday party before we left so my birthday definitely didn't go unnoticed. Special year for sure!

The day after my birthday was the official "recovery" day. I can't remember ever being as exhausted as I was by the time I finally went to sleep. I can honestly say that December 23rd, 2021 was a complete "sleep" day. I woke up around 6pm local time, had dinner and went back to sleep... no regrets!

I will post more about Christmas and our wonderful time in Spain on my next installment. 

Happy Blogging!

 

Memoirs of my life in the USA: Official Silver Anniversary

 

I left off my last post when a palm reader in NYC told me I would marry someone I hadn't met in exactly a year's time.  That happened exactly as predicted and I met Iggy a month later (December 2004), got engaged the following April, and married him on November 18th, 2005 aka the happiest day of my life. 

I could write a long post about how our lives have unfolded in the past 17 years but the truth is that FB has been a witness of that and there isn't much to add, so in this post, I will focus on the unmeasurable gratefulness that I feel today on my official 25th year in the USA. 

I will make it short by saying I LOVE everything about this country, in the past 25 years I have been given amazing opportunities and a life full of blessings. I have met the most wonderful people and made life-long friends that have taught me the most valuable lessons. 

I LOVE the American way, I love the comfort that this country has to offer, I love the richness of every state, I love the customs, I love the freedom that we enjoy, I love the diversity that is found in the USA. I love that this country greeted me with open arms when I was an immature teenager and that it has allowed me to create a path for myself as an adult. 

I am grateful for my family and for the fact that my kids get to grow up here, this is the perfect place for us, the place where we proudly belong.

I am thankful for the decision my parents made 25 years ago and I am proud to be an American. 

I thank God every day for the USA and today I celebrate 25 happy years in one of the most amazing countries in the world!

Memoirs of my life in the USA: Time to be an adult!

When I graduated college, it was time to “adult”! Once I had accepted the fact that the USA was my new home, it was time to hustle.  A few visas later (and a lot of money in lawyer fees) I was already a permanent resident and was free to live my life as a quasi-American. My first job paid me a whooping $25K per year, not exactly what I had envisioned and I learned rather quickly that the lack of guidance in my pre-college years had led me to the wrong career. But I honestly didn’t have time to dwell on it and I really tried to make the best of it. I worked in the mental health field for a while and one day I got the weird itch to move out of my parents’ house and try my own luck. 

In a spur of the moment decision, I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years, got a job in Tampa, rented an apartment, packed up all my stuff and left. When I look back on it, I think moving to Tampa was probably a crazy decision but at the time I felt right; it was something that was part of my process, something I needed to do. Even though most Hispanic families don’t see their children leave home until they get married, I was unknowingly raised as an American, with "American" thoughts and I was starting to realize that it just seemed “normal” to me that someone at 22 would leave home to live on their own. I often wonder how much longer I would have lived at home had we not come to the United States; I’m sure it would have been at least until marriage, maybe even beyond.  

Emotionally speaking, my life in Tampa was a hot mess; I felt so lonely all the time and sadness always overtook whatever I was doing.  My life was monotonous and the job I had was mediocre at best. Yes, I was working in corporate America, meeting new people and performing well, but this lonely, corporate-like life was not what I wanted for myself. And while I didn’t love it, the idea of feeling like a failure and going back to my parents’ house was even less appealing because I had already come out from under their wing and flying back to the nest didn’t exactly spell “success” so I stuck it out for a couple of months.

With my friend (and co-worker) Jen in 2004

My friend Eva and I in Tampa

By the 2nd month in Tampa, I was ready to throw in the towel; living alone was definitely not for me. I know it sounds extreme, but I literally used to cry myself to sleep 5 out of 7 days of the week; there was something about my “pretend” life dream that was making me borderline depressed. I view my time in Tampa as an out of body experience because now that I’m almost 40 I can’t really see myself living alone in another town. I made some good friends and experienced a lot of growth in my time away from home but in the end it just wasn’t enough to keep me where I was. I often wonder if I should have given the Tampa life a little more time, but if I had, I wouldn't be who I am today so I really have no regrets.

