Dos Besos, a Beautiful Apartment, and a Whole New World

I should probably apologize beforehand for what I believe will most likely be the enormousness of this post. The past week of my life was one of the most beautiful, challenging, and novel weeks that I have ever experienced, and capturing its intensity and wonder might require quite a few words, especially given my loquacious proclivities. Please feel free to read this in installments. Also rest assured that most of my posts won't be as extensive as this one given that I won't be finding an apartment, starting a new job, meeting a thousand new people, learning new cultural customs, and joining new social groups every week of my life. :)

The balcony that won my heart

When orientation ended, Kelly graciously offered to house me as I began my search for an apartment. En route to her apartment, which I intended to be a site of nothing more than temporary lodging, she mentioned that the fifth room in her apartment was available for rent. When we arrived at her "piso" (the Castilian word for apartment, given that almost everyone in the metropolitan part of the city lives on a different floor, or "piso," of tall buildings that have shops and restaurants down below), she unlocked the fifth room and let me enter. If there has ever existed chemistry between a human and an inanimate object, it existed between this room and me. When Kelly opened the doors out to the room's small terrace, with its breathtakingly beautiful view to the quintessentially Spanish rooftops and the tortuous European streets down below, I almost cried. I knew I wanted to rent this room, but I told myself that I should undergo the ordeal of looking for housing on my own as part of my drive to acquire life skills and feel autonomous. My heart wasn't in searching anymore, though, so I mostly just got a bunch of potential numbers in a neighborhood a little bit closer to where I teach but much less thrilling, energizing, and chemically compatible than the neighborhood where Kelly lived. I knew I wanted to live with Kelly. She and I had a few discussions in which we made sure we'd be comfortable living with each other and in which we negotiated linguistic rules (since improving our Spanish is a primary motive for being in Spain for both of us), and we both felt great about it all. So I called her landlord, set up an appointment with him, met with him the following day, and signed the contract.

The view from my balcony to the street below

The apartment is right in the heart of the city in a neighborhood called Lavapiés, which means "foot washer" and which I believe is likely a Catholic reference to the woman who washed Jesus's feet with her hair and tears in the Bible. Lavapiés is known in Madrid for being the colorful, ethnic, grungy, energetic, and progressive part of the city. The restaurants around here are mostly Indian, which is great for a curry lover like me. Probably half of the people or more that hang around the plaza are very large black men who wear colorful robes that certainly aren't European in origin. It is so unbelievably incredible to live here amidst all of the diversity. It's not much like little Laramie at all. I live right on the plaza, which is the name for the center of each different neighborhood in Madrid where there are no buildings and where people hang out and meet. It is always loud and bustling around here, even at 4:00 AM, and there are always characters out and about. It is astoundingly thrilling to live here, and I am so happy to have acquired this apartment and to have been able to move my two suitcases worth of my material life into a closet and a desk. I feel situated and ready for an incredible year. And rest assured that I will be buying plants at Madrid's enormous Sunday morning outdoor market to hang from my balcony. :)

I live with Kelly, who truly is a flawless woman capable of bringing me to my knees with laughter and who has encouraged and delighted me in every interaction we've had; Luis, a madrileño who is studying for his doctorate in economics and is very nerdy and very sweet; Jesús, who is attractive, laid-back, and what we would call a "frat boy" back in the States; and Laura, a woman that honestly terrifies me. She is extremely fierece in her personality and always accuses people of things with an intense vocal tone and a glare that could kill. She is extremely invested in her highly sexualized image--she is super tan, has bleach-blond hair extensions, wears probably three to four different shirts a day always accompanied by a mini-skirt, and only dates men that are body-builders. (I'm not exaggerating--no one else makes her cut. She showed me photos of her ex-boyfriend and her current interest in their speedos at body-building competitions.) Wow! Laura is a total piece of work, but I am nice to her even when she's being ridiculous, and I think she likes me. The roommate situation at first seemed like it might be highly fraught all year, but things have improved. Luis took me out for a breakfast coffee a few days ago and a delicious lunch today, Jesús is always calling me "hombre" (man) or "tío" (Castilian for something like "dude") and is always great to me, and Laura, though intense, did show me photos of her as a little girl, which I think was a very friendly gesture. Having Kelly to help me decompress and process is truly invaluable, and all in all I think I will have an interesting year and many a gut-deep laugh with Kelly about the weird dynamics in the apartment. I will get a photo of my roommates sometime soon so that you can all visualize them better.

