retrospective

I wrote these entries my first few days when I didn't have internet.

1.15.08

After my first 24 hours in Spain, I still remain in the in-between land (of space and time) so I apologize in advance for my scattered thoughts. Hopefully my discombobulation isn’t contagious. I get to make up words now in English because I’m an expert word inventor in Spanish.

I found out when I got off the plane that I am staying with another Madison student, Courtney, so we rode together to our piso in Madrid. She had a friend here, Guzmán, who she met in high school during a study abroad trip. He is so darling, picked us up from the airport, gave us a little abbreviated tour, took us to our new house, and then we left to eat lunch at his house. A few kilometers north of the city and snuggled in the mountains, his house reminded me of Californian architecture, rounded doorways and white tile. It was really charming. Guzmán made us a typical Spanish dish, gargonzola beans and chorizo. I didn’t finish my chorizo (sausageish meat) so I fed it to his golden retriever, Trufa, who knows more Spanish than I probably do. My god is it adorable to see her follow commands like “Sentado” and “Pata” (sit and shake). She even responded to gringo accented Spanish!

Then we had orientation, and Courtney and I hadn’t slept yet, or showered. We got suckered into Apelcom cell phone contracts. Using mobile phones in Europe is extremely expensive no matter what was pretty much what I learned. It’s about $0.25/minute to call anything in Spain, but the catch is the same rate applies to calls to the US. Incoming calls are free. So the four phone calls I made yesterday cost me $1.44. And eight 1 minute calls made every day of a month would amount to a $60 bill. (Mom- you and Aunt Joan would be so screwed here!) Basically, the phone is pay as you go and I’ll try to use it only for emergencies.

Later we went out to a chic little bar downtown where I bought drinks for Guzmán, and Courtney actually because she hadn’t converted her dollars yet. So all together, our 6 drinks were 40 euros, or 60 dollars. Damn. No more dollar domestic Monday nights at the Vintage. Hopefully most nights will be the other way around…as in charming Spanish men buying drinks for me.

It’s 10:30am here already and we have quite a bit to do today (figure out how to get internet so you can read this being a serious priority!) before our orientation at 2:30 so I should get a move on it.

Going to another country right at the start of a New Year, and forgive the cliché, seems like an awesome way of keeping resolutions. Everything is so different that you have to change your habits, so you mine as well stick with things. No, don’t worry, I’m not going to give up drinking or anything drastic like that, but just little things, like making the bed every morning and turning off lights in bedrooms, you know like those little things that supposedly are markers of a maturity…Mom and Dad I’m going to make you proud… I’m living with a host family, and they will probably be less patient with me as you guys!

(Nighttime)

Ok I’m really liking the resolution thing I started this morning. I get breakfast and dinner from the family and we do lunch on our own. This means, omg, a regular meal schedule. Wow, even though Spaniards eat so much later than we do, the consistency will be quite a change for me, at least for the first month. I was hitting quite a low, or high rather, right after Christmas. You know, overdoing the whole, I should eat cheeseburgers and greasy American food ALL THE TIME because I’m going to Spain and might die without ground beef slabbed between two (buttered) buns.

AND, I’ve been keeping a log of spending. Have you ever actually done this? (shut up bri, you are nerdy too) I’ll probably do it just for the first month so I know how much money to take out weekly while I’m in Madrid. But it makes me way more conscientious while I’m spending…like eewwww I want that candy bar or that Coca Lite. When you multiply things by 30 (days/mo), spending an extra 4 euros on crap from vending machines may play a factor in how soon I dip into the red. J

The no internet is really getting to me lately. The Fray’s song “Vienna” is playing on my iPod right now, and the refrain is “There’s really no way to reach me, there’s really no way to reach me.” Well they should quit bitching cuz they probably have wireless internet. I remember feeling this way in Argentina my first days before we found a hostel with access…but I’ll live. You know, I guess there may be other things to do in Madrid than check my facebook profile and email account forty times a day.

Beatriz, our senora’s daughter, is great. She’s fluent, but any single word she says to me in English, her mom snaps at her, and says Bea, necesitan aprender español (they need to learn Spanish) to which she replies Dejáme mamá. It’s really cute.

So let’s take a group vote. Should I buy the damn wireless router here?
-cost: 80 euros (>$120) – that’s the linksys one, which is the one I’ve set up before and hopefully could do again.

-right now can use the internet anytime the daughter is not here, which is pretty much all day until 7 pm or 9 pm (then after that she does homework and we can’t use it)
-we don’t get done w/ our orientation sessions until 7:45 pm for the next three weeks
-calling the us during the morning would mean calling you guys between midnight and 5am
-could use locutorio but that costs 1.95 euro/ half hour – so $6/hr
Here’s my logic: I’ll probably use the locutorio for about a half hour/ night on average (maybe more if there’s school stuff I have to do)
$3/night x 30 nights = $90 for the month
Even if I cut that in half- do it e/o night, it’d be $45 for the month---
… I don’t know, either way I’m paying out the asshola

Wednesday Jan. 16th

It’s seven am here and I’ve been lying in bed for the last five hours trying to sleep, but totally wired. I was too cocky last night, thinking that one night of sleep would put me back on track. My body is confused. It feels kind of like when you’re in first grade and pretend to be sick, but you’re not really sick so you’re mom lets you stay at home, but you have to lay in bed all day, which your first-grade self realizes is more boring than being at school, where at least you get gym and recess. My senora made her office (despacho) into an extra bedroom for students so maybe I’m just haunted by all the books around me and the smell of leather…(I have many leather bound books and my office smells like rich mahogany…Lo- now I can legit say this) Whatever it is, I cannot sleep tonight for the life of me, which is awesome since I start a real mini-curse tomorrow. I bought sleeping pills at O’hare, but the guy I went to buy them with ended up with the remaining six pills in his backpack…otherwise right now I would really considered popping all of them.

I started really reading Eat, Love, Pray while I tried to fall asleep. I love it so far, and just finished the section where she finally allows herself to succumb to all the “pleasure” that Italy can offer. So what if I don’t sleep tonight? We stress out sooo much, us americanos, especially americanas. I can’t fall asleep, I tried, so I’ll read my book and write in my blog and who knows, maybe I’ll catch the first sunrise I’ve seen in sixteen years. Even though it’s already seven in the morning here, the city is still dark, and I think it stays dark until at least eight or nine. So I may have to just wait longer. Anyway, love the book, really timely read for me right now, and makes me want to eat pasta and pizza inmediatamente.

I have a list of things to do tomorrow, and on there is to shop for a new watch. As I lie in bed, I remember how I managed to go six weeks in Buenos Aires without buying one, and without the use of a cell phone as a time piece. I bought this little battery operated alarm clock for dirt cheap at a store on our street. And I literately threw it in my purse everyday, and on the subway, in restaurants, in shops, wherever I was, I would dig in my bag for the clock, which is tiny, but not that tiny, and check the time. Wow…what the hell was my problem? Why did I not just by a damn watch? I bring this all up now because my clock/makeshift watch is sitting on a lil table in my “office” right now, put back in use in Madrid. And we have been through quite a lot together now that I recall, and I think it deserves mention.

So I have nothing more to say. Dammit I guess I’ll try to sleep some more.