Un Mes!
Hola hola hola!
It's been about a month since I've been here and it's been CRAYYYYY! Though I now feel comfortable saying VALE (the Spanish "okay"--an expression my Peruvian Castilian was not accustomed to), I'm still getting lost on the Metro and need help when choosing what to eat at restaurants. So far, I've tried (CHECK IT, DAN GRAYSON) paella, churros and chocolate, CROQUETAS, torta española, bull's tail, and baby pig to name a few. I've hit the culture shock wall as Spaniards laughed and stared at me when I told my friend Phil he should "amarrar" his shoes instead of "atar" and while walking down the street smiling at people who instead of returning the smile, stared me up and down and kept walking.
I've cried, been frustrated, wandered on my own, and found Spain rubbing off on me in the most beautiful ways! Spain is all about enjoying life: from the food to the work ethic... everything. And as a crazed workaholic who lost all balance last semester, I've suddenly found myself indulging. I've been doing a lot of shopping, eating delicious food, reading great books, discovering on my own, finding new music and fully understanding songs I never got while growing up, and engaging in platonic snuggling (which apparently the Spanish don't do!? Either that or Alvaro, a Spanish integration leader, tricked me into cuddling with him saying he'd never snuggled before...). I feel like I'm walking and speaking slower, like I'm listening and taking everything around me more now more than ever. At times I feel incredibly frivolous, especially when I get home from a spontaneous shopping trip and my host dad gives me that very dad-like "you went shopping AGAIN" look (I honestly cannot be held accountable here, I walk past at least 2 Zaras, a Blanco, a Mango, and an H&M on my way home every day...), but I feel truly alive. And the frivolity of my excessive spending and eating is balanced by all of the history and knowledge I'm picking up from every class, every conversation with my host fam, and every thing I read. I am so incredibly lucky!
Today, I finally gathered the courage to indulge in another thing I'd been wanting to try: salsa lessons. Finding a dance school was a massive struggle, but I finally found one I liked and signed up. I got to class, and saw that there were four students--all mom-aged Spanish women LOLZ. At first I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into and felt extremely uncomfortable, but half an hour in, I was dancing with my dance teacher who approved of my hip swinging and reproached me for looking at my feet. She said I'm now ready to go dance at the clubs; little does she know that I've been dancing all over Madrid with my program friends and random groups of Spaniards to jamz like Juan Magan's Bailando Por Ahi and Michel Telo's Ai Se Eu Te Pego (which I got massive crap for not instantly loving but later specifically requested and even had a Spanish DJ sing to me at the club Reina Bruja--DID YOU HEAR THAT, TUFTS IN MADRID/ALCALA?!?!?!?! STOP PLAYER HATING.).
Needless to say, it's been a good month :)
I'll leave y'all with a zoomed in pic (the entire piece is the feature image for this post!) from an exposition I ran into in the Parque Retiro in Palacio de Velazquez on a day in which I gave up on going to school after getting lost in the trains (I cried on the Renfe, it wasn't pretty). My host mom thinks it isn't great art, but I liked it and thought it accurately represented the beginning to my semester! Hasta luego!
