¿Vale? Vale.

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.