A year ago I started planning for this adventure, and since then I´ve been telling people that I´m going to go to India and then I´m going to go to Spain. Welp, the India part is completed and now I find myself sitting in a locutería (that´s an internet cafe if you ever are in Spain) down the street from my teeny tiny apartment. How bizarre that this is actually working, and going well on top of that. It´s surreal, really.
I left India on Friday morning, flew 10 hours to London then another 2 to Madrid, arriving around 12:00 am. I navigated the metro all by myself (I´m so grown-up!), and found my CouchSurfer´s apartment. If ya´ll haven´t heard of CouchSurfing, check it out! It´s a super awesome organization of people that provides you with an instant network of friends wherever you go. Seriously, in the past three days they have given me a roof over my head, food to eat, beer to drink, jokes to laugh at, taken me to the flea market, and tonight we´re going on a picnic. The ones that I have been hanging out with all live in an apartment together and met over Couchsurfing, so it´s a very international household. German, English, Spanish and Portuguese have abounded in our conversations, and I am so, so thankful to Trini, Ben, Leo and Pablo for making me feel at home in this big, strange city.
However, I have also learned a few things in the past three days that encourages me to tell all of you to take the plundge and put yourself, by yourself, in a totally foreign situation. It´s not at hard as you think!! Granted, I do speak the language here, and it would be much harder to be here if I couldn´t communicate with the locals, but whatever. Go to England, or Australia, or New Zealand! What the hell, go to India! They speak English (kind of). Just go somewhere new, put yourself in awkward, foreign situations. Get lost. Curse the world when you can´t figure out how your apartment keys work. Love the old man sitting next to you in the restaurant who is feeding pastries to his tiny dog under the table. Grip your purse like a paranoid maniac because everyone keeps telling you that you'll get pick-pocketed. Laugh at the awkward moments between teenage boys and girls on the metro. Wander the streets until you get to know your neighborhood. And talk to everyone. I mean everyone. That includes the grumpy lady sitting next to you in the post office, the Cuban waitress who makes your cafe con leche, the drag queen walking down the street on her way home when you emerge from your building in the morning (have I mentioned I live in the gay neighborhood?), the overly polite and formal store clerk who is helping you buy sheets in sizes you don´t understand. You´ll be amazed at the stories people will share with you, the warmth they will exude, the insight they will give you into the culture.
Now, I´m not saying this is all fun and exciting. I´ve cried more over the past few days than I have in a while, because right now I am totally and completely alone, and it´s often frustrating. True, I have met some incredibly helpful and kind people through CouchSurfing, but they have their own lives and can´t hold my hand everyday. And while Spain is a cakewalk compared to India, it is still a foreign country and things don´t make sense (what do you mean everything closes for four hours in the afternoon so everyone can have a siesta!?), but through all of this, I will become a stronger and more well-rounded person. I´m proving to myself that I´m capable of things that at other points in my life would have seemed impossible. And outside of that, my study abroad program starts on Wednesday, so I´ll meet other people who are going through the same wild adjustment as me, and we will all come to realize together our boundless capabilities.
Wish me luck, my loved ones. It´s only day 3 and I´ve got many more ahead, but I feel that this next part is going to be an amazing and life-changing adventure.