As you can tell from my story of acquiring my apartment, this week was one of figuring out lots of logistics, all of which seemed to have turned out well, yet all of which were difficult to do. The bitter irony of this year is that at the beginning, when my cultural competence and linguistic prowess are both at their worst, I am required to fulfill a multitude of tasks, whereas at the end of the year, when Spanish customs and the nuances of Castilian grammar are more natural to me, I won't have these same tasks. This week, for example, I got a Spanish bank account. I had to go to five different banks until I found one that would accept me. Lots of random bank workers and tellers told me things that did not make much sense given my limited lexicon regarding the financial world. Five banks later, I finally found a compassionate and helpful banker who gave me an account, but my entire interview/information session with him was a blur of hunger pangs after running from bank to bank all morning and linguistic shyness because of my newness in Spain. When the conversation seemed to be particularly important, such as our discussion of how to acquire a debit card, I tried my hardest to communicate clearly and understand the thousand-words-a-minute Spanish coming my way. Fortunately, my landlord and I communicate really well, and he even invited me to his apartment to talk about politics with him! Figuring out the bus system out to Moralzarzal, where I will be teaching, was also difficult. But Amy, you will be happy to hear that most people abbreviate the name simple to "Moral." Isn't that lucky? Perhaps the hardest thing all week, though, was the roommate meeting about responsibilities and expectations for the year. Luis, the roommate from Madrid, would have the clearest accent except for his speech impediment. Jesús, the nice bro, is from the Canary Islands, meaning even Luis hardly understands him. And Laura is from a town in southern Spain where the letters "s" and "d" hardly figure in the language at all. Imagine me, having just signed a contract, in a room with all of these people as Laura is asking who is going to do the deep cleaning of a host of kitchen terms I had never learned. I was terrified. It's all worked out really well, though, and every day I understand more of all of them with their particular speech traits. And a good story came out of the roommate conversation--when we discussed the list of common items to be shared and bought together, which included things like spices, sugar, and cleaning supplies, olive oil was a non-negotiable item on that list. Spaniards use olive oil like water--we go through a large bottle every three to four days in this apartment. And this, for some reason that is still a mystery to me, is something that we all pitch in to buy and then can all use whenever we please. Americans are much more into individualism, I'm learning. I keep having to assert my American desire to buy my own things and control my own space in the face of the Spanish system of sharing. So much for cultural assimilation. :)

My clothes drying outside, which is customary,
on the balcony off of my apartment's living room

In terms of cultural differences and Spanish customs, I am continually fascinated to observe both a host of similarities and a plethora of differences between my native American culture and that of my temporarily adoptive culture, Spain. In Spain, for example, people both greet and say good-bye with two kisses, one on each cheek. However, there is a complicated protocol to all of this--two women always kiss, a man and a woman always kiss, but two men generally only kiss if they are very close. At first, I shook everyone's hand when I was meeting them, and they all gave me weird body language when I did so. Then, I went crazy with the kisses and kissed everyone, including a man that I had just met, which totally threw him off. Fortunately, he was really kind and forgiving about it all, but wow! It's tough to figure out. Spaniards also don't always kiss the cheek directly but just make a kiss in the air while touching cheeks. This too, of course, threw me off, and for awhile I actually just kissed people's cheeks, and then I just made a really awkward "mwah" sound when I air-kissed people. Ha ha! I've been a total cultural wreck, but I've learned simply to laugh at myself and cut myself a lot of slack as I learn. I'm also learning that Spaniards love pig in all of its forms and love seafood, and I've been trying to take photos of some of the food eaten here that probably wouldn't be appetizing back home. For you, Mom, I took this photo of my roommate Jesús's lunch, an entire fish, complete with the head, soaked in olive oil. This country is full of surprises, and I will indubitably have many more stories in the future about Spanish culture and how I perceive it.


I will tell you two more stories from this week and then conclude this behemoth post. The first is that I started working at my school, a bilingual institute named after the Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite, on Thursday. I felt so at home and so happy to be in  what is essentially a combined junior high and high school. It's definitely too early to tell, but I really think that education would be a highly satisfying vocation for me. I met the teachers with whom I'll be working, I saw some of the curricular materials that we'll be using, and I was given keys to various classrooms and lounges. I am so thrilled to be in a pedagogical environment! I can't wait to get to know my students and help them improve their language skills. Kelly has loved her experience--her students call her "teacher Kelly" and spell her name "Queli." Precious, no? She said she also spent five minutes one day teaching the phonological difference between "bird" and "beard," since English has around 10 vowel sounds while Spanish only has 5, making the two words nearly indistinguishable for Spaniards. Ha ha! I can't wait. There will be many more updates about my students as the semester progresses and I begin to be integrated in the classrooms.