A Tampa night with some friends

And just like I had decided to move out of my parents’ home, I decided it was time to go back, time to swallow my pride and save myself from making even more mistakes and living in perpetual depression and agony. A couple of weeks before I made the choice to scrap the “I’m ready to live alone” idea, I was hospitalized for some sort of severe food poisoning and found myself lonely in a local hospital; no one to call, no shoulder to cry on, no one to help me pack my things in a patient bag; I missed my mom and dad, I missed my sister and my cats and everything that had to do with a warm and caring family and stable home life. That hospital stay was probably a turning point for me and I’m glad I followed my heart and decided to go back home.

But before I moved back, I took a girls’ trip to NYC with my cousin Carolina and my good friend Eva. It was supposed to be a cathartic experience for me and it certainly was, the trip served as a time for me to reflect on regrets, changes, future decisions, growth, etc.

As we were walking around NYC one day, a strange looking lady grabbed my hand and said she wanted to read my palm. Me, being the  skeptic I am, quickly shook my hand away and said “no, no, no!” and she kept insisting that I let her tell me about my future.  I kept brushing her off and she followed me around for a bit until I finally agreed to let her tell me ONE thing. She said it was something that had to be said because she had a strong feeling about it.  It was November 18th, 2004 and her exact words were “in exactly ONE year from today, you will be marrying a man you haven’t met yet and he will make you very happy, continue to follow your heart”.  Of course I thought she was crazy, I was 22 years old and I wouldn’t call myself a romantic; marriage was definitely not on my mind…

This is a picture from our NYC trip in November 2004

(To be continued…)

Memoirs of my life in the USA: Moving on...

Losing my sister during my junior year of high school definitely put a damper on the experience. There I was, navigating life in a foreign country, in a brand new high school with a newly shattered family. While I did try for tragedy not to define who I was, seeing my parents (particularly my mom) go through such a terrible loss was definitely a challenge. I felt lost in high school; while other kids were starting to shop around for colleges, write exceptional essays and plan out their potential careers, I was trying to figure out how I was going to move forward with a broken heart and an uncertain legal status.  I was a good student, a great one actually; grades were never an issue for me but I definitely did not find the support and guidance I needed to catapult me into a stellar college experience. My parents had no clue about what was required and they weren’t involved in the process; on top of that, my sister dying showed us that our immigration challenges were just starting, and having a non-resident visa not only meant that I wouldn’t be eligible for any scholarships I’d earned but also that my parents would have to pay top dollar at any college. 

My high school graduation

And that’s exactly what happened, my grades afforded me any scholarship a highschooler could dream of (I was at the top 5% of my class, out of 1200+ students) but I could not take any of them because I was, well, a foreigner; one that didn’t qualify for the “perks” America had to offer, the very things my parents had moved here for, but such was life and we couldn't dwell on it. I ended up attending FIU and finished my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 2.5 years; I will be forever grateful for the financial sacrifices my parents made so I could graduate college.  They paid upwards of $7K per semester and I can only hope I made them a little proud with my efforts because I know how difficult it was for them at the time. 

Even though my college experience wasn’t what I once envisioned (I was a commuter student, never attended football games, or college parties, didn’t join a sorority, didn’t have a college sweetheart, and had very few friends) it was the experience I got and for that I am grateful.  Would I have moved away from home had my situation been different? Would I have left Florida to settle elsewhere? Would I have chosen FIU had that not only been one of my few choices? I honestly don’t know but at the time I was happy to play the cards I had been dealt and I decided to make the best of it and I got a degree out of it, so it was definitely a win!

I learned a lot in my college years. I learned that dreams can change and our ability to adjust and make lemonade out of life’s lemons only improves if we really want. I learned that nobody could live life for me and even though settling might seem easier at times, sometimes the road less traveled is the one that brings the most happiness. My parents' dedication to us was once again proven and their resilience is truly admirable; their example is one of the best lessons life has given me. 

