Madrid: Día Dos

I am writing to you from my living room table on September 26th at 22:55 pm. I am alone in the apartment. I tried to call it a night around 22:00, but I think my mind has a bit more to say tonight. So be it. The roommates are out on the town so I have some time to finish this up for you guys. I am hoping to bring you up to speed soon and catch up to the present day. Orientation week was pretty jam packed but life has slowed down quite nicely this past month so I hope in my future postings I can cram more days together and get on with the main events. But for now, I’m going to let this day by day itinerary play out and unfold as it pleases. I thank you for bearing with me as I figure out what the hell I’m doing. Anyways, here’s day two for you.

DÌA DOS

Up and at em! It was my second day in Madrid and I started off the day right, heading down to the hotel lobby for breakfast. Having hopped on the espresso train this past year, I was thrilled to grab myself a tiny white mug and hit the Espresso Solo button on the coffee machine. I tip tapped my toes to the machine’s hum as it spurted out the good stuff. Not too bitter, the perfect amount of foam. I topped it off with a little leche de almendras (almond milk) from the cereal bar. (Best hotel coffee I’ve ever had. No joke.) I opened my mindful breakfast/ gratitude journal and tried to let out some of the sappy, under-slept and highly caffeinated sentiments running around in my head.

Good morning mindful breakfast/gratitude journal, Annie here! This morning we are feeling extra sauced up on the bean. Ooo yeah I can feel that pumping through the old veins. 5 and a half hours of sleep in two days. Boo yah! Anyways…I find myself sitting here feeling pretty damn in awe of this whole opportunity here, for the loving family that sent me off with plenty of pocket change, for my friends that I’ve made in the past year at REI and Wildflour, for these feelings I’m having where I feel like I’m finally doing something big and scary and wonderful, I’m also grateful for those moments when I don’t feel so wonderful and I can shake hands with that feeling, note it, respect it, tell it to pull up a chair and we can talk about it. But today, right now, I am grateful for this little tiny mug, warm espresso, almond milk, and a mumbling grumbling stomach- BRB!

I was off to the buffet! Two things that Madrid seems to get right: portion sizes and variety. They’ve got all of the good stuff: plenty of carbs, sweets, and fats but they shrink it down and spread it out across an array of smaller dishes. For breakfast that morning I had(you ready? Brace yourself.) 3 slices of manchego cheese, a potato omelette, roasted eggplant and tomatoes, and granola with mixed nuts and seeds. There was a selection of charcuterie meats, a salad bar, croissants, toast, baguettes. I finished it off with a crispy golden churro dipped in a semi sweet chocolate sauce(very different from the cinnamon sugar covered mexican churros I’m familiar with) These spanish essentials are crispy, a bit savory, and the perfect amount of oil that melts in your mouth as you bite down. I tried my best to slow down and savor every bite, stopping every few moments to jot down a grateful for churros….grateful for cheese… grateful for the man in the apron that just cleared my plate. A breakfast of champions. I was surprised to find myself so hungry again just a couple hours later.

After breakfast, I sat through a few orientation presentations, one on health care ((free! all of it free within insured offices! Ambulance? Free. Doctor’s appointment? Free. Want to see a specialist to get that funky mole checked out? Free. Having just paid a $400 medical bill for a specialist visit, I was floored(okay, my parents paid it after I asked them nicely…but still…) The one thing that isn’t covered is prescriptions but I’m told the costs are pretty dang reasonable compared to the nightmare in the US. There are of course other limits. No free plastic surgery or fertility treatments for me this year, unfortunately.))

We sat through another presentation about finding housing (That was the one thing the program did not cover. Jordan and I were on our own to find a place to stay after the provided four nights at the hotel. They had warned us not to sign a lease until you see the place in person so 95% of us had arrived…well…homeless.. Jacob told me at breakfast that he hadn’t even started looking yet!)The young woman giving the presentation gave us a few pointers “If you see a listing claiming low prices, open floor plan, lots of sunlight, nuh uh it’s a scam, baby! Sunlight is a luxury in Madrid homes” Other tips included “Air conditioning is a luxury, hard to find anywhere, and Madrid doesn’t really have smoke detectors, no driers either. We just don’t use them.” Then, she pulled up a survey of questions asked to previous students in the program. The first regarding how long it took to find housing. The average answer being about 2 and a half weeks. There was one dot at the ten week marker. The young woman pointed to it and said. “She wanted air conditioning. Don’t be like her.”

