Arrival in Madrid

In a nutshell, my first reaction to arriving in Madrid is: SPAIN IS WONDERFUL!

When I arrived in the airport, the casino-like cigarette smells wafted my way, which was probably the most unpleasant thing about coming back to Spain. It makes me realize how fortunate I am to be from California where smoking is very taboo. Even though the smoke was the first thing I noticed, after being in the city a little while (well, a whole day!) I saw that there weren’t as many smokers as I remember there being before. I mean, it’s only been two years since I studied in Alicante, but it really seems that Spain is making some progress when it comes to smokers. Someone today told me that he heard there was going to be a new smoking ban in effect (who knows when), so hopefully this helps clear the air.

I got picked up at the airport by one of the teachers at the colegio that I’ll be teaching at. Her name is Carolina and she is super nice! She’s been very helpful with driving me to my hostel, showing me where I need to go, and helping me find a place to live. Speaking of which, I have almost completely made a commitment to an apartment! I’m wondering if I’m crazy for not looking at other apartments, but I feel like I’m not going to get such a good deal if I keep looking around. There’s not too many places inside of Madrid that will be less than 300€/month! And if I really wanted to, I can walk hike to the downtown area! Of course, it’s definitely not the most fashionable, trendy apartment that could ever exist, but it will be good enough for me!

I’m staying in a hostel this week and plan to move in on Friday or Saturday. It’s pretty cheap in the hostel, but it’s difficult to be eating out and sharing a room with 5 other people. On the plus side, the hostel I’m at offers free walking tours every day. I figured this would be a good way to re-discover the layout of Madrid, so that’s what I did this morning. The tour was okay. I think it would have been better if I were completely ignorant of the history of Spain because the tour guide was saying some historical stuff that was completely wrong! Call me a nerd, but I guess it’s good to know I actually paid attention and learned stuff in the Spanish classes I had during college!

Tomorrow I have an orientation for my new “job.” I have no idea how that ‘s going to go, and I am a little intimidated because the timetable said it would begin at 9:00 and go until 7:00. I’m hoping we get the siesta break in that! On the plus side, the Thursday orientation only goes until early afternoon.

I don’t know what else I’m going to do for the next couple of weeks. I’ll probably keep looking around Madrid and keep getting acquainted with the lay of the land. Since I’m not obligated to be at the school until October 1^st, it’ll be nice to have a few “touristy” days in Madrid.

Some interesting things I’ve seen:

• A patent-leather NY Yankees hat. Not only weird, but someone was actually wearing it! And to make it worse, when the guy walked past me, he had a weird mullet/rat-tail thing! (I’m just thanking God that it wasn’t a Giants hat. I might have thrown up a little at that…)
• Tons of men carrying purses. Well, I guess they’re not “purses” but they’re like man-purses. (If you haven’t seen the Seinfeld episode about this, you’re missing out!)