I realize as I write, that this particular part of the story may sound a bit gloomy, but college was a really good time in my life; even though there was a lot to be sad about, I loved every minute of it.  I grew so much as a person, I learned empathy, I made friends, I learned balance and prioritizing. It was during college that I had my first real relationship, my first conversations about conviction and so much more.  And many people may argue that’s exactly what college is for but in my case, it was special because it was the time I came out of my shell and realized that I was here to stay, that the United States was my new home for real and it was time to love it as my own because it would be here that I would likely grow a family and pursue my dreams with them….and that I did!

(To be continued)

Memoirs of my life in the USA: Things were looking up...until they weren't

This post is a continuation of my last one (in case you're interested)

About 2 years into our new life, things were starting to look up. I had made some friends (some of which would become my lifelong best friends), my dad was already working in architecture, we had moved to a nicer area and were enrolled in a better school and I even had my first ever job, everything was definitely better.

Working as a teenager is not something I would have done had we stayed in Venezuela but I absolutely loved the fact that I could do it here; making my own money from the time I was 15 really taught me to be a hard worker and to value the effort that comes with it. I learned responsibility, work ethic, discipline, and many other skills that would prove useful in my adult life as well. I also bought my first car with my hard-earned money, so that was definitely a highlight of my first job!

See, coming to the United States was a CHOICE, there wasn’t a pressing financial or political reason to leave Venezuela at the time we did, we were just another family moving to a new country; I think my parents saw it more as a way for their children to grow up in a country with better opportunities all around, but the change did come at a price and I’d be lying if I said that even though things were better, it wasn’t a tough road. Choice aside, I am sure my sister Erika was a big motivator for that choice; she had been born in Texas in the late ’70s while my parents were in college and due to a case of medical malpractice, she ended up with mental retardation. Life in Venezuela wasn’t easy for her as a disabled person and I can imagine that it was very difficult for my parents to see her grow up in a place where there were no special considerations for anyone with her condition. In coming to the United States, my parents saw an opportunity for Erika to have a better life, to live in a place where she’d be treated humanely, somewhere she would be seen as a “handicapable” person and not some burden to society.  And that is exactly what we found here; great special ed programs, incredible doctors, the right medications, the right approach. And because Erika was an American citizen all of the immigration paperwork would be made easier for the rest of the family, there was a clear path for us to become legal permanent residents and subsequent citizens once Erika turned 21; meanwhile, my dad held a professional visa (we were his dependents) while we waited for her to reach the age where she could petition the whole family. 

But that day never came because Erika passed away unexpectedly on December 23rd, 1998, a month before her 21st birthday; our life was changing again, our family was crushed.  Erika’s death is the single most shattering event we have gone through as a family; a part of us died with her and it took a long time for the devastation to set in and even longer for us to come out of it (not like it has ever been possible to feel completely normal again!).   

With Erika’s passing came a lot of sadness, tears, setbacks, and a whole lot of reconfiguring of our plans and our lives in general. Our family was broken, our hearts were shattered and to add insult to injury, we had no place to go back to now because Venezuela was just starting its own nightmare with Hugo Chavez ascending to the presidency (if you know, you know!) and while I am sure my parents briefly considered the possibility of going back, the newly installed government quickly persuaded them to stay...and so we did.

I’d like to think that God used Erika for the very important purpose of bringing us here; it is no coincidence that her life inspired our move and the timing of her death cemented our stay.  I am thankful every single day for having had the blessing of Erika in my life; there isn’t a day that I don’t think of her and I know everything that happened was part of the plan... and broken heart and all we needed to start over…

(To be continued)

Memoirs of my life in the USA: How it started

Let's start with some high school pictures...

I was 14 years old when my mom propped an empty suitcase in front of me and said “whatever fits in here, that’s what you can take with you”...

