I really like the colors of this empty apartment that Leah’s host family is letting me stay in. The walls are completely white, the whiteness only broken by the brick fireplace and a few spots of wood molding here and there, but everything is decorated with bright colors: neon green chairs, a shockingly orange tablecloth, an intricate red blue and gold Spanish tapestry hung on the wall. I’m sitting down to type out my thoughts on the last week before I head to the Museo de Reina Sofia for a second try—I went in yesterday, but they told me I couldn’t bring in my bottle of wine (it was a gift for Leah’s host family, I promise!) and I didn’t have enough time to go home and come back. Instead, I headed dejectedly into Starbucks, the most American and least threatening thing within eyesight. The whole morning I had been down with the soledad (IF you know what I mean) without MamaLeah around to speak Spanish and laugh at my inability to do so. While in the Starbucks though, as I wrote in my tiny moleskin notebook and giggled to myself at how silly and wannabe-poetic I looked, sipping coffee and eating cheesecake for lunch (kind of like on the first day at Tufts, when everyone gets frozen yogurt and cereal for dinner because there are no parents at college, wooo), I remembered my number one rule for being abroad: The world is big, and it’s ok for me to be small. (I wrote it down at the front of the notebook along with my other rule, Don’t drink too much.)
This next week in Madrid and Valencia seem intimidating because I’ve never been in a city completely alone before without an agenda or language skills, but what’s the point in dwelling on the fact that I’m alone? Plenty of times I’ve wished I was alone anyway, getting lost in my thoughts and listening to music—now I’ll have the chance to do whatever I want for a week! I sat up a little straighter in my plush chair, and apparently my newfound vibes of confidence were felt immediately by the rest of the Sunday afternoon Starbucks crowd, because just as I went to write down this revelation, a 25 year old Italian artist named David sauntered over and promptly started talking to me as if we were old friends. Not quite in the market to befriend talkative Italians yet, I let him write his contact information in my notebook (in case I’m ever in Turin) and told him I was late to meet my aunt at the library… hopefully next time I need a good excuse, more believable words than ‘tia’ and ‘biblioteca’ will pop into my head. Anyway, the rest of the day was a nomadic success— I wandered through the royal botanical garden, stumbled upon Atocha, a train station with a cool indoor setup of tropical plants, and did a tiny bit of shopping. My one downfall was at dinnertime, when I was again struck with first day at Dewick syndrome (well, actually anytime at Dewick). I just can’t bring myself to eat alone in a restaurant, something about it is just scary and sad and downright pathetic, so I walked home and vowed that tomorrow (which is today now) my big leap of the day would be to go out and have a delightful Spanish dinner by myself somewhere. Wish me luck, kids.
in the Real Jardin Botanico
inside the train station (Atocha) in Madrid
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