Familiar Things

“Experiences are only as good as their catalogue and analysis.”  - Mars Chapman

I’ve had a lot of experiences.  I’m rotten at sharing them.  

For example, the other day I went to Retiro to soak up the Spanish sun and awoke to find a group of guys kicking the soccer ball around in a circle.  This would be no big deal, of course, and hardly worth sharing... except that not one of them had any pants on!  That’s right, they were playing soccer bare-chested and in their underwear - a wide array of underwear, might I add.  And they were having the time of their lives, delighted with their present circumstances and location. This is Spain.

Every week, I meet some new, interesting person.  There’s an African guy a few feet up the hill from my apartment who stands outside the Dia grocery store everyday holding newspapers and opening doors for old women.  The other day, I finally stopped to ask what he’s about.  As it turns out, he’s from Nigeria, and he’s working here to earn money.  He can’t return because of pending paperwork, but he says he doesn’t really want to anyway.  “Africa is rich,” he said.  “But the people are poor.  We don’t have even basic infrastructure - water, electricity, hospitals.  You learn that money isn’t important.  You can live without money, but you cannot get ahead without infrastructure.”  There’s an Iraqi man at church here, Mustafa, who has some incredible perspectives on The State of Things.  My German roommate, Florian, is a wealth of information and precision.  People are fascinating, and most of them are really, really terrific at sharing their experiences.  It’s easy to find them here.

So a lot of things have been charming.  A lot of things, though, have been grueling.  Hunting for an apartment was awful.  I saw some strange apartments, and some even stranger people.  Deal after deal fell through right before the closing date.  Living with a family an hour away from everything, this was a frustrating investment of time, as you can imagine.

Becoming familiar with the Spanish education system has been equally taxing, especially as an assistant coming from a full-blown teaching position.  As it turns out, a Fulbright ETA grant is, paradoxically, a sort of demotion.  While it translates to a low level of responsibility, it also means less power, control, and efficacy.  Hammering out an actual job description and personal mission for myself (because it was never given to me) relieved but did not console me.  I love my co-workers and I feel I can learn a lot from them.  There are just days that it seems a little futile.  (Please note - that’s an American measuring self-worth in productivity, right there.  Run and hide.)

Moreover, leaving a perfect life at home with truly wonderful friends, family, co-workers, a beautiful relationship, and a job I truly loved has been borderline tragedy.  If you feel you have not heard from me often enough, this is why, for I refuse to write when I am grumpy, irritated, angry, cynical, or just plain homesick.  It’s much more efficient to put on a brave face and rent a stupid car in Italy and have an adventure of sorts.  There are 15 days until I come home; I know this without having counted.


And yet, faced with the prospect of leaving, I'm realizing that over six months I have, in fact, carved out quite a life for myself.  I have friends from all walks of life and a multitude of countries (though admittedly, it's often difficult to escape the American expat community), and we meet up for tapas and savor the Spanish evening at a sidewalk cafe eating olives and patatas bravas with Tinto de Verano.  I only just located Golden Crisps at the Hiper [mercado] down the street, thanks to a friend's recommendation.  The annual Bollywood Festival last weekend breathed out colorful dances and delicious food.  Who knows what this weekend holds!  


The prospect of packing all of that up into two suitcases and leaving with little more than a truncated 'sta-lo is daunting and, if I'm honest with myself, borderline tragic.  To use the words of Prince Caspian, I've spent a lot of time missing what was taken from me.. but... luckily, I definitely haven't squandered what was given: experiences, experiences, experiences.  Memories, friends, food... that is my catalogue - the very beginning of it.  I am so thankful, and so, so blessed.  

Calling Cards

Dear 7-Hour Time Difference,

I have been waiting patiently waiting for ten hours to talk to the people I love most, and the fact that I have another hour to wait so that they can arrive home from church might be grounds for a chronographic coup. I know where your precious Prime Meridian lives, and I am not above puncturing its vacuum capsule and pushing the world an hour closer to its ultimate demise.

While I realize that your differentiations are necessary for commerce, REM cycles, and Santa Claus, I personally have no use for you.  You separate families, divide cultures, and allow New York to have all the fun on New Year's Eve while the rest of us can only watch helplessly as the ball drops.  This must not be tolerated.

We have equalized genders, standardized tests, and paused movies.  You, Time, cannot escape.  If China can fit into one timezone, why do you think you can terrorize the rest of us with your -0600 derivations?  Tyranny is not very popular these days, you know...  Time, Tunisia; Epoch, Egypt... same difference.  We will topple you.

Now, on a personal note - and yes, this is a shameless appeal to pathos - I am homesick, cynical, angry, irritated, frustrated, and overall,  grouchy, and I hate blogging in such conditions.  Nothing productive can come from it, and the world is a worse place for it, I'm sure.  So please, I need it to be later NOW.  Surely you can do this little thing for so pathetic a creature as me.  I realize there could be global repercussions to this, but really, look, that's what they said about Y2K and here we are, none the worse.  As I am the most important person in the universe next to, of course, Coronel Sanders (bless his fried chicken and gravy.  Comfort food... oh how I wish I had some right now!) I am sure you will comply, and we'll settle accounts later.

