Traveler In Time

The following takes place between July 31st and August 1st, 2008, on the day I move to Europe.

Oh the joys of flight travel.

The packing of the bags. The packing of the bags carefully so everything actually fits. The getting it to the airport. The waiting to check in, the ticket check. Then,(this is my favorite part) the weighing of the baggage. The finding out its overweight. The extra fees for having to pay for the baggage. The removal of items because even with the fees for overweight luggage it still can't exceed a certain amount. The arguing with the ticket agent. The running back and fourth to pay for the overweight luggage. The not having money to pay for the overweight luggage. The overcharging for the overweight luggage. The joy of almost missing my flight due to incompetence by the said ticket agent.

Then the actual plane ride. My single serving friend for this flight will be an 50+ Spanish gentlemen with no English skills. The children around me and no TV. Joys of coach.

The Arrival:
I pre-arranged a taxi service so I wouldn't get slaughtered with the meter fare. It took me to the area of Moncloa where the agency I used to find my apartment was located. Left with my luggage to some how get into this building. Two bags weighing in at 160 kilos combined, plus the carry on, plus the laptop, plus my purse.

The Nightmare continues:

The agency is less than friendly. They charge me extra because their bank took a comission off my deposit. Well guess what fellas, the bank charged me a $40 fee too. And now you want me to pay more? Not off to a good start. They then wanted me to pay the entire month right then, which I wasn't ready for, nor did I know about. At home, the rent is always paid the end of the month. Didn't have enough. I was able to bargin with them, pay half then and the rest at the end of month. So for the moment at least, the day wouldn't end with me having to sleep on the streets of Madrid. Yay! I was told I have two flatmates. They gave me the keys and sent me off even though I had no idea where the apartment was. They called a taxi for me which I had to pay for. Again. This took me up to the Santiago Bernabeu area, near the big football stadium.

I was at least pleasantly happy with the building. Well kept, elevator (although minute in size), which was able to fit 1 piece of luggage inside + me. Better than nothing right? No elevator at home makes me grateful for this small indulgence. Then, next phase of fun began as there were 2 doors on my floor. The guessing game began. Which door is mine? One way to find out right? Ring both bells. Well, an old lady on the right opened that door so I guess left it was! Mrs. Old Spanish Lady then continued to talk with me for the next 15 minutes in Spanish as I apologized and attempted to open the door. Which I could not open.

Well, as the wave of offensive language in my head steadily progressed toward the two men in the apartment agency for giving me the wrong keys and Mrs. Old Spanish Lady babbling in Spanish I nearly had a nervous breakdown. Couldn't get into the apartment, couldn't leave my luggage in the hall, didn't know where the metro was if I needed to go back to the agency, no money and no one who knew English. Really about ready to burst any second. Oh yeah, and since only Old Spanish Lady answered her door, that meant no one at my place was home. Huzzah! So spending 15 minutes playing with the door, hearing it click again and again I was befuddled - it seemed like the key unlocked something, yet why was the door not opening? Finally after manuvering some magically correct move, it opened.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! A moment of absolute happiness after a terrible night/day - what with the time difference...pff, who knew? It was 11a.m. here but still being on New York time, it was 5 a.m. and I still hadn't slept yet.

Enter the apartment:

Ok. Nice. Clean. Nothing out of order. Bright. Big. Two bathrooms. Two big bathrooms. Did I mention there's a terrace? Witness a happy face. All the doors closed. I had room 4. Since this apartment was from an agency, all the rooms had locks. Mine was no different. Insert key into lock and all is well. I will have a bed and sleep for the next 10 hours, right?

NO!

The powers that be have one more surpise for me. This time I do have the wrong key! And so, perfect happy moment: crushed like a cockroach by a subway car. Now I have to call the agency. Thank the friggin' stars I pre-emptively bought a phone in the States. More Spanish. Yay! Could it possibly be that the only English speaker there could have left? It would bring perfection to this day. I explain in my limited Spanish that the Key doesn't work. They tell me to wait for the cleaning lady who will be there in an hour. Oh great...an hour. OK, so what do I do for an hour?Computers are a blessing and a curse sometimes but relaxing and watching some Daria for an hour was definately the former after the day I had.

3 hours later...

Miss cleaning lady finally shows up. Thanks. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time. Even if I said that to her instead of just thinking it, she wouldn't have understood me. Finally, I enter my room with the proper keys sometime around 2 p.m. on August 1st. The room is fantastic. On a corner with two windows on each side. Lots of light. I open them to let in air. Nice Street view.

Sleep...for about 3 hours. Then the hunger kicks in and I realize I haven't eaten since the meal on the plane. Thank you Mom for making me remember to pack food.

