Bienvenidos a Madrid!

I’m in Spain. I mean, I’m really in Spain. This moment has been in the works for over a year now, and it has finally actually all played out, and it couldn’t feel more fake. Oh, you mean I’m still supposed to be a student? Here? In this amazing European treasure of a country? We’ll see about that.

The way my flight worked out through frequent flyer miles landed me in Madrid a day before the actual program began. Conveniently, the girl I was paired to room with for the semester, Andrea, also got in early. She arrived two days ago, and has been staying in Madrid with a family friend. So of course I shacked up with her for the night.

Let me digress. The journey to Spain couldn’t have been any more smooth. Although packing for my trip has quite a different story. I spent all of yesterday in my room throwing, squeezing, stuffing, beating up, and yelling at my personal belongings until they fit into a single 50 pound rolling duffel. Ten pairs of shoes quickly dwindled to five pairs, shampoo had to be left behind, scarves had to be sifted through and voted out. Some purses, dresses, and skirts (all things too frivolous anyway) also got eliminated as well. So after literally six straight hours of going back and forth to the scale, I finally made it all work. The funny thing is that every other person on this trip packed TWO fifty pound bags. Literally twice as much as myself. But for backpacking purposes in May, I had to limit myself to one extra bag to ship back at the end of April.

Once I arrived in Madrid, it was 7:40 AM east coast time,. My travels began at 6:09 PM the day prior. Needless to say, my body is all sorts of messed up on sleep. Andrea met me at the airport, and shuffled me through a series of metros to make it back to the apartment. We took that time to chat it up, considering it was the first time we met in person. After showering and getting settled in, we headed back to the metro to an area near the Plaza Mayor to do a little shopping. It has already begun, and I am going to go broke sooner than I realized. I just can’t help it that Europeans have such impeccable fashion sense, and at ridiculously low prices. Apparently the first few weeks of every year are kicked off with government mandated sales (called rebajas), forcing retailers to mark items down to insane prices. And of course, we arrived right in the middle of that season.

The rest of our evening consisted of wandering around Madrid looking for a place to eat. We settled for this tiny bar that had a few tables. Being the Americans we are, we came to eat dinner at a reasonable 7 PM. However, Spaniards don’t typically eat until 9 or 10 PM, so we clearly threw off the restaurant staff when we were the only people in the place eating food. Of course we had to start our time off with some Paella, with crawfish, mussels, shrimp, chicken, and calamari. We also ordered some tapas—one with shrimp, green peppers, onions, and mussels soaked in a oil-vinegar dressing. The other closely resembled potato salad found at any nasty cafeteria. And tasted just the same. The two of us sat there just trying a little of everything off of all the plates, until it was just about cleared. Honestly, the tapas alone would have been enough to fill us up. We also learned that not all tapas are created equally—the shrimp one being 10 euro and the potato one was 3 euro. Better to ask next time I suppose.

Skype is up and running—I pay $3/month for unlimited outbound calls to the US, to any phone lines. Additionally, computer-computer skype is always free. It’s looking like that will be my primary means of communication for the next four months. I will get a cell phone from the University once I get to Salamanca, where I can receive calls for free. I’ll post that number once I get it and figure out all the details. It won’t cost me anything to get a call, but anyone calling from the states will pay international fees or can just use a calling card.

Tomorrow we head to the airport to meet up with our group, and make the 2.5 hour journey to Salamanca. Hasta luego Madrid.