My train from Alicante arrived in Madrid around 6pm last Saturday.
Decked out in capris and a t-shirt, I was greeted by gray skies that
threatened to burst any minute. Puddles of recently fallen rain were
everywhere and I was grateful that I´d already decided to take a cab to
my host family. I couldn´t help but wonder why I´d wanted to come to
Madrid when I´d had it so great in Alicante with sunny skies and easy
access to the beach. It took me less than 24 hours to be reminded of
why this city has haunted my dreams for the past three years. Sunday
morning I took the metro into Puerto del Sol to meet up with one of my
favorite travel companions from Seattle, Ivy, who has also been
studying Spanish in Spain this Spring. Emerging from the metro station
into the bustle of Sol I was greeted by the familiar sites that had
felt like home to me Spring 2005. It took all my energy to fight back
the tears of excitement as I made my way across the plaza to greet Ivy
and her friend Petra. The three of us made our way to the local Sunday
flea market, El Rastro. Don´t let the words ¨local¨or ¨flea
market¨confuse you though. Rastro is one of the biggest markets in all
of Europe (maybe the world?) and you can´t be intimidated by crowds if
you want to make your way to the booths in this market that stretches
across nearly an entire neighborhood. Everyone who is anyone can be
found here on a Sunday morning in Madrid. Even those who´ve been
dancing until dawn manage to stumble out of bed, grab a coffee and head
to this barrio. Following lunch we headed to my all time favorite place
to eat in Madrid:: Maoz vegetarian, where you can get a whole wheat
pita overflowing with veggies and falafels. Unfortunately if you´re
interested in trying this delicious lunch (it´s great for dinner or
breakfast as well) the only locations in the states are in Philadelphia
and NYC. However, if you find yourself in the Netherlands, Australia or
even India I highly recommend you search out the nearest Maoz
Vegetarian.
On Sunday night I enjoyed my second favorite
Spanish food (well if we´re talking authentic Spanish then it comes in
at number one, but if you count Maoz it´s a close second)--paella!!
Although some might be intimidated by the rice heaped with clams and
shrimp still clothed in their shells, I am a huge fan of this
delightful dish. As soon as I saw that this was what my host mom had
prepared for dinner, I knew that I was going to enjoy living with her.
She is about 65, a widow and walks around the house decked out in
lipliner and a fur robe. She even insisted that ¨mi casa es su
casa¨which is vastly different from the hospitality I received from my
family in Alicante! My room here is a bit smaller for sharing, but I
actually have drawers to put my clothes in and my mattress was
manufactured in the past 20 years which means I don´t have to worry
about falling through the bed every night like I did in Alicante. The
only drawback is that there is terrible construction taking place at
our building right now which means a siesta is pretty much out of the
question.
My school here is a 20 minute metro ride from my
apartment and as long as I can find a seat I love to finish my homework
or journal along side all of the Madrileños headed to work (or home
from a long night out--at 8:30 am you find both). I was surprised to
discover that I´m one of only two Americans currently at our school
here. Already I´ve made some friends from Sweden, Germany, Turkey and
Denmark and since new students are coming every week I´m sure tomorrow
I´ll connect with even more people. Every Monday night our school
organizes an event ¨Copa de Bienvenidos¨at a local bar to welcome the
new students and offer them a free drink. Even more than seeing new
places and experiencing a new culture, I think the best part of this
experience has been the people I´ve met. When else in your life do you
find yourself spending all of your time with people that were strangers
only hours before? I wish there was a way I could bring this back to
Seattle, but somehow when it´s the place you call home it´s always much
harder to strike up conversations with people you dón´t know. Hopefully
by June I´ll find that nothing is holding me back.
With my
friend Ivy being here this week I found each day flying by. We spent
Monday in Retiro Park, Tuesday went to see a Russian ballet company
perform ¨La creaccion del mundo¨(just getting to the ballet on time was
an event in itself! I had forgotten I had my friend´s ticket and took
the metro all the way down to the city centre before she reminded me.
As soon as I realized it I ran to the metro, ran to my apartment and
sprinted up the five flights of stairs to my apartment. I wasn´t sure
where the ballet was so with only five minutes to spare I took a quick
glance at my map and dashed down Gran Vía in my skirt and heels. As if
my blonde hair doesn´t make me stand out already, now I had all eyes in
Madrid on me...somehow I made it into the theatre just as they´d dimmed
the lights). Wednesday was Ivy´s final day and to celebrate we went out
for Italian food and a late night of dancing until 7am. Needless to
say, I couldn´t make it to class the next day. Fortunately, there
wasn´t a class that was on the exact chapter as I´d been on in Alicante
so this entire past week was review for me. I think a night spent out
practicing my Spanish was probably far more productive than three hours
of reviewing the past tenses for the 3rd time in the past month.