Still I go out and quest for a Supermarket. It was a Friday though and aparently, things close early. Like 6p.m. early here. Hmm...Alright. Well, the spagetti I packed will have to do. Plain. Back I go to make spagetti and unpack. No wireless key so no internet. At least I brough DVDs.

Around 10 that night I met my first flatmate. A very pretty Spanish girl from the north of Spain doing an internship here for the summer. And her English was great.

At long last a good end to a terrible day.
Lesson learned: When moving to a foreign country, don't use an agency to find an apartment.
Find a hostal and look when you get there through the internet. You might not like staying at a hostal but it will save you time and money.
Tip: Always bring food with you when traveling long distances.

Next blog: What a 1 month TEFL will teach you.

Back At The Beginning

So, let me start by telling you a little about me and what I will be writing about:

I am from the United States; Brooklyn, New York to be exact. I am 24 years old. For the last six months I have been living in Madrid, Spain. And no, I don't speak Spanish. Yet. But we will get to that later on.

First, let me tell you a few things about life before Spain:

I grew up in the working class, Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst on the border of the neighborhood Boropark, not far by subway to Coney Island (just to give the non-New Yorkers a geographic idea). As far as neighborhoods in Brooklyn go, it was a relatively safe place to live. There was very little crime, lots of Italian-Catholic immigrants and their Americanized offspring. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to do there. It wasn't a place you would go with your friends for a night out at the bars or pubs because...well, there weren't any. A few old, Italian style cafes where the occupants tended to be the 65+ generation of males living in the area. Needless to say...not very exciting but this wasn’t much of a problem until I left for college.

Living in Brooklyn, or I should add living really in any part of the five boroughs, its important to mention that traveling can be difficult. We have the biggest metro system in the world, spread out over one of the biggest cities in the world. It's also one of the most inefficient. Consistently breaking down, sometimes moving at speeds a snail could top, trains changing from express to local, stations closing during off-peak hours for months at a time due to "construction," never knowing if the next train will come in 5 minutes or 15 or 30 if its nighttime...and that is just during the week. I won't go into the weekend schedules. It can make traveling from place to place in the city a bit difficult sometimes. But again...this really wasn't a noticeable problem to me because I didn't know any better until my first trip to Europe. In fact, before I even went to high school, this was not even an important issue. My middle school and elementary school were within walking distance and consisted of people from the area. There was no need for transportation or for any of the people I went to school with to go anywhere on the subway.

As I got to high school and started to make friends from several different parts of Brooklyn, it became necessary to travel around and make more than the occasional trip to Manhattan. High school, like for many people was the beginning of change and the discovery of three very important things:

1. History is not always how it appears in textbooks.

2. Friends come in all manners of packaging. Some look quite nice to the eyes, but once opened, have nothing but a Pandora's box of disappointments. Then others contain all the things you are seeking at the time.

3. My ongoing love affair with metal music. A progression in music styles has brought me to this point but it all started with those first few bands I learned about in high school. And with those important friends discovered my love for concerts and for a small club right in my neighborhood known to most as L'amour's, where my other metal listening companions would come to spend many a weekends headbanging with the best the genre had to offer.

Now, as a child it never occurred to me that school wasn't important as a learning tool. Sure, I hated school most of the time; having to deal with people I didn't like or subjects I had no interest in but the idea of just stopping never crossed my mind. I had a very encouraging childhood, in that I was always told I could reach anything I wanted as long as I worked hard enough for it, studied, and did the best I could. For a long time I thought most parents were like this, always encouraging their children to work hard and study so that they would someday be better off than their parents. Well, reality would suggest differently. As I went along through those four years, I found more and more people I knew dropping out. These weren't people I spent a lot of time with for the most part but people I knew and talked to occasionally. And I found these people years later, still living in my old neighborhood and doing nothing. Living at home with relatives and some already with new born babies. Many of them hardly even going outside their own neighborhoods, as if they lived in a glass box with a door. They can look out at any time, go out if they so chose but preferred to stay within their confines. I encountered people who told me they never wanted to leave Brooklyn or New York City in general.

New York is great and all and anyone who has ever met me knows I love my hometown but...to never want to leave...ever? Come on, not even for vacation? You never want to see anything beyond The Hudson? Or beyond the horizon of the Atlantic from Coney Island? I propose three possibilities when I hear this statement:

1. You were never properly educated about the world;
2. You are a closed minded person who can't see beyond the things directly in front of them;
3. You are too scared. Maybe you would like it and not want to go back. Maybe you don't want to leave the security blanket that is your family and home (or your Nintendo Wii with Guitar Hero Part 3).

