It's that time again! I can no longer drive, I sweat at all hours of the day and freeze my ass off at night, drink my weight in water and sangria, get shamelessly gawked at and hit on by all Africans or men over the age of 50, and have reduced half of my caloric intake. That's right, I'm back in Spain!! Yay? Haha...
I will admit that this journey back has been less eventful, which by all standards is amazing considering my past experiences. I don't think it will ever get easy to make the big change, to either country, but I keep deciding to do it so I guess I'm not allowed to complain. Clearly I had a hard time at Christmas coming home, simply because I couldn't actually GET home without a complete nervous breakdown, but it wasn't a breeze in the summer, either. It was mostly biological...I was still on Spain time and I couldn't sleep well, so I put on Univision (the Mexican channel) so things would seem more normal. Clearly my life is in shambles, haha.
Anyways, back to the return journey. My airplane from Indy to Washinton Dulles was shittastic. I have some friends in America, and I won't name names, who cannot drive for shit. They double-foot the accelerator and the brake and really try to push your gag reflex to the limit......they'll accelerate to the speed they want, then let off & let it slow down on its own....then speed up again quickly...then slow down....then hit the brake...then accelerate....are you getting nauseated while reading this? I am by just typing. It also really gets your neck prepped for a good whiplash. Anyways that's what the pilot was doing with the plane. You'd hear the jets rev up, my ears would pop, we'd ascend a little bit...then all of a sudden, silence. The jets would stop, we'd start to fall substantially, my stomach dropped...then the jets came back on, and we'd go up, and my ears would pop.....then we'd fall again. I finally hunched over my legs because I've realized that if I'm hunched over, my stomach doesn't register the changes because I'm pretty disoriented. I managed to look out of the corner of my eye and the guy across the way from me was staring at me. I'm almost positive he thought I was going to throw up and seemed really excited for a digestive pyrotechnic show. Sorry, dude.
Dulles was not exciting...the worst part about travelling alone is travelling alone. You have to haul all your shit to the bathroom, to the shops, through the restaurants. Plus you feel pretty alone. I always try to spot a trusting old lady or family that I ask to watch my carry on while I go to the bathroom....I usually only have my clothes packed in it so it's no big deal. Some witch from TSA that was patrolling caught me, though, and wouldn't let me leave my stuff. She was so unfair, she told me I had to take it with me or she'd call the police. I personally think she had a Mall Cop Inferiority Complex, except more so since she wasn't riding a Segway....so I just didn't go to the bathroom for 4 hours out of spite and watched Weeds. SO MEAN.
Hmm, what else. On the flight here I sat next to an extra annoyed Phillipine teenage boy. He was so hostile and moody you would have thought he was a 13-year-old girl who was grounded from going to a Justin Beiber concert. I spent the first 5 hours of the flight fighting with him over the armrest. It's a delicate balance but everytime he'd put on his headphones I'd stab my elbow over so I could establish control. I usually don't care and curl up into a little ball anyways but our flight attendants were extra hip-y. Girthy hips. Wide ass hips. So everytime they'd walk past me they'd bust into my elbow with half their body without any apology and continue on, leaving their fluid rear practically waving at me with contempt as they continued on.
I arrived at 7:30 a.m. Madrid time on Wednesday, went back to Rebecca's apartment, and took a nap. Once I woke up I went off to see two apartments with no luck. The next day I saw 4 more and met Jenny, the new English assistant at our school. She's British! And awesome! She's still getting used to Madrid so I hauled her to all of my apartments. It came down to two that I liked....one was going to let me know because the roommates were going to decide and the other one was first come first serve. Of course I liked the choosey one the best but if I waited to hear from them, and they said no, and I went to the other apartment and it was rented, I'd be screwed. I was torn and didn't know what to do, and somewhat defeated because a lot of the apartments were being really bratty and mean girl about it (we'll let you know, we're going to choose the person we all like the best). It's been a really frustrating situation because 1.) they haven't asked me any important questions about myself or about my living habits or anything useful and 2.) I want to live with Spaniards to practice speaking Spanish but most apartments full of Spaniards don't want to live with a gringa foreigner American girl.
Before I even got here my mom told me "I'd find what I was meant to have"...so I figured I'd go home and call her to see what I should do. I trekked home, exhausted, and was about to call her when I saw a message from one of the apartment sites from a girl who liked my post and thought I'd fit in here. I almost didn't go because I had JUST come from the neighborhood and really didn't want to leave AGAIN to go all the way back...I'd be less lazy but Rebecca's apartment isn't on the same metro line or bus line so I have to transfer and I already hate the metro anyways...but I went just because her e-mail was so energetic and cute. I got to the apartment and I could tell just from listening to her that she was awesome. She's bubbly, short, fun, sassy. There were Abbey Road posters on the wall, an 80's pop art Lip phone (as in the phone is shaped like a pair of lips), a Dolce Gusto coffee maker (dyyyyying!), a beautiful bright living room and windows, lime green kitchen with a hot pink toaster, nice decent sized bathroom...the bedroom is small but the rest of the apartment was GORGEOUS. I stopped her in the middle of the tour and said I'd take it. I asked if Paco, the boy who wasn't home, was just a friend (because I'm not trying to live with a couple...ew) and she said "oh yeah, he's just a friend...look, here's me, here's Paco, and here's Paco's boyfriend."
THAT WAS IT, SIGN FROM GOD. PACO'S GAY & THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE MY APARTMENT!!!
Honestly, I'm surprised in hindsight that I didn't freak her the hell out. I told her I'd seriously go to the ATM and get the deposit at that moment. Unfortunately she had already had another guy who was really interested too and she had to discuss it with Paco. Um, please. I didn't tell her this but I've never met a gay man in my 24 years of existence who didn't like me and I was not about to have Paco be the first. We kept talking, I mentioned that I make pastries and crap and she got excited and decided she'd tell Paco to suck it up, she decided on me. I knew Paco wouldn't regret it anyways, though. C'mon. Gay men are my people. I'm a magnet. I explained that to her too. In the end they chose me and I'm here now!
The apartment is literally right around the corner from my apartment last year...5 doors down. I can walk to school, I can walk to the city center and spend all my money in the shopping district...it's beautiful. Paco also loves Mario on the Wii and has about five Mario games (and was just energetically and enthusiastically telling me about how they spent at least 5 hours one night trying to get a star in the Rainbow World...irony :P) and it's his coffee maker so I have a feeling I'm right where I'm supposed to be. One of my teachers even offered me her car so she came Saturday to get all my crap in one trip and drop it off. In comparison, it's been quite an easy transition and now I'm just trying to get adjusted to being back in Spain and preparing to go back to work. I first need to unpack, though, so I can sleep in my tiny tiny little bed. I think my bed last year was only 4-5 inches wider, but that makes a lot of difference. I'm in cahoots with my dad, though, to figure out a way to fix it without buying a whole new mattress. Anyways I'll update with more exciting things as they occur but as always this is the just beginning-I'm alive post. I'll blog again soon!
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