There is something amazing about meeting someone halfway across the world who is a dear friend of a dear friend. Connections out of the ether, friendship that was there waiting but is only now here. Such was the case as I met a friend of a dear friend today, as I strolled through the heart of Madrid only to find someone waiting for me at the metro stop who I had never met before, but who immediately felt like an old friend.
C'e la vie.
And it is beautiful.
domingo, 18 de noviembre de 2007
domingo, 11 de noviembre de 2007
Madrid Portugal Madrid
By normal standards, daily life hadn’t really become daily life when we bought our tickets to Lisbon, Portugal, for the weekend. Teaching 4 days a week for a week and a half still felt like another part of my seemingly rotating, evolving life characteristic of the last two months. Barely 10 nights in the same bed, but was already 10 times that of any other bed I’ve been in in the last 8 weeks. Language acquisition works in very discreet ways as suddenly my tongue no longer felt quite as sluggish, the streets a bit less foreign, and I no longer called our new home “the apartment” but instead the “piso.”
Madrileño friends, met at my epic first full evening in Madrid, brought us to some hidden holes-in-the-wall where the palpable vibe of Europe and, more specifically, Madrid lay waiting for a wannabe-European-but-Minnesotan to feast upon. Nondescript buildings, bolted shut during 99.9% of the normal hours that any American would expect, suddenly become breathing, vibrant hangs where you can barely remember where you are and, reciprocally, make you feel as though nobody could ever find you here as you sit amongst throngs of flying Spanish words and lit Marlboro cigarettes (this isn’t the only paradox here – take, for example, the mullets gone from white rural society to high style upper class status in every corner of Western Europe). A sense of transcendence makes me feel as though I were Ralph Waldo Emerson, stuck in the woods somewhere, and despite the glaring difference in surroundings, I must admit the effect is quite the same. Nobody knows me, nobody can find me, and self-sufficience and quiet, intense observation of my surroundings brings thoughts that normally would be lost to being too accustomed and too well-known for my own good.
Certainly I’m sure Ralph Waldo Emerson occasionally cut himself with his pocket knife, or tripped upon a sprawling tree root. A sudden resurgence of the empirical reality of everyday existence. Our proverbial rainstorm came in the form of our difficulty of finding where in God’s name we pick up our tickets for our overnight bus to Lisbon. To continue with the comparison to American transcendentalism, let me compare Spanish bureaucracy (the attempt to find bus schedules, prices, buy the ticket, pick up the ticket, find the bus, and get on the bus) to separating a grape vine from a maple tree. Even once our tickets were bought, names registered, bags packed, and we arrived at the station to pick up our tickets, we were forced to spend close to 20 rather stressful minutes trying to find out which of the 4 offices for ALSA bus company to pick up our tickets. As with any rainstorm, it passes, and after 8 or so hours of restless sleep on the bus, we were arriving in Lisbon immediately before sunrise.
Arriving with not the slightest clue about where to go, what to see, where things were, or where we’d find ourselves in 4 hours, we hopped on the Lisbon metro (which is like any metro in its inability to really reflect anything about the quality of the world above) and took the escalator up through yellow-lit tunnels to find ourselves finally looking out upon a quintessentially quaint, old, brick-laden and beautiful European avenue at daybreak, complete with symmetrically balconied-buildings flanking either side of our view as we looked out through the arched exit of the metro. Without a doubt one of the most beautiful exits of any metro I’ve ever seen , and also one of the most dramatic first-views of any city I’ve ever seen.
Lisbon proved pretty amazing. Though we had no idea where our hostel was when we left the metro, our hostel was a balconied-room four stories above one of the most central and beautiful streets in Lisbon, with nightly entertainment off our balcony of roaming musicians and Portuguese ensembles providing music for the restaurants below and, as a result, us above. Sunrise views out over historic Lisbon, soup for less than 2 euros, beautiful Sintra and is striking castles and palaces overlooking the Atlantic, the Torre of Belem – all proved amazingly beautiful and exciting, since we had no idea what to expect from Portugal.