Lastly, I can happily report that I conquered some huge fears this week and successfully attended a gay men's running group and a gay men's swim team, both of which welcomed me with open arms. On Wednesday night, I went to the gorgeous Parque de El Retiro to meet with this group of gay runners. I learned lots of new words as we were instructed on what muscles and such to stretch, and I was so nervous and ran so hard during the workout in order to look fit that my calves were sore the next day. :) The swim team met for the first time on Friday, and they practice in a beautiful pool at a "polideportivo," the Community of Madrid's public gym and recreation buildings. The coordinator of the team, whom I had been e-mailing, met me and introduced me to some folks on the team. I learned that in Spain all people are required to swim with a cap, so Luis the coordinator gave me one. I also learned that it is required to wear sandles in the locker room and on the deck of the pool, lest one get athlete's foot or, as they say in Spanish, "mushrooms." I loved the swim team so much. It was truly a dream come true. One man, probably in his fifties, is a sociology professor that got his PhD at Berkeley, and he and I immediately had a bond. He was so kind to me and let me use him to ask him vocabulary questions on words like "flip turn" and such since he has such a high level of English fluency from his stint in California. After our practice, we all went out to get a delicious Chinese dinner (at 11:00 PM, which is completely standard for Madrid). We all hung out and talked until about 1:30, at which point we dispersed since the metro system stops around then. I am definitely the youngest of both groups, which seem to have an average age of around 35-40, but I love the feeling of both groups and am going to pay the membership fees and participate all year. The opportunity to have a gay men's sports group is so mind-blowing and healing for me. Madrid is a land of miracles!

Arriving in Madrid and Fulbright Orientation

Beginning a new chapter in the book of one's life is a thrilling and bizarre experience, and moving to Madrid was no exception to this rule for me. Before arriving, I was completely full of ideas and projections about what Spain would be like, most of which hinged upon stereotypes and the limited experiences of others--the men would look like Enrique Iglesias, everyone would eat nothing but paella, and bullfights would be as common as street corners. I knew these ideas were nothing more than creations of my imagination, yet I had no realities to dispel them and therefore clung to them, knowing they would soon be replaced by reality.

Reality hit when I landed in the Barajas airport in the late morning on September 6, 2011. Though my body was experiencing utter torpor, my mind and heart were racing with enthusiasm and nerves for the tasks that lay ahead of me. After succesfully finding my bags, clearing customs, and even brushing my teeth and reapplying deodorant in the airport (first impressions can be big!), I set out on the metro system to find the university where the orientation was held. Madrid's metro system, much to my pleasant surprise, is much cleaner, faster, and less crowded than that of London, the only other major urban metro system that I know well. I lugged my luggage (I wonder if those words share a common etymology) successfully onto the brightly lit metro and went towards the Metropolitano stop, knowing that the Colegio Mayor Universitario Mendel was somewhere nearby. Coming from my Wyoming paradigm, I figured that the university would be easily visible from the metro stop, and I was proven completely wrong. The university is in a part of Madrid called the "ciudad universitaria" (university city), and there are at least a dozen universities in the vicinity. I ended up hauling my ungainly suitcases around Europe's typically-charming-but-occasionally-frustrating cobblestone and sinuous streets, searching for the university. I finally found it after asking for directions, and I was sweaty and relieved to be at the orientation site when I finally arrived.

My great dorm room at the Colegio Mayor Universitario Mendel,
complete with my own bathroom and shower!

Orientation was wonderful. Academically and professionally, it was full of important information about life in Madrid, the nature of my duties as a Fulbright scholar in Spain, and other vital information. We had sessions from the American embassy on safety risks (don't worry, all--they are minimal in Spain!), from previous grantees on the joys and woes of securing housing, and from the program directors and affiliates that were primarily self-congratulatory talks that got pretty old. I met incredible people at the orientation over the cafeteria meals that were provided for us. I met a girl from Kenyon College named Danielle who went to school with and is friends with Keiko. I got close to Jon, a political science and history double major from Swarthmore College; Ryan, a Spanish education major from NYU whose passion is flamenco; Maseeh, a quadrilingual Afghani who plays lacrosse; and a few others. We sat next to each other at the sessions, ate meals together, and spent free time exploring the city. They are all bright, compassionate, engaging people. What a group!

