Update #1 from Spain

It’s Sunday evening here, so I’ve been in Spain for nearly four days.  So far everything is off to a great start!  The flight(s) over went fine – freak thunderstorms delayed my Dallas-Madrid leg, but with a nine-hour flight a two-hour delay doesn’t matter so much.  I sat next to a professor at the University of Alicante on the way over: a good way to switch into full Spanish conversation mode.  (In-flight entertainment on the way over included, by the way, both “30 Rock” and the excellent “How To Tame Your Dragon.”)

Thankfully I had a friend to meet at the airport: Juan, a previous guest of the Monaco Glynn household and so a one-degree-of-separation family friend.  Thanks Juan!  He gave me a ride from the Barajas airport to Alcalá de Henares, the town near Madrid where I’m currently staying with a one-week homestay.  My host parents are wonderful: Jesús and Candelas, a very kind elderly couple.  Conversations with Candelas re: feminism, religion, politics have allowed me to practice my castellaño at home as well as on the streets (both literal and figurative) of Madrid.

The evening of my arrival in Alcalá de Henares I took a stroll around town to start to get my bearings.  By happy coincidence I ran into Ellen – program-mate and colleague at the school where we’ll be teaching English – near the Plaza Cervantes.  We got a beer at one of the many cafés along the cobbled & pedestrian-only Calle Mayor – outdoor seating, of course – and enjoyed the warm, bustling evening: the whole town was out strolling by about ten.  In the Plaza Cervantes a concert was taking place to honor Alacalá de Henares’ senior citizens, the highlight of which was certainly the glistening & nubile male backup singer in skintight white pants who held a microphone but – despite that accessory – abstained from singing altogether and instead danced sensuously, like the charmed Moroccan cobra of popular imagination, downwind of the fog machine.  I cannot say yet whether this is a typical senior-citizen-honoring tradition.

I began the next day (Friday?) with a successful cellphone hunt (655.20.14.54), then went into Madrid proper via the Renfe light rail line.  It’s about half an hour into town, which commute will suck when I have to make it back to Alcalá de Henares twice a week for Masters classes.  I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens first, a lovely downtown oasis of green populated by feral cats that hunt the garden’s many songbirds.  My repeated attempts to befriend these cats were rebuffed.  However, my spirits were lifted as I left the gardens when two separate Spaniards asked me for directions(!) - and, better yet, I was able to give them(!!).  Next stop was a tapas bar for lunch and conversation with a pair of Australian women.  From there I visited the Buen Retiro park (massive, beautiful) and met up with Ellen for the Prado museum’s 6:00-7:30pm free entrance, which was of course excellent.  Then we met up with more classmates – Megan, Kristin, Ivan, Laura, AnnaLaura, Claire – for tapas, drinks, and a fun evening.  What a relief to meet great people from the program so early on!

The weekend has gone well too – a full day of apartment-hunting yesterday, followed by another evening in central Madrid for wine and dinner at Kristin’s apartment.  Today we returned to the Buen Retiro park and then the Retiro neighborhood for late lunch, and since then it’s been a quiet day, which is really pleasant.

No luck yet in terms of apartments, but I’m still optimistic.  And I’ve totally forgotten to take any pictures so far, but once I get some quality shots I’ll be sure to share them.

Thanks for reading, and follow this blog for further updates!

Take care,

-Dave