Hostels can be great or bad, and ours was great also due to the three Italians we met who we ended up hanging out with. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time as I did when they feigned interest in the inevitable flower and squeaky-toy roaming salesmen that somehow show up in every beautiful European city. To the salesmen’s chagrin, the Italians in fact did not really love the squeaking ducks, but instead used it as a way to get them to eventually leave us alone as they realized we really didn’t want the toys but instead wanted only the laughter that arose from pretending we were interested.
Saying good-bye to Lisbon was, as always, bittersweet as yet another city had turned from stranger to dear friend, but we had the satisfying feeling of anticipation of “home” as we headed back to Madrid.
Madrileño friends, met at my epic first full evening in Madrid, brought us to some hidden holes-in-the-wall where the palpable vibe of Europe and, more specifically, Madrid lay waiting for a wannabe-European-but-Minnesotan to feast upon. Nondescript buildings, bolted shut during 99.9% of the normal hours that any American would expect, suddenly become breathing, vibrant hangs where you can barely remember where you are and, reciprocally, make you feel as though nobody could ever find you here as you sit amongst throngs of flying Spanish words and lit Marlboro cigarettes (this isn’t the only paradox here – take, for example, the mullets gone from white rural society to high style upper class status in every corner of Western Europe). A sense of transcendence makes me feel as though I were Ralph Waldo Emerson, stuck in the woods somewhere, and despite the glaring difference in surroundings, I must admit the effect is quite the same. Nobody knows me, nobody can find me, and self-sufficience and quiet, intense observation of my surroundings brings thoughts that normally would be lost to being too accustomed and too well-known for my own good.
Certainly I’m sure Ralph Waldo Emerson occasionally cut himself with his pocket knife, or tripped upon a sprawling tree root. A sudden resurgence of the empirical reality of everyday existence. Our proverbial rainstorm came in the form of our difficulty of finding where in God’s name we pick up our tickets for our overnight bus to Lisbon. To continue with the comparison to American transcendentalism, let me compare Spanish bureaucracy (the attempt to find bus schedules, prices, buy the ticket, pick up the ticket, find the bus, and get on the bus) to separating a grape vine from a maple tree. Even once our tickets were bought, names registered, bags packed, and we arrived at the station to pick up our tickets, we were forced to spend close to 20 rather stressful minutes trying to find out which of the 4 offices for ALSA bus company to pick up our tickets. As with any rainstorm, it passes, and after 8 or so hours of restless sleep on the bus, we were arriving in Lisbon immediately before sunrise.
Arriving with not the slightest clue about where to go, what to see, where things were, or where we’d find ourselves in 4 hours, we hopped on the Lisbon metro (which is like any metro in its inability to really reflect anything about the quality of the world above) and took the escalator up through yellow-lit tunnels to find ourselves finally looking out upon a quintessentially quaint, old, brick-laden and beautiful European avenue at daybreak, complete with symmetrically balconied-buildings flanking either side of our view as we looked out through the arched exit of the metro. Without a doubt one of the most beautiful exits of any metro I’ve ever seen , and also one of the most dramatic first-views of any city I’ve ever seen.
Lisbon proved pretty amazing. Though we had no idea where our hostel was when we left the metro, our hostel was a balconied-room four stories above one of the most central and beautiful streets in Lisbon, with nightly entertainment off our balcony of roaming musicians and Portuguese ensembles providing music for the restaurants below and, as a result, us above. Sunrise views out over historic Lisbon, soup for less than 2 euros, beautiful Sintra and is striking castles and palaces overlooking the Atlantic, the Torre of Belem – all proved amazingly beautiful and exciting, since we had no idea what to expect from Portugal.
