Futbol, Javi-dos, and Ernest Hemmingway

These last few days have been so action packed that if this pace keeps up, I will need a wheelchair…or a new set of feet. I guess eventually I’ll stop taking pictures of everything I see and setting off nerd alerts on the calles, BUT NOT YET.

On Wednesday, as Madrid Welcome Week continued, we were given some guidelines for behavior at the homes of our host families (you know, like don’t set anything on fire and make your bed), some further information about our classes, and our travel itinerary (!!!!!!). My program is incredibly fortunate to be able to travel to Barcelona, Southern Spain, wine country, Toledo, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Istanbul. Sitting here, four days later, I’m still fangirling. We also took a placement test for our refresher Spanish course that all of us are taking this week.

On Wednesday night, a bunch of us went to the Supercopa de Espana, a soccer game between Barcelona and Madrid Athletico. It was explained to me by one of our program coordinators that the difference between Real Madrid and Madrid Athletico is much like that of the Yankees and the Mets. Real Madrid wins things regularly but isn’t connected to the people so much. Madrid Athletico has a “nacion de sufridos” (suffering nation) of fans that are the regular people of the city, but rarely gets very far in major tournaments. The game was amazing. Because we bought tickets so late, we were one section over from the die-hard Barcelona fans who were surrounded by riot police. One of the very jarring things about Madrid, from an American perspective, is the prevalence of smoking. At athletic events in the States, the dude in front of me who LITERALLY smoked 7 cigarettes in two hours would have been given a lecture by somebody about the children and the environment. Here, it wasn’t even questioned. BUT, the game was amazing, the Athletico fans are crazy, and the game ended in a tie so I guess everybody won?

Thursday began the “study” portion of study abroad, apparently I’m not just here to drink sangria and amuse the locals with my horrible Spanish. Two of the three Spanish instructors this week are named Javier, or Javi. The first Javi looks like a Spanish Joseph Gordon Levitt. Javi-dos, my professor, is an adorable ball of lanky Spanish awkwardness. The dear soul put up with us chatty, preterite tense mangling Americans long enough to actually teach us something. So, shout out to you Javi-dos, Sagrario thanks you. Thursday, a few of us also went to Corte Ingles (a HUGE department store, think the quality of Nordstrom and the size of Wal-mart) because I needed a backpack (which I got for cheap because it’s meant for children).

On Friday, Javi-dos once again managed to bestow his Spanish wisdom upon us. After class, Syd and I wandered around the city for a bit before heading back to the apartment and collapsing like majestic eagles in our respective rooms. We needed to nap because,friends, we were going out.

To quote Ernest Hemingway, nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night. But seriously, no one goes to bed. Ever. I imagine they sleep during the daytime but I have yet to have confirmation of that.  I deserved my bed last night (technically this morning? Lord.) We killed the night and sank the body in a swamp. A group of us met up at an Irish Pub near La Puerta del Sol at 10 (nube mistake, no one goes out in Madrid until at least 11). We bar hopped for a few hours, hitting another Irish pub in La Plaza Mayor, sat in La Puerta del Sol for a hot sec, ate some pizza, and ended up at this hole in the wall nightclub at 3 AM where I was carded, shout out to the padres for the round baby face and Irish peasant potato farmer build.  The metro in Madrid does not open until six and neither do any of the cafes – something I didn’t think would bother me until very early this morning. We spent the last hour of our night in La Puerta del Sol, sitting on a fountain, talking about what a weird night we had. But it was amazing. And exhausting. I’m still tired. I got back to the apartment at 6:30 after the nicest cab driver in the entire universe went out of his way to drop me off five feet from my apartment building.

Saturday and Sunday were much more low key. The program paid for most of us to meet up at a metro stop not far from me to get paella. LET ME PREACH TO YOU ABOUT PAELLA. It was amazing. My stomach is wildly happy to be here. There was this awesome awesome Spanish rice, peppers, chicken, and I don’t even know what else but I’m really happy with my life choices. After we feasted, a bunch of us went to la Parque de Gran Retiro, which was disgustingly beautiful. Everywhere we looked there were flowers, tree, gardens, fountains, and beautiful Spanish people.

