Melissa's Travels

Fall is officially here.

Technically, we should still have two more weeks of summer to enjoy before it is officially fall. Regardless of the fact that I've lived in Seattle for 25 years, I still find myself constantly surprised at this city's bipolar weather tendencies. Staring at the ginormous puddle forming outside the front door of the gym (dubbed by a member, "Lake HAC"), I can't help but feel cheated out of opportunities to wear summer skirts and sandals. But wait, this is not a typical turning of the seasons for me. Because halfway across the world is a city where it is still in the upper 80's, where I can show off my end-of-the-season clearance tanktops and head out on the town without needing to tuck an umbrella in my purse. This place of wonderfully long summers is noneother than Madrid. And Madrid, as I'm sure you know by now, is one week away from being the place I call home.

Just typing those words "one week," sends chills up my spine. This ambiguous future event is suddenly an undeniable reality. Even the most trivial of events is taking on infinite significance. "My last opportunity to go to First Thursday!" (I still have yet to go, although I pencil it into my planner every month without fail), "My last time going to the library!" (actually not such a bad thing since my fines are getting dangerously close to the $10 account freeze point), "My last Sunday where I'll actually get a good night of sleep because next Sunday I will be freaking out about my flight on Monday morning!" There is no shortage of moments worthy of being blown out of proportion. You would think I was planning on relocating to Spain! (This of course, is my Mother's greatest fear. And regardless of my love for Spain, I am honestly not moving there with plans on staying permanently).

Before I even begin my job on October 1st I've packed in two weeks of back to back adventures. The first chapter starts next Monday morning when I'll hopefully be boarding a 6am flight to Madrid. I say "hopefully" because I'll be flying standby. Which means even if I get on my first flight, there is still the potential of getting stranded at JFK in New York. And with a one way, stand by ticket and visa, my blonde, smiling self is assured a date to get checked out by airport security. If I do have the luck of getting aboard my intended flight then I'll arrive in Madrid on Tuesday morning, hopefully with minimal jetlag because I wont be able to check into my hostel. Then the week-long apartment hunting marathon will commence! I've selected the area of town I want to live in and have been obsessively checking online listings to get a feel for what's available. Not that this is actually doing anything more than adding to my paranoia that I wont find anything but an overpriced, overcrowded, granny furnished flat in a sketchy part of town.

Regardless of whether or not I find an apartment, after one week in Madrid, I'll be jetting off for a 5 day vacation in Italy. Thankfully I will have a Vespa chauffeur in charge of quickly escorting me away from the "Urban Jungle" of Napoli to the coastal paradise of Positano. Be assured, this will be a blog worthy vacation. I'll arrive back in Spain on Sunday morning, just in time to head to my orientation class the following day. My new job officially starts October 1st. There are numerous unanswered questions and still to be discovered details that loom ahead. What age of kids am I teaching? How much Spanish am I actually going to need? What subjects will I be teaching? How close to a half an hour will my commute on the Spanish bus system actually be?

Ready or not, the week long countdown to Madrid (and sunnier skies!) has begun!