Ryan, the flamenco student, on the left; Jon, the Swarthmore graduate, on the right

In terms of interesting stories, I will tell you that my jet lag has been horrible and was only exacerbated by a night of interrupted sleep during orientation. I definitely fell asleep in a couple of sessions and was reminded of former days when I would fall asleep at EFY because of sleep deprivation or in HEPE 129 because of its heinously early starting time. I thought I was finally caught up yesterday, but I ended up taking an hour-long nap and realized that I'm still off. But I'm certainly adjusting. The first night, I plugged my alarm clock into the voltage adapter and European converter, but I could tell that time was running too slowly, so I switched the adapter to "high." The time then seemed to be running too quickly, so I put a battery that I so purposefully had purchased in instead, but the battery wouldn't light up the clock. Frustrated, I plugged it in again, put it back to "low," and also set my wrist watch. I woke up to a blaring alarm in the middle of the night, so tired I felt like a bus had hit me. I simply unplugged the alarm clock and searched for my wrist watch, which had fallen only three feet but had apparently completely broken even though it has survived years in Laramie's harsh climate. (I first bought it as a junior for the distance track team.) Frustrated and groggy, I decided my last recourse was to seek an alarm on my laptop, but I then realized that my converter set was made for a two-prong plug and not the three-prong one of my laptop! I felt really defeated in that moment. I had tried to be prepared, but now I was going to be without a laptop, meaning without connection to the outside world, meaning (somehow, in my morbid, four-in-the-morning thoughts) that I would end up homeless at el Parque Retiro (Madrid's gorgeous central park). The next day, I went shopping and bought a new watch, a new alarm clock, and a three prong adapter, and all is well. :)

I also experienced my first "concentración" in Madrid. In Spain, as well as in much of the rest of Europe, strikes and protests are somewhat common occurences, meaning that Spaniards have lots of specific terms for the different types of protests occurring. A "concentración" is a group of non-moving protestors. A "manifestación" is a protest of moving protestors, and a "huelga" is a strike in which people stop working. The regional government of Madrid laid off some public school teachers, so there was an enormous manifestación in front of the government building. There were thousands of people present, with lots of signs and noise-makers that they deployed periodically. I went with my friend Kelly who went to support the teachers with whom she worked this past year in her "instituto" (a Spanish high school). After the protest, we went to a small coffeeshop, which gave me an opportunity to speak more intimately with some of Kelly's Spanish teacher friends, a thrilling experience.

Look how classy I am! :) A sample of some of the delicious
food served at the reception

On the last night of orientation, we went into the center of Madrid for a formal reception. It was in a beautiful garden next to a building of astounding architecture, and the fancy food and drinks came limitlessly. I ate the best shrimp of my life, lots of cavier and goat cheese slices of small bread, and delicious cubes of tortilla española. It was a wonderful evening that ended in a really deep rooftop conversation with my friends where I learned about some of the difficulties that have plagued their lives. We all just really connected and opened up, and it was wonderful.

I can't tell you how much I love Madrid. Everything about being here just feels right. I have moments where I just stop whatever conversation I'm in and say how unbelievable this whole experience has been. It feels like a dream. The city is so beautiful, but not always in a majestic way. Some things are sheer European ostentation; others are bohemian and grungy; others are residential and well-manicured, like an English garden. The people are amazing--all so friendly, so attractive, and so laid back. Life is so different here--there are fewer cars and many more pedestrians. Meals occur so late that it's killing my adolescent, hypoglycemic appetite. :) It is very common not to eat dinner until around 11:00 PM. Spaniards love to talk, to drink a coffee, then to get some tapas, then to go to a bookstore, then to stroll, then to get a meal. It seems to be a very laid-back culture so far, but I have seen so little of it at this point that I should probably refrain from making sweeping generalizations.

From left to right: Danielle, from Kenyon; Ryan; Sean, the wittiest person I've met in my life; me; and Sarah, a beautiful Iranian

I'm in the process of securing an apartment, setting up my bank account, getting a phone, and generally getting settled. Most of my responsibilities begin next week, so I will have much to tell you guys about the new things that I experience when I write next.