Hostels can be great or bad, and ours was great also due to the three Italians we met who we ended up hanging out with. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time as I did when they feigned interest in the inevitable flower and squeaky-toy roaming salesmen that somehow show up in every beautiful European city. To the salesmen’s chagrin, the Italians in fact did not really love the squeaking ducks, but instead used it as a way to get them to eventually leave us alone as they realized we really didn’t want the toys but instead wanted only the laughter that arose from pretending we were interested.
Saying good-bye to Lisbon was, as always, bittersweet as yet another city had turned from stranger to dear friend, but we had the satisfying feeling of anticipation of “home” as we headed back to Madrid.
domingo, 28 de octubre de 2007
A week in, a month deep
A week in, a month's worth of assimilating, accustoming, and breathing it all in....feels like i've been here for far longer than a week. Arriving to see Ani and Brian awaiting me just outside of the baggage claim, suddenly we're not just meeting in Uptown but instead halfway across the world . . . a rather surreal experience, to say the least. After two weeks of being on the road with Chris Koza Band, where a new town, a new stage, a new climate, new people, and a new bed had become the ordinary, it was in a way an extension of my days on the road with the band, but this time it was a bit longer of a commute from bed to bed. Saying goodbye to the band in Los Angeles on october 15, flying home to Minneapolis on the 16th, flying to chicago on the 17th, where I stayed with my friend Gordon, flying out of Chicago on the 18th, and arriving in Madrid late in the evening on the 19th, it had begun to feel as though time no longer had a grip on my sense of reality, nor did location, nor did sleep.
The surreality didn't end there. Being on a metro again in Europe, I had to pinch myself again to convince myself that, yes, in fact, I was in Europe again. Memories of Milan, Rome, and Paris swept into my mind as I grabbed onto the pole in the metro as it begun its trip away from the airport and into the center of the city and south again to my new piso (apartment) in the southwest of Madrid. Taking in the surroundings that would soon be commonplace but for the time were completely new, we meandred down the streets and finally to the doorway of our apartment building, where Ani ceremoniously let me take the key and open the door into the entryway. Seventh floor, we exit the elevator and arrive at the apartment..........A cozy living room with couch, a kitchen full of already-furnished utensils, a bedroom with a beautiful view overlooking a Madrid skyline from a seventh-floor vantage point, and half of the closet to fill with the things I had been lugging around with me for the last few days, to seal the deal and make it feel like home for the next 8 months.
Courtesy of my dream-like state created out of 30 hours of no sleep, I failed to realize what time it was as we sat around the table and enjoyed our reinstated togetherness. Four a.m. rolled by and they mentioned it may be time to go to bed as I confusedly ask what time it was. The next day's waking hour was a crisp 4 p.m., not really helping my jet lag at all, but we had a busy evening ahead of us. A refreshing run with Ani at a nearby park overlooking Madrid's south side got me acquainted to the general vicinity of our piso. A nice, relaxed evening, and a few ceremonial drinks and cheers on our terraza followed. Then, it was time to venture into the city to grab some dinner by the Plaza del Sol y la plaza mayor, two of the more picturesque plazas in Madrid, and appropriately so. The European bustle of a Saturday night was readily palpable as I excitedly walked up the stairs from the metro to see my first glance of downtown Madrid, grinning with childish glee. So much to see, so many hidden gems, so many things that will soon change from foreign to comfortable.
We were lucky enough to have been invited by some co-workers of Ani's to a party located in La Latina, a vibrant quintessentially European hub of life, where I was quickly given an opportunity to speak entirely in Spanish for the next 6 hours (yes, we arrived at midnight). We met some great Madrileños with whom we have hung out with a few times now, and we had a hell of a fun time hanging out with these new friends and speaking Spanish all night.
A 6 a.m. departure from the party meant that we caught the next day's metro as it was starting a new day, just as we were warily trying to finish ours. With only 30 hours of Spanish air in my lungs, I had already got a great feel about the life, the people, the language, and about my new home.
