Once Upon an Arrival in Spain Last Week (Mine)

So there I was, in an airport in Madrid, SPAIN, having just gotten off an airplane filled with people that all spoke different languages. I was excited, but also intimidated. My initial plans to immediately dive into the Spanish language failed when the extremely friendly grandmotherly monolingual lady from Aragon who was going to sit next to me on the plane and teach me all about Spanish and the culture and later introduce me to her large family that lives across Spain failed to exist.

(I blame the amiable french couple for not giving up their seats to go meet their previously forsaken American grandchildren who they ignore because they're still angry at the children's parents for abandoning them to go America. Either they were too stubborn to admit they were wrong for letting an old childish grudge get in the way of supporting their grandchildren in their time of need or they just couldn't read the dramatic and plot twist-filled letter they received from their grandson Peter in a Texan prison. [If it goes that way then I can blame them for being too proud to ask for help.] Typical.)

 (Maybe I'm projecting a little bit. [Or mayhaps I'm reading too much into their beverage orders.] Nevertheless, there was definitely some wistful regret mixed with bitter resentment in the way the man requested apple juice after his wife *explicitly* ordered tea for the both of them.) But either way, my matronly Spanish fairy godmother never appeared because of French people.

It wouldn't have been that bad but my contingency plan fell through too. I was going to master Spanish in my 7 hours on the plane by watching a few dubbed movies  (Alvin and the Chipmunks or something with Gerard Butler would have done quite nicely) but then American Airlines had to go and remove all the television screens from the back of the seats!  I was frustrated. (Now that I think about, what does "dubbed" really mean? Why is it such a silly word? Where does it come from? Does it like its current definition, or is the unusual use exhausting?)

Deprived of my preliminary Spanish mastery, I walked timidly through the airport, seeking out targets with which to bravely conquer and thus prove/create my linguistic mastery. My first target was customs.  The line was relatively short because it was a Tuesday, but I still had time before I stepped up to draft a short speech about how long I was planning to stay in Spain and what my purposes for visiting were; I'd even written up in my head a few brief explanations for my planned visits to other European countries and some strongly worded assurances about my scheduled departure from Europe in two and a half months' time.

Again I was tragically stripped of an opportunity to prove myself; I marched forward and handed my passport to the customs agent, brimming with expectant energy and prepared to stutter, when the seemingly hungover and visibly impatient Spaniard simply stamped my passport and handed it back, without so much as a second look at me. (Sometimes I think I'd get more attention in the airport if I were still on the no-fly list.)

I was then briefly sidetracked by an American from the same flight who was nervous about his baggage, but my focus returned to Spanish as I spied a money-changing booth. I muttered something unintelligible to the American and then turned to the booth while digging in my wallet for my money.  Here I wouldn't have quite the same opportunity to be verbose and loquacious and tediously talkative and long-winded and vocabulirific and obnoxious, but it would have to do. I sidled semi-casually up to the window, prepared to explain the cash I was changing and why and from where and for how much. I didn't know how long this kind of thing took either, so I considered small talk options and settled on a few paragraphs of questions about the money changing business and certain exchange rates. (best to stay professional at first; I could always improvise from there)

Trembling, with cash in hand, I carefully said to the lady on the other side of the counter: "Yo tengo...ciento...y cuarenta do..dolares..ay! dólares." (I have...a hundred...and forty.. do...dollurs..erm ohuh..dollars.)

She smiled and spit out a quick string of nonsense. I stood quietly as she changed the money. Then she handed me my euros and said "have a nice day" in perfect English.



My confidence was definitely shaken, but it was only a minor setback, and I determinedly continued on my way, set on making the day a successful Spanish adventure filled with efficient travel and enlightening conversations with natives who only later realize that I'm not from around these parts.


After spending an hour on the wrong bus and inadvertently learning my way around the entire Madrid airport, I stumbled and tripped my way on to the correct bus headed for the train station, nearly killed myself as I nobly decided to lift my 50-pound suitcase onto the second row up of luggage racks instead of the starkly empty bottom row, and then sat for 20 minutes vainly trying to eavesdrop and comprehend the conversation between two natives a few meters ahead of me before I realized they weren't speaking Spanish and that I was in the handicapped section. Confidence lightly battered, I retreated to the back of the bus and surrendered, turning on my ipod and listening to American house music.

Only a few stops later, however, my confidence was boosted when a Dutch couple assumed I was Spanish and slowly asked me how to pronounce a few words on a sign before I let them know I was American, and thus could speak a language that they could understand fairly well. (Of course I still talked to them in half Spanish, partly because I needed the practice, and partly because I didn't want to abandon the idea that I was one of those American-Spanish multi-cultural hybrid citizens you hear so much about. [the illusion that was in my head of course])

Then I got to the train station, Atocha, (Which I'd been tragically mispronouncing until this point) and was again shamed into submission.  I wandered for half and hour around the train station looking for a ticket booth and awkwardly walking into the wrong lines for surprisingly unoccupied areas mumbling half-formed questions about the station layout until a security guard or station staff member would spit out some directions that I would slow down and decipher as I turned around and walked on.

Once I realized that I'd fundamentally misunderstood both the station layout and the organizational structure of the entire train system in Spain, I figured out what seemed most correct and then sat down to wait in line for an hour and a half in what appeared to be a Spanish DMV for buying train tickets, which is both a fascinating notion and a horrifying reality.

Despite the best bureaucratic efforts of the train station employees, however, I eventually got a ticket and boarded the last train that would still get me to Sevilla in time for my rendezvous with the other students. As soon as the train started moving I commandeered the bathroom so I could change and put in contacts and wash myself in the tiny sink with an unintuitive motion sensor. (I'd been operating as an unwashed, half-blind, coffee-stained mess until that point in the day; this probably should've been mentioned at an earlier point in the story.)



Once I arrived in Sevilla, I managed to successfully, albeit painfully, explain to a taxi driver where I needed to go and how much money I needed it to cost for me to still afford it.  I ended up a euro or two short, but the driver took pity on me (I think he could tell I'd had a rough day) and decided not to drop me off a mile before reaching my destination.

Pulling my huge suitcase, unwieldy backpack, and slightly fragile mandolin out of the taxi, I sluggishly dragged myself and my belongings into the hotel that I didn't have a room reserved in yet. It was three in the afternoon.