Just a few months prior my parents had decided we were leaving Venezuela and permanently relocating to the United States, so while the suitcase scene didn’t shock me, it did feel like a turning point in my teenage mind...we were leaving.. I had been asked to pack...the move was real!

I saw my childhood home come apart when my mom decided that the easiest way to get ready for the move was to sell everything in the house and start anew. I remember very clearly when strangers would walk into our home and make offers on furniture, picture frames, kitchen appliances, even our Christmas tree ornaments were for sale. I spent the last few nights sleeping on the floor because my bed had been sold and celebrated my 15th birthday in an empty house blowing candles on a cake that sat on a kitchen stool, no bells or whistles, there was no time for a “quince” party, we were leaving the country within the next week!

On December 31st, 1996 we boarded a plane and said goodbye to our native country. I can still hear my sister Claudia sobbing at the airport and screaming “please don’t take me, I don’t want to leave!”, that moment will remain a jarring memory for me. It was the first day of our new lives and at the time it sounded odd that my parents had picked that day to move to a new country but 25 years later I can see why it was the perfect date; it meant closing a chapter and starting a new one along with ending a year and ringing in a new one, the meaning is deeper than I ever thought 25 years ago. 

The first few months were rough as I navigated the American high school experience as a newly arrived international freshman. Leaving my all-girl Catholic school to be “dumped” in a less than desirable public American high school wasn’t my cup of tea and I felt really lost for most of that first year.  I was no longer wearing a preppy uniform every day, there were no praying nuns with cheerful attitudes or people willing to be friendly just because that was the right thing to do.  Instead, I was faced with unwelcoming mean kids that made fun of me for not speaking English and for not understanding their sexual jokes, teachers that were mostly disconnected from the students’ needs, and a high school campus that looked more like a jail than it did a school. I often wondered what I had done to deserve this and so badly wanted to go back to the bubble I had lived in for the past 15 years. 

Things at home weren’t great either because we had gone from living a comfortable life in a big house to being crammed in a two-bedroom rental apartment. My dad was no longer Dean of Architecture in a prestigious university; he was now a pizza delivery driver trying to make ends meet and saving every penny so we could have a decent life as immigrants. My mom was no longer the always available stay-at-home mom, she was now another breadwinner and my sisters and I were spending more time alone than we ever had. Those first few months felt lonely and ominous, they brought so much anxiety and disruption to our perfect family but they also taught me the first lessons I learned in my new life as an immigrant, as the foreigner that I had become and the one I would always be. I learned that letting go of what was would be the only way to move forward, I learned that home is where your family is and that it is in difficult times that we truly understand the value of love, resilience, and sacrifice. 

Our life in the United States was just getting started…(to be continued!)

Sweet 16!

I love my husband unconditionally every day of the year but there is something about our anniversary that makes me sappy and overly giddy. 

 When I look at the life we have built in the past 16 years I can't help but think "gosh, how did I get so lucky!?".  And the "luck" I think about isn't about feeling a mushy kind of love every day, or never arguing about anything, or traveling together, or having healthy kids, or being able to afford a comfortable life. My "luck" is about having that one special person next to me when things don't go right, it's about knowing that even on the worst days we share a kind of love that we both guard more than anything else we have, it's about arguing and always finding a way back to each other, it's about being confident that no matter what, we'll always trust each other enough to see through whatever obstacle is thrown at us. 

I am "lucky" to love a partner who loves me back just as intensely, passionately, and unconditionally as I love him. We are lucky to have each other to go through good and bad times; to celebrate the happiness and share the sadness, someone to be vulnerable around, always knowing that there will be no judgment, and having no doubts that God put us together for a reason, being certain that we have a purpose as a couple, as a family.

That's what our anniversary means to me, a reminder that the love we share is bigger than ourselves and that our marriage will always be worth fighting for!

I love you forever, my Iggy. Thanks for making me the luckiest girl alive! 

Happy sweet 16!