Next, the head of the CIEE program here in Spain gave a presentation on cultural differences between Spain and the US. Below I’ve compiled some of the things that stuck with me most:

“You may see Spaniards doing black face around Christmas. It is a Three Kings Day Festival tradition. So if around the holidays, you see it on the street, well it’s not so much of a taboo thing here…There is no politically correct in Spain, and people are pretty direct… Also forget about personal space. There’s no personal space here! Two kisses on each cheek, that’s how we greet people we care about…Time is a bit more flexible here, we have built in breaks in the workday to socialize and eat…but I will say this: A lot of people think Spain is all fiesta and siesta. There’s no mid day siesta, no nap. We all have to work, yeah? However, here we work to live, not live to work. I care about my job from 9 in the morning to 4 or 5 at night. After that, apart from a few passing considerations, I do not care and you will not be able to reach me.”

The one line of hers that stood out the most to me was “I have some friends that I don’t even know where they work. We just don’t talk about it.” (Wow! I found myself so excited to be a part of a collective society, to share food and drink and music, to slow down. I thought of how nice it would be to slow down, to work on challenging my hardwiring that tells me to always be doing, hustling, making, creating, getting better and better and better. It would be nice to wake up in the morning without a looming to-do list. Sure, there will be things to do but I think they have a better way of approaching them here.)

The presentations ended and we were free to roam. As I walked out, a familiar face came up to me, a gentleman that was with us at the rooftop bar the night before. We had chatted a bit on the way back to the hotel last night. He introduced himself as Cole, and told me that “el col” means cabbage in Spain. I learned that he went to NYU, studied history, is obsessed with biking and La Vuelta, an international cycling race held in Spain every year. Our conversation ended last night with him trying to guess my last name. I told him it was an occupation. Jordan told him it was cosmetic. He guessed Cutter. “Close to Cutter,” we told him. Before we parted ways he asked, “Are you going to tell me? ”I left him hanging.

Cabbage greeted me and said “Alright, occupation, cosmetic, close to baker, close to cutter. I’ve been thinking about it all night. It’s gotta be Barber! It’s Barber…Right?”

I smirked. “Yeah you got it.”

“I’m dumb. That was right in front of me.”

I laughed, said goodbye to Cabbage and met up with Jordan and Livie. The three of us walked to Plaza de Castilla to get our public transportation cards. If you’re under 26, you can get an Abono Joven for 10 euros a month. This gives you unlimited access to the buses, trains, and metro! This youth card covers all of Madrid and the surrounding areas. You can get as far as Toledo or Guadalajara, all included.( For reference, both cities are about an hour and a half commute from the center.) We loaded up our cards in the metro station. After that, Jordan and I bid farewell to Livie and headed to apartment tour numero dos. Another let down, unfortunately. It was very cramped and they wanted three months rent upfront which would have hurt the pockets a bit too much from the get go.

Feeling a bit deflated, Jordan and I walked to Sol(the city center, tourist craziness) where we split up to meet with our orientation groups for a “Tapas and Walking Tour” event. My orientation leader was this seriously cool girl Ximena. She was born and raised in Mexico, moved to the US when she was about 15. Now she’s 28, starting her second year with the program and considering moving to Spain full time. She met a sweet Irish man her first week here and they are still going strong. (It’s no wonder. She’s beautiful, funny, and kind of a badass.) She walked us through the city center, pointed out parks, the shopping district, and an outdoor movie theater. We stopped to grab some tapas in Plaza Mayor, an open square surrounded by countless restaurants and tourist traps. I ordered una tostada con salmon y queso(salmon and cheese toast) and a glass of water. I asked Ximena how to order a glass of water so as to not get charged for the fancy blue bottle again. She told me “un vasito de agua…del grifo. Del grifo is tap water. I would specify, or else they might assume and still bring the expensive one.”

She lit up a cigarette, ordered churros for the table and told us that the Spanish accent is inferior and that she refuses to let it influence her Mexican accent.( Some people refer to the Spanish accent as having a lisp. Google it. It’s interesting.) She also told us about her summer here, how the local swimming pools will sometimes hold liberty(nudity) days and how her friends and her accidentally crashed one. “A lot of old man penises, not a lot of attractive young people penises .”

I asked “What about titties? Is it true that there are a lot of topless ladies here?”

“In Malaga, yeah. On a lot of the beaches you will see a lot of topless women, mostly old women. Not a lot of diversity though. I didn’t see a single titty of color when I was there.”