Since last weekend, it's been great to get to know the place. Markets of meat, produce, and supermarkets for everything else are just a 10 minute walk away, and whether it's because i'm in a different country or because it's my first time in an apartment, everything is just a bit different. Cooking dinners, shopping for groceries, coming home at night - - they are all a bit more of a novelty when you have your own place. Explorations in the Parque del Retiro (a gigantic and beautiful center park) and throughout the city's many and varied streets and avenues continue to be exciting as I am trying to gain a mental map rather than consulting a map every time I go out.
Though it's been just a week, it feels as though everything I've taken in is far more than a week's worth. But that's a good thing - - more than a week's excitement and adventure in just 7 days. If that were an offer at the local supermarket, I just might spring for it. I guess I did, in a way.
The surreality didn't end there. Being on a metro again in Europe, I had to pinch myself again to convince myself that, yes, in fact, I was in Europe again. Memories of Milan, Rome, and Paris swept into my mind as I grabbed onto the pole in the metro as it begun its trip away from the airport and into the center of the city and south again to my new piso (apartment) in the southwest of Madrid. Taking in the surroundings that would soon be commonplace but for the time were completely new, we meandred down the streets and finally to the doorway of our apartment building, where Ani ceremoniously let me take the key and open the door into the entryway. Seventh floor, we exit the elevator and arrive at the apartment..........A cozy living room with couch, a kitchen full of already-furnished utensils, a bedroom with a beautiful view overlooking a Madrid skyline from a seventh-floor vantage point, and half of the closet to fill with the things I had been lugging around with me for the last few days, to seal the deal and make it feel like home for the next 8 months.
Courtesy of my dream-like state created out of 30 hours of no sleep, I failed to realize what time it was as we sat around the table and enjoyed our reinstated togetherness. Four a.m. rolled by and they mentioned it may be time to go to bed as I confusedly ask what time it was. The next day's waking hour was a crisp 4 p.m., not really helping my jet lag at all, but we had a busy evening ahead of us. A refreshing run with Ani at a nearby park overlooking Madrid's south side got me acquainted to the general vicinity of our piso. A nice, relaxed evening, and a few ceremonial drinks and cheers on our terraza followed. Then, it was time to venture into the city to grab some dinner by the Plaza del Sol y la plaza mayor, two of the more picturesque plazas in Madrid, and appropriately so. The European bustle of a Saturday night was readily palpable as I excitedly walked up the stairs from the metro to see my first glance of downtown Madrid, grinning with childish glee. So much to see, so many hidden gems, so many things that will soon change from foreign to comfortable.
We were lucky enough to have been invited by some co-workers of Ani's to a party located in La Latina, a vibrant quintessentially European hub of life, where I was quickly given an opportunity to speak entirely in Spanish for the next 6 hours (yes, we arrived at midnight). We met some great Madrileños with whom we have hung out with a few times now, and we had a hell of a fun time hanging out with these new friends and speaking Spanish all night.
A 6 a.m. departure from the party meant that we caught the next day's metro as it was starting a new day, just as we were warily trying to finish ours. With only 30 hours of Spanish air in my lungs, I had already got a great feel about the life, the people, the language, and about my new home.
Since last weekend, it's been great to get to know the place. Markets of meat, produce, and supermarkets for everything else are just a 10 minute walk away, and whether it's because i'm in a different country or because it's my first time in an apartment, everything is just a bit different. Cooking dinners, shopping for groceries, coming home at night - - they are all a bit more of a novelty when you have your own place. Explorations in the Parque del Retiro (a gigantic and beautiful center park) and throughout the city's many and varied streets and avenues continue to be exciting as I am trying to gain a mental map rather than consulting a map every time I go out.
Though it's been just a week, it feels as though everything I've taken in is far more than a week's worth. But that's a good thing - - more than a week's excitement and adventure in just 7 days. If that were an offer at the local supermarket, I just might spring for it. I guess I did, in a way.
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