Leaving home was hard. I knew it would be, but even more so than I
expected. Whether it was leaving my
friends, fighting back tears, hugging my grandma and crying, driving out of her driveway with choked
up “I love yous.” And then my uncle, my
mom and dad, right outside of airport security, having to go back for more
Kleenaxes, getting on the plane to NYC, and then leaving the country and
everything I’ve ever known behind.
The flight to NYC was fine, but when the plane started to lean right, away from the coast, over the ocean, it started to sink in, listening to MY music as a way to deal with the fact of doing something I've never done before, the thrill and bite of independence. I lost about a whole night in the process of the trip. I left NYC at 5 PM and arrived in Madrid right before midnight our time, which is 6 AM CEST, and I couldn't sleep for the life of me on the plane. Two fairly shitty meals. Then I waited with a couple other people from my program for about 4 hours until the shuttle came.
I had an orientation for my program for the first four
days while I was here, and I was in a hotel in the southwest part of the city. It was a posh hotel overall, a quality tropical rain type shower, nice beds, a great view of the Madrid Río. But the wifi was shit, so that made life hard, especially searching for an apartment.
Up to this point, there's been lots of walking around, wandering,
eating, drinking, a little bit of dancing. I feel fairly
comfortable getting around, both on foot and on the metro. In general, I find myself feeling very
comfortable and at home with moments of realization that I am in a different
country. Madrid is very similar to the United States. At the same
time, the ubiquity of Spanish and other languages is a treat to be sure,
but also can be sometimes disorienting. The rhythm and pace of life is
also different from what I've experienced, from Bloomington but also
the few other big cities I've visited.
It's like an intense
relaxation or leisure. Everyone from young people
like myself to middle aged to older folks, are always out and about, sitting at
a cafe, eating, drinking, or walking somewhere else to do the same. The
nights are very long here too, for all parties. People are still eating
dinner after midnight, and proper "partying" continues until 7 or 8
in the morning.
Overall, I find it rather agreeable. I'm excited to
get into the rhythm of a schedule, however, and I'm discovering new places and
people everyday.
Last night I found this super awesome old worldy tavern
type place about 70 steps from my apartment. They serve really great
sweet vermouth, along with Guinness, some Czech and German beer, along
with tapas and what not.
The Spanish beer is pretty much just pilsners
and lagers, which is refreshing, but it's nice to know where to get more
complex things. We've kind of gotten whiffs of the Spanish craft beer
scene, but it still seems to be in its infancy. But when wine is as good
and plentiful as it is, it's hard to complain ha.
I ended up with an apartment with a
balcony (which has been a life goal of mine for some time) in a very cool and
vibrant neighborhood called Malasaña, which is where I wanted to live and is
very close to the center and to my school. I'm living with four other
people, 3 guys and one girl, all of whom speak Spanish as their first language. I haven't spent too
much time in the apartment so we haven't got to know each other that well yet,
but I'll be here for a while so I figure time will work things out.
My Spanish is not quite as strong as I thought it
would be, though I knew from Spanish lit last year that my speaking wasn’t the
best. But hearing Spanish
all the time, everywhere, is the best for saturation, for retention, for
transformation. The other night I had an
extended conversation with a Mexican guy, we understood each other, I even
served as a translator for the girls he was with.
On Saturday I went to El Prado, which was really
great and amazing. All sorts of huge portraits and Catholic art works
dating from the Middle Ages all the way up to about the 19th century or so.
The other great thing is that it was free! Normally from 6-8 the
permanent collection is free to view and the special collections/exhibits are
half price, so we just did the permanent collection, which is still quite
large.
Got to see stuff by El Greco, knights riding out of the mist, supernatural. And Goya, who I was
really looking forward to seeing in person. Very affecting stuff. Las pinturas negras, the darkness that appears and signals behinds itself, the symbology of flying conflict over a landscape, the defeat of a drowning dog. Funnily enough, my first real
introduction to Goya was from that big orange book that served as a coffee
table book in my places in Bloomington, which originally came from the
Frankfort Public Library sale! Go figure!
Then, somewhat unintentionally, I ended up going
with a different group to El Museo Reina Sofía, which is the other big art
museum in Madrid. It has more modern stuff, so I got to see Picasso
paintings, including Guernica, which is huge and mind boggling. Also
got to see several Dalí paintings, which I had been looking forward to very
much as well. It was neat to see the two museums back to back that
way...to see how the later artists broke from and built upon the earlier stuff.
On Sunday night, I ended up going to go see a
band play at a small venue in Madrid who was from Bloomington!
Two of the people that I worked with at Boxcar are in a band that
was in the midst of a European tour, and they came through Madrid. I had
talked with the one guy, Richard, who had also been involved with the poetry
readings that I did at Boxcar before I left, and he said they were coming
through Madrid. So he posted an instagram a couple of days ago, and via
that and Facebook, we were able to figure out where they were playing and
thanks to Google maps, I found the venue and got there right as they were about
to start their set. So that was really cool and pretty wild overall.
Today I had my government orientation for the
program, and that was somewhat dull but official I guess haha (the two
frequently go hand in hand I think). I'm going out with a group of people
from my program later tonight since this is pretty much our last free night
before school starts on Wednesday. I'm excited to get into the groove of my schedule. So far it's kind of been a weird
vacation, now that I've officially been here for 2 weeks.
But I'm just getting started.