On Sundays, a bunch of streets in Madrid are closed to make room for a truly MASSIVE flea market. They have everything rings that turn your finger green to massive works of art. It’s awesome. A bunch of us went there this morning to check it out and ended up having a delightful lunch with awesome awesome food (the bread made me tear up a little).

They’ll have to pry me out of this place come December.

Hasta Luego!

Llegadas y Despedidas

So after the world’s longest 72 hours, I’m safely in my senora’s apartment. The past three days hours have been absolutely crazy. Saying goodbye to my parents and my sister at the airport was super-emotional, which is apparently the norm, as the guard at security batted zero eyelashes. I apparently was still visibly upset at the gate as this very kind French family looked concerned and offered me tissues. I met Alexa at the gate shortly after. She had an adventure of her own as the least helpful team of airport staff in all of history refused to acknowledge that someone had paged her in her quest to find her ID.

We safely boarded the plane, well, Alexa safely boarded the plane. My carry-on was slightly too thick and this very kind gentleman was trying to give me helpful (?) directions in rapid Spanish, which my brain was not ready at all for. He eventually straight up took my carry-on and put it up there himself. On the plus side, I had a row to myself for the majority of the plane ride. On the other hand, they were literally seats for ants. It was like trying to sleep sideways on a single car seat. This brings me to the first thing Brita (the study abroad advisor at AU) never told me. There are a TON of stairs at the Barajas airport in Madrid. So, if you’ll indulge me and picture me dragging my 38-40 pound carry-on and my 70-80 million pound purse up and down stairs and after laughing for a hot sec, please imagine what an unpleasant surprise that was.

Alexa and I met up with the program coordinator and other members of our group in the lobby of the airport, summoned a taxi/van, told us to be in the lobby for a “short walking tour” and dinner at 7:30, and sent us on our way. The hotel was super nice and had free wifi that worked a solid 50-60 percent of the time. Alexa and I ended up sharing a room with Lauren, another girl in my program. The three of us decided we were going to beat jet lag (lolz) by not napping and walking around Madrid in search of some food and caffeine.

In normal circumstances, this would be where I would whip out my trustee iPhone and shout “COFFEE” at Siri until she came through. Alas, no such luck with that method in Madrid. So, the three of us set off in search of coffee and adventure. We started off well enough, saw some buildings and small dogs, but accidentally turned down an alley of sorts that had a deserted/sketchy vibe to it. Walking quickly through said calle, I made the wise choice of trying to pop into a drug store to get shampoo and other toiletries. Said drug store proceeded to have a locked door and an iron gate behind aformentioned door. This resulted in brisk walking until this woman pops out from behind the door and shouts at the three of us to stop and come back. We proceed to enter the smallest drug store known to all of mankind and lurk awkwardly in front of the wall of shampoo until enough time has passed that the clerk won’t cast a hex on us for interrupting her morning.

We escaped the Calle of Doom and eventually find food and coffee at this adorable little place literally ten feet from our hotel. I then proceeded to take a four hour nap. Which was awesome. By the time I had woken up, Alexa and I’s friends Syd and Rebekah had come into the room to chat before heading downstairs for the “short walking tour.” It was great to see that they, too, had survived transatlantic flight, even though Rebekah had a brief problem with some apple butter.

So, we all headed down stairs to get prepped for the tour and dinner. The “short walking tour” ends up being a two hour ramble in 101 degree Madrid without food/water/shade/shelter. Our tour apparently got turned around at some point as we had to take the metro (fun fact, DC escalator etiquette still applies) to get to the restaurant which ended up being 15 minutes away from our hotel.

The food was amazing. It was a feast and they just kept bringing out food and I didn’t know what to do with myself and couldn’t keep eating past a certain point. We got back to the hotel around one in the morning and collapsed.

The rest of this week has been just as rapid fire. I am now the proud owner of a Nokia 100, aka the most basic of all the phones made since 1975. I have a senora, Sagracio, who makes amazing food and has also provided me with the most aesthetically perfect closet I’ve ever seen.

The city is amazing. The public transpo is so clean I confidently place my hands on the bars in the metro. I’m in love.

Till next time!