A Good Start

Since I arrived in Spain, it seems like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I'll make a post about those experiences shortly. For now, I want to highlight those bright moments I created between the chaos. The part you might expect to see highlighted on a blog, or social media. 

My initial experience could have been stressful. I was not due to fly in until right before midnight on September 16th. Since I didn't want to impose on an airbnb host to stay up that late, and I was not seeing any hostels that allowed for such a late check in, my original plan was to stay in the airport for seven or eight hours until the city of Madrid woke up enough for me to walk around. Fortunately a couple weeks before take off I decided this was not a good idea, and decided to ask for help in the CIEE group on Facebook. A girl from my program immediately responded and made me feel I would be safe and welcome on my arrival. With an early arrival and quick baggage claim (my suitcase was the 5th one out!), I took a taxi easily to her place in Lavapies, and I am happy to say we are now close friends! It's crazy how we would have never met if I had not reached out. If you find yourself in a similar situation, I encourage you to reach out to the Facebook group. 

The morning after I woke up around 10 am (hello jet lag), but was pleased I was already catching up to the time zone difference. Let's call it one of the few advantages of being highly sensitive to white noise. It was a slow start that morning as we were both recovering from jet lag, but we made our way to a cafe in Lavapies while I was waiting for a response from my airbnb host. I had my first zumo in Madrid, and my friend had a zumo, and the 3 euro deal of cafe with pan. We explored different shops on the way back to her place (she got a funky striped one suit and I got a flowy white peasant blouse), and had fun talking to the shop owners in Spanish. We limited ourselves to these items, as we had not found our apartments yet. I was impressed with the Spanish way my friend held herself and how she already seemed to be navigating her way through the city smoothly in spite of only arriving a couple of days ahead of me. She had studied abroad in Sevilla, while I had studied abroad in Barcelona some years ago. I was inspired to find my own Madrileña way of being. 

In a tarot reading my best friend did for me before I departed Chicago, I was the Fool. This would prove very accurate in the following weeks. It felt extremely liberating that I could actually be paid to enjoy a year in Madrid, and that life could be different from what I had experienced up to that point. I was full of ideals of what my life would be like here, without imagining the frustrations that might come along the way. But that is part of what the journey is about, no?