Friday
evening I joined Mary and Petra (new friends Ivy introduced me to) in
seeing ¨La Bella y La Bestia,¨or Beauty and the Beast. The Spanish
people are so incredibly proud of their language that they translate
absolutely everything into Spanish which meant that all of the songs
were set to the traditional Disney melodies but with Spanish lyrics. It
was absolutely beautiful, and the girls (and even boys!) decked out in
Disney character costumes that crowded the theatre made the experience
even more magical. After the show and a late dinner we headed out for
another night of dancing around 1am (which by Spanish standards is
relatively early). I had a great time dancing the night away with
Petra, but had the unfortunate experience of being bothered by a boy at
the dance club. His name was ¨Frank¨and although he couldn´t speak
either English or Spanish very well he claimed to be from New Jersey
and was in Madrid studying because his father is from Spain. I wasn´t
impressed with him from the start and after getting into an argument
about the virtues of living in America it took all of my resolve not to
throw my drink in his face. Right now he has dual citizenship in the
U.S. and Spain but next year will choose to be an American citizen
because as he put it, America is the best place in the world, the land
of opportunity. He told me that he never talks to girls at clubs unless
they are American and I proceeded to tell him that although I
understand I look American I still wish I didn´t immediately stand out
as being from the U.S. ¨Why not?¨he asked and told me that when his
friends give him a hard time about being American he tells them to fuck
off because he knows how great America really is. Despite all of his
insistence I refused to agree with him. It´s a question I´ve struggled
with the entire time I´ve been over here. Despite everything that´s
been preached to me my entire life about the U.S.A. being the best
place to live, my heart just can´t believe that it´s true. But when it
comes to articulating my sentiments I find myself often struggling to
find the words. Why am I embarassed to be an American at times? If I
did want to live somewhere else, where would it be? Despite my
annoyance with this guy, it was actually somewhat comical to watch him
continue to try and impress a girl like me who despises cars, thinks a
job should be about changing the world and not merely money and who
most of all doesn´t believe in the ¨pull yourself up by your
bootstraps¨bullshit the U.S.A. has become so famous for. I´d like to
see him try to tell a single mom in White Center struggling to make
ends meet that where she lives is the land of opportunity... it looks
like someone should be taking some classes in Sociology alongside his
Civic Construction education...
Following my late night of
dancing I found myself with no ambition to get out of bed on Saturday.
A couple of times I woke up and read a couple of chapters in my book,
but it wasn´t until 6pm that I finally decided I should take a shower
and do something ¨productive¨with my day. I tried to console myself
with the rationale that I would never be able to spend an entire day in
bed at home, but I couldn´t help but feel a little lazy about the whole
thing. Now that I´m starting to settle into being in Madrid, I´m
realizing how much I truly miss Alicante. Yesterday got up to 85 egrees
and without wind or easy access to a beach it is miserable at times
(the absence of air conditioning doesn´t help either). After a
dissapointing and overpriced meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, I found myself
wondering why I was so in love with Madrid anyways? Was there really
anything more I wanted to see? Why did I come to Spain? Would I ever
speak Spanish after I went home anyways? I found myself seriously
contemplating returning to Alicante at the end of the month because at
least if I was stuck in Spain I could enjoy time stuck at the beach. It
doesn´t help that I´ve spent almost as much here in the past week as I
did my entire four weeks in Alicante. The terrible exchange rate is
killing me and in a city where I have to pay for transportation every
day and the coffee is twice as much as in the states isn´t helping
either... after departing from my friends at 4am I went home to journal
for the next two hours, hoping that I would still manage to get out of
bed before noon today.
Around 2pm I pulled myself out of bed
and joined my host mom for lunch. It was another 80 plus degree day so
I made my way to the city centre to join Mary outside the Palace to
study. In truth, I felt like spending the day by myself but in the
spirit of ¨¿por qué no?¨I headed to the palace anyways. Life has a
funny way of working itself out and making it known that all things
happen for a reason. After Mary headed to her house I decided to
venture to the internet cafe, but first thought I´d stop by a candy
shop to buy some trail mix. I was more than surprised when after
purchasing the trail mix the cashier told me to hold on a moment while
she went to grab me an ice cream. I suppose that today with every
purchase you received a free gelato, which was just what I needed to
change my frame of mind regarding the heat. Unable to head to the
internet cafe with my ice cream I decided to search out my favorite
plaza, Santa Ana, where I knew I could enjoy my ice cream. However,
when I arrived at the Plaza instead of finding benches to sit on I was
greeted by a street fair! After some investigating I learned that it
was a fair designed to raise awareness and money for the lack of clean
water in Mozambique and other countries around the world. Deciding the
internet cafe could wait, I opted to spend the rest of the afternoon
amidst socially conscious people enjoying the sun and live music. Aside
from the fact that Spanish was the dominant language being spoken, I
could´ve very well been at Folklife in Seattle. Watching the sun set
behind the historic buildings in Plaza Santa Ana and enjoying the
musical renderings of this Spanish band devoted to helping a worldwide
cause, I found myself remembering why I love Madrid so very much. As my
guidebook says, this ¨is a city that creeps up on you, weaves its way
into your soul and then sings happily into your ear.¨
