NEW New Plan!

Okay, so where to begin…Almost exactly 1 year ago the economic crisis stole my life. I was living it up in Madrid with amazing friends, teaching English, tour guiding for Sandeman’s New Madrid and working as the Program’s Coordinator for Club Ivy, helping Spanish students apply to study abroad in English speaking countries. Life was good.

Me tour guiding it in Madrid!

And then boom – 24% unemployment in Spain and my jobs were gone. I said farewell to all my amazing Madrid amigos and set off in search of a new adventure.

SWEET MEMORIES OF MADRID

At Estadio Santiago Bernabeau for a Real Madrid football match with Sebastian, Simon, Tanguy, Davide, and Luzie

Marisa and I celebrating Spain's EuroCup victory in the Bilbao fountain - on my 23rd Birthday!

Tiki Tiki! Oleeeeeeeeee! Ernie, Paolo and Nabil on Halloween!!

Laura, Pablo, Arturo, me, Enrique, and Maria eating caramel apples for dessert after our delicious Thanksgiving feast!! yes, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my friends in Spain. And yes, it was awesome 😉

Me and Rachel!! Dinner party at Rachel's, complete with charades, magic tricks and singing

La Noche en Blanco!! Out with Nicoletta and Julian

Goodbye Party with friends in Madrid

So, I decided to go to Boston for a breather, find a job back in my home country. Boston was good in a lot of ways too – I reconnected with old friends, visited family, met many wonderful new friends…

BRILLIANT BOSTON BUDDIES

Sara,me, Megan (roomie!), and Jackie

Lilly!! We've been BFF since birth 🙂

Told 'ya - friends from birth! Lilly and I as babies. I'm the adorably fat, bald lump on the floor...

Elizabeth!! and me out for a night in Beantown

Drea!!! (high school amiga!) Rachel, Parker and me. Nerds. Oh yeah.

Justin!!

Wiley! My Other Roomie

University friends back in Providence! Rita, me and Camela at Viva!

Binta, Sonia, Maren and me - visiting my amazing cousins in Maine! Love you all!!

But after about 4 months it was bye-bye Boston. I lived between Amman and Palestine for a month, working with my Uncle, a documentary filmmaker for Al Jazeera English. And after that…I had no plan. Already in the Middle East, I made the spontaneous decision to visit family in Beirut and study Arabic for about a month.

July came and went so quickly, and deliriously happy in Beirut, I was in no mood to leave.  I had enough saved up to hold me over for another month, so I found my fabulous L’Auberge Espagnole-esque apartment in Hamra, where I lived with 12 other amazing Lebanese and internationals, and continued Arabic classes.

As the end of August drew near, and I began to scrape the bottom of my piggy bank, I was forced to decide – what next? Do I stay in Beirut, find a job and make a life here? Or do I go back to the States again? And if so, where?? Do I move to a different country?? Where??? What kind of jobs am I going to be applying for? What do I want to do with my life??? Why have I not already figured this out????? AHHHHHHHH!! Head exploding!!

Finally I decided – ‘Okay, I’ll stay in Beirut. Easier that way. Besides, I’m happy here.’ A lot of my friends here were interning with the Daily Star, the main English language newspaper in the region. So that put the idea into my head to try something journalism related. I love writing so it seems like a logical choice, no? I applied for jobs at both the Daily Star and the monthly travel magazine, Time Out Beirut.  Both offered me an internship, but Time Out Beirut offered the possibility of a paying job within a month or so. Time Out Beirut it is!!

And so it began. Every morning, I would pull my tired ass out of bed, glug some coffee and then sit back with my ipod for the 2 hour bus ride to Kaslik (which incidentily is only 25 minutes from Beirut, but takes a whopping 1 hour and a half longer to get to on the bus. oooogh. But the bus only costs me $1.75 so I’m not complaining. Well I guess I am, but I acknowledge that I shouldn’t. So there.).

The job turned out to be worth it, though. And now,they’ve hired me full time!!!! So basically I get paid to enjoy and explore Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, and then write about it. Seriously, what could be better?? How is this my life???

So with a regular paycheck and a new apartment with Farah in Achrafiyeh (they tore down our old building to build a parking lot), I’m calling Beirut home for the time being.

Farah et moi

Such a bizarre feeling to know where home is again! From Madrid to Boston to Amman to Ramallah and now finally here – it took me almost a year after the economic crisis robbed me of my life in Spain but BOOM BABY! I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!