Finally....we have made it!
It has been a long journey to get here, but an important one, with many lessons and much strengthening along the way. Our unexpected stopover in beautiful Salisbury means that I am really really really close to finishing my book. Although, I have been saying that for about five years, the end really is in sight! I hope to start looking for a publisher soon.
Finally, finally after nine months of travelling, walking 800km, seven countries and three seasons later, we arrived in Madrid last Saturday. We were so overwhelmed with answers to prayer and things to give thanks for that we filled four pages in our family journal. So many doors opening before us.
Our "host family" is more like a guest house with other students from Peru, Germany and the UK also living here. Our hosts Gonzalo and Eva are about our age, are brilliant and cook us Spanish food every evening. They speak to us in Spanish and are endlessly patient with us as we masacre the language around the dinner table. Gonzalo roars with laughter as we fumble our way through, and helps us to find our confidence and reminds us to laugh at ourselves. When we arrived last Saturday, I classed myself as a non-Spanish speaker, and Stephen was intermediate. After just a week of intensive language school, I am now able to construct sentences and contribute to the conversation around the dinner table, and Stephen feels as though his mind is an open file, rapidly absorbing more language each day as he is intellectually hungry. I even felt brave enough to ask for something at a newspaper stand today, and be (more or less) understood. Are you sure someone hasn't invented a USB stick to plug into your brain to upload this information?? There is a lot to learn and we feel as though our brains are stretched to capacity!!!
On Sunday, as we boarded the metro to head into the city centre for the first time, I had a sense of time stretching before us like the horizon over the pacific on a summer's day (a sight we miss dearly). There is no rush, nothing to cram in. We live here. Here in Madrid. We don't have to see all the museums in three days, three weeks, or even three months. We are free to be, free to explore, free to discover. Stephen already feels right at home.
First impressions of Madrid are: light which is brighter than England, the bustling colourful Plaza Mayor filled with street artists and outdoor cafes, winding alleys which lead away in all directions to smaller squares, a woman singing Ave Maria in the street- filling the space in the narrow lane between shops and patisserres with her voice, people everywhere, majestic architecture on every street, Parque de Retiro - the playground of kings and queens now open to the public, a magnificent palace, our favourite bottle of wine for less than three euros and churros con chocolate. It sounds romantic, it is romantic. We live in Madrid. We love it, and Stephen especially is thriving at being in a bustling metropolis once more.
However, despite the bustling metropolis, it is a very very small world. After Gonzalo, the next person we met at the guest house was a lovely English girl who is from.......Salisbury. Not only is she from Salisbury, but went to school in the small village where we lived for the past six months. Not only did she go to school in our village, but was in the same class as Beth, the youngest daughter of the family we lived with!
Standing on the platform of the Madrid metro watching news footage of the cyclone in Queensland, gave Sme an etheral sense of being part of two worlds at once, and yet not grounded in either, floating between the two. On the other hand, catching the metro to school every day gives us ample opportunity for people watching and culture learning. We have noticed more older people out and about in this culture which reveres the elderly; grandmas pushing prams in a place where multiple generations share the same space; two young guys with down syndrome and matching red jackets on their way to work in a country which has one of the best social care systems in the world; the captivating scene of a group of five deaf young adults communicating annimatedly in sign language and laughing uproariously in silence; and a woman with something no Australian would ever own - a fluffy shoulder bag made from kangaroo fur with a picture of Australia and a kangaroo on the front, in a land where Australia is an exotic paradise.
Although we are are on a steep learning trajectory, our days have developed a good rhythm. Coffees in the morning from the bar next to the school, where already we are regulars and on first name basis with Carlos, the man behind the bar. Today, Stephen ordered the "normal" - dos cafes con leche por favor! Language school for four hours, with classmates from France, Russia and Germany, pick up a fresh baguette on the way home, lunch at three, siesta, then at least four hours of homework and revision before dinner anywhere between 9 and 10pm (they have it early for the foreigners!) including an hour of forced conversation practice when all we want to do is hide in a corner, then crash into bed our heads exploding with new words. Unable to sleep on a full stomach and a full brain one night, Stephen went for a walk outside at midnight to find the streets buzzing and bars overflowing.
Spain is famous for dried ham, and our hosts keep an entire pig's leg above the fridge, to be scraped off in thin mouth watering slices as desired. There are also "museums of ham" scattered around the city, where all they sell is ham in a million different varieties - ranging from your every day sandwich ham to a leg of exclusive ham which sells for ninety Euros a kilo.
I, find culture reflected in language fascinating. This week we learnt that the word "Esposa", meaning 'wife' comes from "Esposas", meaning 'handcuffs', to be married uses a verb which basically means "I'm more or less married for the time being", as does "to be dead" (i'm dead for the time being), and to be pregnant is to be "embarazada". They have Sesame Street in Spanish, but it is "Barrio de Sesamo" - The Sesame Neighbourhood. So much to learn, and a lot of time to learn it - thankfully we don't have to learn it all this week!
We are glad tomorrow is Saturday. Time to sleep in and relax, a free day from study, and time to explore this new city and take in a museum - one museum at a time, eat some tapas and maybe find a flamenco bar.....
The Morses Finally In Madrid