Anyway, this post is starting to take a mind of it's own and get too long. I'll begin to wrap up. This sort of closed-mindedness never sat well with me. I can't imagine living a life only in New York. I suppose part of me was always disappointed that growing up, there was ever enough left for family vacations or trips to the mountains or anything like that. Not having that made me very interested in seeing as much of the world as I can. Additionally, I could never imagine being born, growing up, living and dying all in the same neighborhood. The world is just so big. To live an entire life only seeing a few hundred square miles?

I have also encountered some parents who do not want their children leaving them. My grandmother was like that toward her children. Truth be told I can't imagine anything more selfish than wanting your child to always stay at home and never get any world experiences. I was fortunate enough to have one parent who always pushed me toward doing what I wanted, even though she hates that I am gone, I am doing what I want and seeing the world.

The first time I left home was of course, for University. I did not go to school very far from home. By public transportation it would take about 3 hours to get home. I will talk more about Uni later on but for now I'm going to skip ahead to my first trip overseas: London.

I went to London in January of 2005. I lived there until mid-June. Describing my first impressions of the city - similar but different than New York (as that was my only other comparison at the time). Beautiful, cosmopolitan, and the place where punk rock and trendy-chic co-habitat in relative complacency. A place where you could buy magic mushrooms near the Camden Lock (which I heard had unfortunately burnt down not long after I left) hop on a 10 minute tube ride and find yourself in Oxford Circus, see the guy across the street with his megaphone telling us the end was near and to embrace Jesus, and wander into an H & M. I loved the feel of old mixed with new, the parliment skyline over the Themes and the view from the Eye.

I loved for the first time being able to walk completely around the central area of a city without having to take the subway to get where I need to. More than half a dozen parks and gardens, free museams and the beautiful countryside once you get out of the city. The richness of the land and care with which it was preserved was more than I had ever seen before. Someday I plan to return to see more of the smaller cities, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

As for the British accent...well...I love it. By the time I left I could easily distinguish North London from South, East from West. Unofrtunately, I can't say much about the people that I met there. The Americans or the British that I met in residence hall or in my classes. Many of them seemed rather clique-ish when I met them and I never really made any lasting friendships with them. However, looking back on it, it did make me a more independent person who survived her first long term traveling experience alone and it made me willing to do it again.

Also in 2005 I traveled for the first time to France. Paris still remains one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. But I began to notice something. I had been to three of the biggest cities in the world and aside from the accent and some varying architecture, the feel of each city was quite similar. Its difficult for me to describe sometimes...you have to live in a major city for a long time before you notice it. This sort of constant movement, always going from one place to another, nothing ever stopping completely, seeing the same people at the same times of the day, sharing the same buses or trains but never speaking to them, never really seeing them. You pass multitudes of people everyday and probably are related in some strange six-degrees-of-separation way to at least a handful. Still, they become part of the procession of faceless faces that move about, commuting from one place to another. And when they aren't there anymore, no one still takes any notice. It reminds me of part of a dialouge between the characters Patrick Bateman and Detective Kimball from "American Psycho" regarding people disappearing, "The earth just opens up and swallows them."

This is starting to move away again from what I planned on finishing awhile ago. I took a break from traveling to different cities for a while and then in January of 2008 I went to Israel, where I saw some of the most sublime natural landscapes and waterscapes ever. I traveled all over the north, from the Golan Heights to the Grottos, rode camels in the desert, climbed mountains, floated in the dead sea and touched the Wailing Wall. The culture there, the people, the strife, the buildings, the delicate balance of everything there that in one press of a button can be wiped off the map felt more significant than the pop culture, comsumer pandering shops of the previous big cities.

This was taken while climbing in the Negev. The body of water in the distance is the Dead Sea and beyond it is Jordan.

After I graduated school with two degrees: a B.A. in Psychology and an M.S. in Counseling Psychology in May of 2008 I decided to take some time off before continuing on to the Ph.D for myself. To do more traveling and see the world and what else it can offer. That is what led me to Spain. Spain is an interesting country which I will describe in full extent in my next post but for now I will tell you how I came to be here and then end this. It was my original intention to move to Denmark to conduct research in Copenhagen. When the grant unfortunately fell through, I made the decision to keep looking and see what I could find on my own. This led me toward the idea of working abroad. Working would provide me the support I needed to live and travel as I wanted. During my searches, I considered Australia, Japan, Costa Rica, Germany and China. I finally settled on Madrid because of what it had to offer: the opportunity to learn Spanish in the heart of Spain, its proximity to the rest of Europe and Africa and it's need for English speakers. That led me to obtain my TEFL certificate and land my first jobs teaching English here in Madrid. And so far, I am thoroughly enjoying it. I like the Spanish culture, the lifestyle the people have here and the friendliness of the people in general. As of right now I haven't decided when I'm going back to the States.

More on Madrid and the Madrileños in my next post.

If you have read this far, I humbly thank you.