Melissa's Travels

The unfortunate reason behind why I have time to write this blog while the day is wasting away in Madrid is because I am confined to my hostel as I am sick! I am hoping that I´ll get this unavoidable aspect of travel out of the way early so I can get on with taking advantage of the adventures that await. The sleepy afternoon in Madrid is cooing my name, but I´ll have to be content with spending the hours holed up in the bleak computer lab of my hostel. If I can´t be out and about snapping photos and making new friends, the least I can do is take advantage of free internet.

We hadn´t even left Seattle before I was presented with my first challenge as a Teaching Assistant. Our flight to Heathrow had been delayed and so our connecting flight had been rebooked. All but 2 students and myself were rebooked to a flight bound for Madrid at 7pm. Somehow the 3 of us had been detached from the reservation and were therefore rebooked for a 3:30 flight. We´d arrive at Madrid´s Barajas airport almost 3 hours before the rest of our group and I would be in charge of navigating us through the metro from the airport to our hostel. I was relieved to avoid an afternoon in Heathrow (and excited to arrive in Madrid as soon as possible!), although the prospect of lugging our suitcases around the potentially escalator-less metro stops made the entire experience a bit overwhelming. Nevertheless, aside from a few speedbumps, like an absence of street signs near our hostel and our luggage arriving 30 minutes behind the rest of the people on our flight, we made it to the hostel and were on our way to Puerta del Sol for dinner before the rest of our group had left the ground in London.

The professor I´m working with had dubbed our trio the ¨John the Baptist¨of the group, going ahead to pave the way. I´m doubtful that John the Baptist´s work involved paving the way with sangria and paella, but I´m sure that he would´ve taken advantage of these token elements of Spanish culture, had Christ been bound for Madrid. I resisted the urge to pave the way through Madrid´s abundance of late night clubs and was in bed by midnight, surely a first for me in this European city that never sleeps (with the exception of the afternoon siesta).

Our days here in Madrid began in quintissential touristic fashion. The majority of Thursday was spent on a ¨Hop On Hop Off,¨tour bus that surprisingly enough showed me a few sights I´d yet to see during my last two jaunts through Madrid. Friday we headed to the nearby sights of Segovia and El Escorial and I decided it was about time to reintroduce myself to Madrid´s nightlife. As a Teaching Assistant for SPU students I find myself faced with the dilemma of how to respond towards their drinking alcohol. A number of students from SPU turn their heads at the university´s ban on the consumption of alcoholic beverages by their students (regardless of age). I´d certainly blocked out any memories of my own struggle with how to respond to the dilemma posed by the school´s ¨lifestyle expectations,¨yet here it is in a way staring back at me once again. When it comes to the heart of it though I´ve decided that the students I´m spending the next few weeks with are adults and can decide amongst themselves how they´ll each individually respond to the lifestyle expectations in a culture that boasts an overall healthy appreciation for alcohol. And on my own plate is the opportunity to show them places where they can enjoy approved leisure activities, such as dancing, live music and watching futbol games. And from there they simply have to decide if reeking of smoke and potentially missing out on valuable sleep would make the experience worth their while.

There´s a quote I like by Helen Bevington that says, “I have learned this strange thing, too, about travel: one may return to a place and quite unexpectedly meet oneself still lingering there from the last time.¨Since arriving last week I´ve found this to be absolutely true and moreover that you not only find pieces of yourself that you didn´t know where missing, but that you also find the ghosts of your friends still lingering there. I cannot wander down the streets surrounding Puerta del Sol without longing for the friends that accompanied me on late night adventures last spring. Nor can I wander towards Retiro Park without recalling my friends from Spanish class and the afternoons we shared together near El Estanque post-class. I´ve found a lot of joy in introducing these students to the charm of Madrid, but I am unable to shake my desire to relive the memories I created last spring. Of course, this is an inevitible part of life, but throwing in the travel aspect adds an entirely different spin to the longing for the past conundrum.

I´ve certainly had a number of adventures to keep me distracted from missing my friends for too long. It began the night of our flight in and has only continued since. Such examples include: Getting my paypal account hacked into, shopping for/purchasing a prepaid cell phone in a solely Spanish speaking store, and getting a group of students stuck on the outskirts of Madrid after the metro closed. The final example is the most interesting of all. We had headed far from the city center by metro to listen to live music and made plenty of time to get back before it closed at 2am. As we descended into the metro stop we found ourselves distracted by a group of teenagers toting a fifth of vodka and screaming ¨Borracho yo!¨ ´(basically ´¨I´m drunk¨). I´m still not certain how it happened but we boarded the metro, continued laughing at the drunk antics of these teenagers lounging on the metro benches and taking swigs of vodka and after 20 minutes I realized that we were heading in the entirely opposite direction of our metro stop!! We hopped off as soon as possible, raced for the other metro, only to be faced with the dissapointing news by the metro security guard--the metro had closed! I remained cool, calm and collective. I had a map and a cell phone. Certainly we could walk back without trouble? Lucky for us the metro stop we arrived at was surrounded by freeways, which pretty much ruled out the possibility of walking home. I say it was ¨lucky¨because I later realized that strolling home would´ve been a 2 hour minimum walk. We secured a taxi number from the security guard and I successfully ordered us a taxi. When the driver arrived and we announced our desired destination, he responded ¨¿en Madrid?¨Had we really gotten so far from the city that we now were no longer in Madrid?? We opted to have him drop us off 20 minutes from our hostel in order to avoid some of the ridiculously high fare that cabs charge after 2am. And by 3am we were sound asleep in our beds, as ready as we could be to head to Palm Sunday mass the following morning.

Amidst the adventures and time zone adjustment I´ve also been navigating the ambiguous territory of life as a Teaching Assistant. The professor and I have entirely different communication styles and overall approaches to life. I´m hoping that in the end we balance eachother out, but right now I am plauged with moments of wanting to rip my hair out in confusion. I´ve recently been dubbed the ¨accountant¨ of the trip. Although at one time I prided myself on an uptodate bank account, one look at the chicken scratch on the back of my current book of checks would clue someone in to my inadqueacy in keeping track of funds. Maybe this is God´s way of helping me get back on the ball with finances. I just wish I´d been practicing with my own accounts before taking on those of an institution.

When I left Seattle last week, I was determined to steer clear from coffee once I arrived in Spain. The caffeine headaches, strain on my wallet (and my stomach) were all things I wished to avoid. Unfortunately, I didn´t take into consideration that the allure of European coffee, jet lag, long days and the reality of my caffeine addiction would not make my first week in Madrid the ideal location to endure caffeine withdrawals. By day three I´d succumbed to the deliciousness of cafe con leches and I haven´t looked back. Maybe returning to the states I´ll try again. I doubt Starbucks chais and frappucinos wont suck my unemployed self in the same way as Europe´s cafe culture.

Overall my first week in Spain has been a success. I boarded the plane, mastered the names of the twelve students and have visited a majority of my favorite Madrid destinations. This afternoon (assuming I´m feeling back to my usual self) I´ll be greeting my long lost best friend at the metro near our hostel and will be diving into yet another adventure filled week that involves reminiscing with another European Quarter 2005 alum, preventing cliques amongst the current EQ students and taking advantage of all Madrid has to offer, particularly the siestas.