Thank you for your concern,
A very dis/trans/posed Natalie

Time Travel and Other Curiosities

I love the train.

For whatever reason, this mode of passive transit appeals to me much more than the Metro or the bus.  (I HATE buses.)  Perhaps it is because I am always on my way to somewhere interesting when I'm riding one, rather than the routine Madrid stops on the Metro, or maybe it is the promise of a peaceful, trouble-free trip after the hustle of managing to get on the correct train (this might tell you a fair amount about my travel prowess...).  You get on, wander the cars to find a suitable seat, and huddle up for a relaxing trip across the Spanish countryside, reading or thinking or merely watching the shrubs slip by, oblivious that we're in the 21st century.

I usually read or let my thoughts wander; trains are wonderfully conducive to pondering.  Perfect for amalgamating thoughts and theories.  It was on my most recent train ride that I realized that trains also serve as a perfect metaphor for the Spanish conception of time.  I'm still testing this theory out, but bear with me.

In America, we're pretty independent.  No shit, Sherlock! you say.  Get on with it!  Yes, yes.  Hold your horses, that's exactly what I mean.  We have everything on our own terms, most notably time.   Because we have our own cars, we can arrange dates and meetings and outings and meanderings to perfectly suit our schedules.  At home, I know for a fact I can make it from my house to my work in 40 minutes going fast enough to get off with a warning, if necessary.  Leaving a party early -- or late?  No problem, your car is parked out in front.  Come and go as you please!

Not so here.  Everything is much more communal.  Everyone is in the same boat... or bus.  Let's take a look at going to school, for example.

Step 1: Catch the bus.  They come every 7-12 minutes from 8-7, fewer before and after that time, and they stop at 11:25pm (another lesson learned the hard way).  Right.  Think about driving through Edmond.  Catching two stop lights wrong can add five or six minutes to your trip.  Here, missing a bus can add twice that.  Even waiting for one can double it.  We -- the other commuters huddled in the -3 degree wind and I -- are at the mercy of that schedule.  It builds camaraderie and pity, that's for sure; no one is exempt.

Step 2:  Disembark from bus, descend a minimum of two long escalators (usually closer to four), and catch the Metro, which comes every 4-6 minutes.  (Again, refer to Edmond stoplight analogy.)  By catch, I mean open the door and hurl yourself into the mass that is the morning commute, cramped but mostly compassionate. If you're lucky, as I am, Line 9 at Plaza de Castilla is far enough away from everything that the cars are relatively uncrowded.  There is some advantage to living in the boonies, after all.

Ride metro 30 minutes to final destination.  Again, if you're lucky, you only have to catch one metro.  Changing lines will cost you at least 6 minutes, usually more, as you have to transverse the station, board more escalators, and wait for another metro.

Step 3:  Exit Metro station - hopefully from a convenient entrance - and get your bearings.  Then walk six more minutes to school, arriving either 15 minutes ahead of schedule or one minute late (or, worst case scenario, 20 minutes late).  Reverse process and repeat for return trip.

Now then, now that you're intimately acquainted with my day, you may be asking yourself why and what this has to do with trains.  Pfft. Stop being so American.  We'll get to it when we get to it.

Oh wait! That, there!  That was it - did you catch it?  We'll get to it when we get to it.  That is, in essence, Spanish time.  (How devilishly tricky of me, I know - using the time you took to read all this as an object lesson!)  Being the efficient American that I am, this mode of thinking at first seemed lazy, then extravagant, then negligent to me.  Now it is merely inconvenient, and even this feeling probably won't last, now that I'm dissecting it.

You see, like a train, time is purveyor.  It glides by, neither fast nor slow and requires little thought once you're on your course.  It catches you up passively... it's your choice where it takes you, but whether you go or not is of little consequence; the main thing is that it runs.  The train system is surprisingly reliable, and yet, meeting times are negotiable.  Ending times are non-existent.  Time runs by whether you're with amigos or not, whether you're in a hurry or not, so why worry about it?  It's not like you can do anything about it anyway; you're a passenger.  So, obviously, the best thing to do is enjoy what you have and make do.  Dinner at 10:00?  Of course!  The day is only so long... why hurry to bed and end it so soon?  The night is young.  Churros con chocolate at 5am after a long night of discotecas?  The perfect start to a new day!  Enjoy the scenery!  Thus time delivers you to your next destination, more or less on schedule and richer for the ride.

And that is Spanish time.  When they told me that an hour's one-way commute wasn't too long, the go-getter, take-life-by-the-horns-and-then-give-it-plastic-surgery part of me stared in disbelief (give me an hour in Oklahoma and I can be two counties away, not just in the center of the city), but I guess from this perspective, it makes a little more sense.  I'm still not sure what I think of it, and most days I feel like I'm suspended over the best (or worst...) of both our cultures as a peace offering to the gods, but it might be worth surrendering to.  To slow down, to cease hurrying.  To defy the time = productivity equation.  Perhaps, perhaps.  Siesta, anyone?