MY "YAYO"

   I just received one of the worst news that I could have. My grandfather died yesterday and I couldn´t say goodbye to him. That´s something that you know when you leave your home. You know that something can happen to the people you love, and now I feel that bad news are worse when you are far away.

   My grandfather had been at bed for one year. He stayed his last year of life without going out not even once, so I know that he was suffering and that this is the best for him. Anyway, I´ll miss him so much, and I´ll never forget him.  In his last year he couldn´t walk, go out or even talk, but he could love and make feel people important. Every day that I went to visit him, he just wanted me to lead him by the hand, and I could be like that for hours, just talking to him, although he couldn´t respond, because I knew he loved that, and he was happy when I talked to him. Sometimes he kissed my hand, and smiled to me.

   My grandfather had an interesting and amazing life. I think he was a lucky man, and although he has suffered so much, I hope he was happy with the life that yesterday ended. He lived a lot of experiences as a child and as a teenager. He had the opportunity to live in different countries and he learnt so much about other cultures and people.  As an adult, he was a respectable dentist, and an awesome father and husband.

   He lost his wife twenty years ago, when a cancer ended his life, and since that moment, I think he wasn´t the same person anymore. I don´t know where people are when they die, but I hope he´s finally with my grandmother.

   He was a good man, an awesome father and husband, and a lovely grandfather. My grandfather. And I´ll love and remember him forever, and I´ll be always proud of the last name he gave me. TE QUIERO, YAYO.

  I travelled a lot of times when I was a child. The problem is that I didn´t appreciate a lot of things in those moments, because I was too young. Now, I love travelling and I have enjoyed my last journeys so much. Here are my last trips around the world.

BARCELONA

  It is not necessary to go to other countries to enjoy your trip. I have been several times in Barcelona, even I lived there when I was a child. But every time I go there is as the first time. I love walking around “Las Ramblas” or “El Parc Güell”, and visiting places as “La Sagrada Familia” or “La Pedrera”. It is my favorite city in my country.

SAHARA

Sahara camps of refugees in Algeria is a place where you don´t have nothing to see. There aren´t monuments, famous places or colorful landscapes. But the people, the feeling of being useful, and the awesome image of the stars in the sky above you every night, were some of the reasons that made of it one of the best journeys of my life.

AMSTERDAM

  I went to Amsterdam past April with some friends. I think it is an amazing city, beautiful, clean and ecological, where the main transportation is the bike. It is cultural and impacting. You can find beautiful and interesting museums as the Van Gogh Museum, or Anna Frank´s house, and you can also find places as peculiar and shocking as the Red District or the Coffee Shops.

UNITED STATES

  This is my 5^th visit to the United States. I have been before in California, New York, and twice in Florida, and now I´m here, in Oklahoma. I don´t know if I could live here, because everything is too big and is too far for me. However, I love this country and its people, and I think that here, every state is a new world, and you always discover something different in each one.

WHAT YOU MISS WHEN YOU AREN´T AT HOME

  Sometimes you don´t know to appreciate what you have at home until you go to other place. I have been my whole life living in the same place, in Valencia (Spain), and I had never thought about the things I would miss if I had to go far. But even if you love travelling, and even if is something that you have always wanted to do, is impossible not to miss a lot of things from home.

                    My town, El Puig, a little village near Valencia

  I arrived to Oklahoma two months ago, and this time has been enough to miss a lot of things of Spain, and to appreciate that anything is as comfortable as home. I miss Valencia, its orange groves and its beaches. I miss too the sunny Sundays eating Paella with the family in the open air, or in a restaurant close to the beach. I miss to walk to everywhere, without using the car for everything, and a good Spanish dinner with “tapas”, “sangría”, and the best company: my friends.

                          

           Some of my friends              Part of my family

           in a fancy-dress party

  I miss also to walk around my town and to know everyone. To say “Hello” to every single person that you see in the street.  And of course, I miss all my people. My family and my friends, and all those people who make my life easier and happier.

  I have to say that I don´t change anything for the time I´m having here, but anyway, it´s impossible not to think sometimes in everything you miss from home.  The Spanish jam, potatoes omelet, the beach,  parties on the street, to play in the band of my town, my house, my family, my friends, and sometimes even my university! But, there is no doubt that everything can wait a couple of months more, because right now I´m so happy in Oklahoma and nobody can make me go back to Spain!

                     

BYE, BYE ERASMUS

   Erasmus is an Exchange program between European´s students.  This program has reached 25 years in 2012, an millions of students have enjoyed it. Most of them think that it has been one of the best experiences in their lives, and now, it is in serious danger.

   During an Erasmus, people start from the beginning in another country, with different people and with another culture to learn. Is a door to Europe, to know how people live in other places of the same continent. Is a big opportunity to open you to the world, to live alone by first time, to be an adult.

   But now, the big crisis in Europe is threatening this possibility. Brussels has declared that the program doesn´t have enough money to cover all their students. This means the end of the dream for millions and millions of Europeans, who are waiting from their first year as university student their Erasmus course.

   This is a sad new for me. I´d love to do Erasmus next year, because for me is always interesting and necessary to go to other countries, and to learn languages, cultures and people. I feel I´m so lucky because now, I´m having one of the opportunities of my life. To be in the United States for a year.  I don´t know if the Exchanges Programs with United States are in danger too, but now that I´m living here, I´m surer than ever that everyone should live this opportunity.  It doesn´t matter where. But in Europe, the most popular program is Erasmus, because is closer and cheaper than anyone else, and because it has a lot of places more than Exchange programs with other continents.

   So, if Erasmus program finishes, it will be the end of the dream for millions of students who don´t have the possibility to leave their country, and it is so sad. People need to open their mind; they need to live abroad because it is very important to understand the world. And now that I´m living this experience, I can say it will be a big mistake if these kinds of programs disappear.