A lot has happened in the last few days. I’ve already spent a night in Guardamar del Segura! It’s been pretty easy to settle into the 3rd floor room that I share with Naomi, probably the smallest room in the Pencion—but we have a bathroom and a window that opens to a vacant space in the building. The low hum of the fan above lulled me to sleep last night even as our fellow studio-mates returned from bar-hopping and late-night beach-going.
It’s been so easy, in fact, to fall asleep here, that I wonder if my previous aversions to new places was because of some kind of fear that I’ve let go of, or if this place just feels like home. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a place home, versus what makes a place feel homey. There’s a difference.
I began my trip to Spain with a BART ride from Union City to San Francisco International Airport. BART feels like home simply because I've been taking trains around the Bay Area for as long as I can remember. Airport terminals, however, definitely do not feel homey. Every step I take is filled with consumerism--every corridor, every walkway has an ad, a duty-free store, an endless rack of magazines, ten different brands of gum... and all the items are marked up simply because I'm in an airport terminal. Home does not equate to everyone trying to sell me something every second that I'm there.
At Dusseldorf, we had to go through Passport Control--our passports were stamped with our arrival date and we were questioned about our travel plans. I thought that saying that I was studying abroad would be enough--and there was a language barrier, because I wasn't really sure what he was asking--but I ended up searching frantically for the Pencion's address before Naomi saved my ass! I can't help but think that I would have been allowed to go through the checkpoint with no problem if I weren't an Asian girl with weird hair and lots of moles on her face... but of course I'm more sensitive to these things than most people. That exchange with Passport Control gave me the impression that Germany was not a friendly place to be. (We did get to stay overnight at the airport Sheraton, though, because a delay on our Air Berlin flight into DUS caused us to miss our connecting flight. Score!)
Guardamar has proven itself to feel homey because of the residences atop the restaurants and stores that line the narrow streets, the slow pace of the people who reside here, and the generally happy and generous temperament of the people we have met so far (and will be in close contact with for the next couple of months). The culture here is completely different--the long hours dedicated to eating meals with other people (usually family) really shows that they care about taking it slow, keeping it personal, building relationships. I'm so used to eating lunch within 15 minutes that it felt a little weird sitting at a table for two hours... but with a glass of wine and (almost) endless amounts of food, I soon felt like I was eating with family.
My run this morning showed me a beach town asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Alex says that the population in Guardamar grows almost exponentially within the next month because so many people come here on holiday. It will be interesting to see the urban dynamics change and to compare them to my first impressions (as well as the first impressions I got of other cities in Europe).
My first impressions of Dusseldorf, Zurich, Alicante, and Guardamar color the way that I see them. But when does the period end for first impressions? If I come back to Guardamar every year or retire to little house near the beach (as Alex’s in-laws have), then my first impressions may span the first few years that I am here. If I’m only here for two months (which is much more likely), then my memories of Guardamar will always be affected by how I felt by the things I experience in my first week or so. Maybe it’s different for everyone, for every situation.
I wonder if Guardamar del Segura will become a home for me.
(That's a photo while flying into Alicante. Notice the Air Berlin wing and the beach down below.)
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