Getting to Spain

I am writing you from Blake Bockhold’s (friend from UF and Sarasota for you that don’t know him) in the middle of Madrid. The flight was good and I am surprisingly coherent which from what you are about to read might surprise you. I ended up sitting next to 3 UF students on their way to build a house in Madrid for a competition, very random. The following I wrote while on my way to Philadelphia from Tampa. Going to try and write you all once a week. We are heading down to Granada via bus in a few hours. Hope you enjoy!

So here I am, sitting on my flight to Philadelphia, fighting to stay awake because I have been getting up early and going to sleep late. I use this sleep deprivation technique so that I will fall asleep early and easily on the flight to Madrid. I do this because of the hellish experience I had on my first international flight.

I was flying to Ghana, Africa February 2009 and was all excited to get some good reading in (“Good to Great” was the book of choice), maybe watch a cinematic adventure or two (I think I watched “The Train”, the movie about the Syracuse Heisman trophy winner, not the “other” one……perverts) and sleep around 4 hours or so. It was a solid plan, so I thought. Well that plan was a complete and utter epic fail, unbeknownst to me the international flight gods had strategically placed me in the corridor of flight hell. I ended up sleeping approximately 15 minutes due to not 1, not 2 but 3 crying babies being positioned within rows of me. Since babies do not know how to pop their ears they have serious problems on flights. These three seemed to be in competition with each other fighting over who could scream the loudest about this issue, I am pretty sure the one closest to me won. I spent the whole next day feeling just like those newborns: sensitive to sun, incoherent, cranky, hungry and sleepy. The international flight gods got a good laugh out of that one, I think they are French.

So coming into this flight I think I have developed a pretty good formula for international flight success. Take 2 iPod headphones and shove them very deep in your ears and blast chill music (counterintuitive but it works), cover your eyes with an eye mask, don’t get any sleep the night before and most importantly medicate yourself during dinner (I prefer an ambien). Even those French flight gods can’t mess with that right?

Well even that plan has seemingly backfired. I can barely stay awake and it will be a miracle if I don’t fall asleep by the time the flight attendant comes with the beverage cart carrying some splendid beverages to quench my ever growing thirst completely ruining my plan not to sleep. Speaking of drinks on a plane, I hate how I can’t bring water into the airport, on principle I refuse to pay $5 for a bottle of H2O so I am stuck forcing myself to stay awake waiting for a 3 ounce cup of ginger ale (ironic choice I know, jokes surely to ensue) to satisfy my 40 days in the desert thirst. On the bright side, at least I don’t have to get up to go to the tiny plane bathroom every 5 seconds. I also think it’s interesting that I always get ginger ale on airplanes but never anywhere else. Must be some deep seeded issue I am going to have to work out with a therapist at $300 an hour 10 years from now, thanks US Air.

I actually wasn’t planning on writing anything before leaving but I refuse to fall to those French Flight gods and writing keeps me awake. I have literally fallen asleep twice on the woman next to me reading about European Union Law, she is a sweet German lady that always vacations in Sarasota. I thanked her for depositing her hard earned Euro cash in our great city and state. I compared her vacation in Sarasota to her government providing money to Greece (German giving money to beautiful beach country/state in economic distress). Not sure she understood me, probably better that way, don’t want her blitz krieging me or never returning. I love foreign vacationers, they make Florida so much money.

I have been knocking out some Rosetta Stone in order to be able to talk my way out of whatever trouble I get into, not there yet, might want to pray for me. On a deeper note, I am extremely excited for this summer but as always it is bitter sweet because I love Tampa/Sarasota and will miss the summer fun there with all of my friends and family, some new some old. All in all though I am jacked up for what lies ahead.

Just to give a tentative itinerary for the summer, I am enrolled in two study abroad programs put on by Stetson Law in Granada, Spain and Buenos Aires, Argentina (thanks Stetson for the scholarships to make this possible). So here you go:

4 weeks studying law in Granda, Spain with weekends free to travel. Coming in early to spend weekend with Blake, his roommate and sister in Granada. Probably do Madrid for a weekend, Portugal for a weekend and somewhere in Southern Spain for the last weekend.

I then have a two week break where my friend Perin Registre is flying out to meet me. We are going to Ibiza for 4 days, Madrid for 2 days and Morocco for a week to visit my other friend Jay who will be living there.

After that I fly back to Tampa for a night before leaving for Buenos Aires, Argentina. I plan on skiing in Chile and visiting the Iguazu falls.

More details once I actually do these things. I am gone from June 2-Aug 14.

Also, for those of you that I haven’t talked to or haven’t been following my twitter/facebook/myspace/bbm/email status updates I found out the other day that I am the recipient of the District 6890 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship for 2011-2012. The Rotary Foundation will be paying for me to study internationally for a year. I should find out where I will be sent at the end of the summer but it tentatively looks like the National University of Singapore. I graduate this coming May, will take the FL bar in July and then pursue a L.L.M. in International Law and Economics there from Aug. 2011-June 2012. As cool as that might sound I am most excited about the fact that I can play varsity athletics while there. The varsity basketball and softball coaches have already been sending me recruitment letters. Ok not really but if they knew me they would be.

p.s. I don’t have myspace.