I took out my phone, opened my notes app, and jotted down titty of color.

Around the plaza, I noticed several men with various sheets and tapestries laid out in front of them. The sheets were full of merchandise: jerseys, counterfeit purses, sneakers, magnets, keychains, you name it. When I remarked on it, Ximena pointed to the corners of the tapestry “See those strings? Those are so they can pack it up quickly and haul it on their shoulders if the cops come around. It’s not legal to sell stuff here like that, but people still do it.” (Since being here, I will regularly come across a group of 8 or 9 men walking fast single file around a corner with big knapsacks on their back. It’s a sight I’ve grown accustomed to.)

We finished our tapas, and decided to call it for the night. Ximena met up with her boyfriend by the fountain. We ogled him from afar. He gave us a big wave. She blushed. We giggled and whispered like teenage girls. “He does look Irish!” someone exclaimed.

Back at the hotel, It was around 23:00. Jordan was asleep. My back was aching pretty bad from the day’s movement and my poor sleep hygiene. I laid down and tried to rest but no luck. Fumbling my hands in the dark, I found my phone and texted Cole “You doing anything?” I was a bit stressed. I wanted someone to talk to. No reply, probably asleep. Sick of feeling restless, I packed up my backpack and headed down to the hotel lobby. I journaled on my computer until 1 in the morning or so, wanting to preserve as much of this adventure as I can. ((I should note here that this digital journal is separate from the gratitude journal I mentioned before. The gratitude journal is handwritten, easy to carry around. My ironically named google doc “Captain’s Log,” the journal I’m referencing here, is where I store the little moments, conversations, fragments of the day that I want to preserve in time. This is my main reference when writing this blog. To put it in other words, if I misplaced my gratitude journal, I would be a little bummed( and concerned for whoever found it) but if my Caption’s Log somehow disappeared from my Google Drive…I would need some serious consoling. I’ll admit the whole thing is compulsive and a bit mental but hey, I’m grateful for the daily ritual …anyways let’s get back to it.))

After journaling, I started stressing pretty hard about finding an apartment. I felt that I should be sending more messages, adding more listings to my favorites. Who am I to spend my time journaling when I should be being productive! I am homeless after all. I worried about the cost of 2 bedroom apartments, worried about living with another person. Will I be a good roommate? Will Jordan and I get along? Will I get enough alone time? Do I have any antisocial psychopathic tendencies that might reveal themselves in our cohabitation? Am I a freak? Am I weirdo? How do I know for sure whether I’m a weirdo or not? Is there a test I can take? Maybe I’m just really good at hiding it. I’m probably a weirdo. How quickly until Jordan realizes this? Ugh! Gararara baba dee ba ba boo boo beep bop bibbidy bop ba ding ba ding pow!

I abandoned the search, went back up to the room, tossed and turned for a while, and then let out a pretty serious exhale. Jordan heard me and whispered.

“Hey, Are you up?”

“Yeah. I can’t sleep for shit, dude. I can’t stop worrying about finding an apartment.”

“I’m really stressed too. Do you want me to turn on the light and we can talk about it for a second?”

“Yeah, okay.”

He turned the light switch on and said

“Honestly, I’ve been kind of freaking out tonight too. I feel a little in over my head. I was just talking to my mom and crying.”

I relaxed my shoulders, and smiled “You know, I thought I had maybe heard some sniffling over there. I’m freaking out too. I keep thinking ‘What the hell do I think I’m doing? I’m not cut out for this.’”

“Yeah. This is crazy.” he said.

I was relieved to hear that he was feeling the same way as me. Prior to this, Jordan has studied abroad in Wales, New Zealand, and the Bahamas! Next to him, I felt like a bit of a dunce. Truth be told, I’ve never left home for longer than two weeks.(and that was just a week before this!)

“It really is. I’m worried the places we are looking at are too expensive. Would you want to maybe look for more roommates? Maybe try to recruit that Jacob guy? I know he’s scrambling a bit.” I suggested.

“Yeah. I was thinking the same thing, there would probably be more space, and hey, it might be cheaper.” he said.

I sighed “Phew! I was worried you wouldn’t be into it. Okay! I like this plan. I feel better. Do you feel any better?”

“I feel better. We got this.”

“Yeah, we got this!” We got this. I got this. I almost believed myself.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Lesson of the day: sleep comes easier after a little vulnerability.