Since there’s no internet in my piso and the cafes of Navalmoral (except one) seem to be against the institution of wifi, I’m going to start writing blog entries on Word, then posting them whenever I can…so days might be a little behind.
This is my second night in Navalmoral. I flew into Spain after leaving Dulles on Tuesday. The flight into Heathrow and the into Madrid were perfectly lovely. On the one to Heathrow, I was so disappointed at first when at the gate the lady told me they had to switch my requested aisle seat to a window seat…but then, the middle seat in my row ended up being empty! I had so much room to stretch out and eat my airline grade chicken curry. I slept on and off during the flight, but mostly read or watched bits and pieces of “Bridesmaids.” At Heathrow I grabbed some food before getting on the flight to Madrid. I couldn’t even tell you who I sat next to on that leg of the journey, I slept basically the entire time. When we landed at Barajas airport, it took a good 45 minutes to get my luggage and navigate out of the massive building, onto the streets of Madrid.
I hopped on to an airport shuttle bus and made friends with an Irish lady, who lives in Canada, and travels all over. We said goodbye and I took a taxi from the bus stop to my hostel. The taxi dropped me off “very close” to where I needed to be…but the thing was, I had no idea where that was. I was lugging 100 lbs of rolling luggage, a 25 lb backpack, and a purse through the streets of downtown Madrid in the extreme heat for 20 minutes. Finally after asking policemen, security store guys, and even a sketchy street vendor who was saying “I buy gold!”, I arrive at my hostel. I checked in, got settled, and decided to go out exploring. I wandered around Madrid for a while, went back to the hostel to rest and use their computer, then headed back out in search of some dinner. I found a restaurant in the center of everything, so I ordered some paella and sangria and sat with my kindle for a while. Towards the end of eating, a Valencia-Barcelona fútbol game came on, so I hung out for a while and watched.
I slept so well that night . The next day, I had a lot of time between check out (at 11am) and my train (at 3.30pm). I walked around Madrid for about 3 hours, stopping to buy cookies from nuns, eat at 100 Montaditos, and visit my sister’s old neighborhood. I taxied to the train station, got my ticket, and soon enough, was off on the two-hour train ride to Navalmoral de la Mata.
The train was pretty uneventful. I had my headphones in and listened to music for most of the ride…and thank god I had that. There was a lady a few rows behind me who, for the majority of the two hours, was singing her little heart out. It reminded me of when I worked at the gym and one night a lady on a treadmill was belting out whatever song she was listening to on her iPod. Everyone on the train was super uncomfortable with the singer….
When I got to Navalmoral, my roommate (Mamen) and a woman with whom I’ve been talking to about tutoring her kids, greeted me there. We loaded my enormous bags into Mamen’s car and she drove me to our apartment. The apartment is actually really nice and a good size. We each have our own rooms, bathrooms, there is one main terrace, one inner terrace (for doing laundry), a decent sized kitchen (no dishwasher or oven though), and a very big living room with a TV. Mamen is super nice and knows English very well (so in these first few overwhelming days, she’s definitely easy to be around).
Mamen took me around the town yesterday, helping me to get a phone, some living essentials (sheets, hangers, shower curtain…), and even offered to take me to a concert that she and some of her friends were going to. I really wanted to go, but I had to be a party pooper and say no because I was so, incredibly exhausted. She had even said, “Oh, we won’t get home too late…maybe 2 :30 or 3am?” Oh. My. God. I need to get used to the Spanish way of life again. I’m not as young as I was in Valencia…
Today I ran all over town. I woke up, got ready, and as I was walking towards the center to start shopping for more things, Mamen called me and asked if I wanted to have a beer with her and her friends. I got to meet about 4 of her friends, who are all very nice. I do feel like I’m from a different planet though. I really can’t add much to the conversation because I don’t understand most of it. My Spanish isn’t that great to begin with and the Extremaduran accents are definitely not what I’m used to listening to. But that’s why I’m here, right?
After beer and some tapas (they made me try everything before they would tell me what it was- I ate chicken stomach and either pig cheek or lips…I’m still not sure), I went to Mercadona (!) and stocked up on some food necessities. Oh, Mercadona, how I’ve missed you. Then I lugged my groceries home, ate, went back out, and was set on finding some place with wifi. I wandered from café to café asking with no luck. On the third or fourth one I went in, guess who was there? Mamen’s friends! One of them walked me to one of the TWO cafes with wifi in Navalmoral, where I stayed for a while and caught up on emails. The I wandered around some more and found a place called SuperSol which is about as close as you could get to a Kmart here. I was able to buy some things that I was pretty hygienically against buying at the Chino (a pillow), brought that all back home, went back out, went to a bunch of phone stores trying to find out about getting internet for the apartment, bought more stuff at the Chino, then finally came back home and SHOWERED. Now I’m lounging around after a wonderful dinner of pan integral, jamón, un tomate, y queso de cabra. For dessert I’m going to eat a Príncipe or two (or the whole sleeve).
So all in all, life here is good. I just want to start meeting people and making friends and stop spending so much money trying to get settled in here. I figure all of that will come with time though. On the plus side, I’ve made a pretty stellar picture collage on my wardrobe door…
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