Nice Try Madrid

Spain tried really hard to push me over to Team Western Europe, but no dice. Although Madrid really blew me away and I enjoyed every minute of my 3 day vacation, I felt myself missing the craziness of Eastern Europe. I felt some serious culture shock when I arrived at the airport in Madrid. I haven't traveled to too many places where I was totally clueless about the native language. The 1 semester of Spanish I took in middle school wasn't cutting it and whenever someone would ask me a question I would respond "Da...oui...si" and look like an idiot. This was a little better than when I first got to Germany and would respond "Da" since in German that means "over there" and saying this made me look very confused.

At any rate, the real culture shock came from how spotless everything was and how much everything made sense. I first noticed this with the metro system. Cultural differences that were harder to get used to included the fact that people eat dinner around 10 or 10:30 in Spain and when you're at a tapas bar or something and you're done with your trash you throw it on the floor. Another difference is that you can't smoke inside anywhere in Spain anymore. They don't even have any of those little smoking rooms in the airport like they do in most places. This means when you go out to a bar or club you don't reek of smoke for days after like you do in Moldova. Kind of nice actually.

The hostel I stayed in was glorious and my trip was worth it just for the nice shower. My American compatriots in Moldova know what I'm talking about. The place was also in a great location so I could walk to all the main sights. I met up with my friend Chloe on Friday night, who is finishing up her master's degree and is spending the year in Spain (her program is based in Brussels). We went out to dinner at 9:30 and I got there a little early despite getting lost in the rain so I sat for a few minutes by myself and observed the rambunctious group of American study abroad students sitting in the corner. Then Chloe arrived with a friend who used to work for her dad (who I know from my internship at the embassy in Bulgaria) who is joining the Peace Corps in Africa someplace soon and is taking a long vacation in Spain because her boyfriend is Spanish and lives close to Madrid. We had a really interesting conversation about the work we have all done for various NGOs and international organizations and both of their parents have worked in Eastern Europe so we had a lot to talk about. After dinner, we went back to Chloe's apartment and met all her roommates. It was like a scene out of "L'Auberge Espagnole" (The Spanish Apartment) if anyone has seen that. She lives with a Mexican guy, a German girl, an American guy, a Spanish girl, and a French girl. We sat around for a while talking and I didn't get back to my hostel until around 6 am.

The next day I got up and walked around sightseeing until I made it to the Prado, which is one of the most famous museums in the world. It was very impressive. The Rubens paintings were my favorites. Just tons and tons of masterpieces. After that, I did some more exploring and then met up with the other Moldova Fulbrighters Melissa and Rebecca at Kate's place. Kate is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Madrid who went to college with Liz, another Fulbright ETA who was busy visiting Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan so she couldn't join us. Kate's apartment was similar to Chloe's and consisted of an equally international group. We went over to an apartment where some other Fulbrighters are living and met a ton of new people. One of them, Sammy, went to Bates so Lisa if you're reading this I believe you know her. She played field hockey with Heidi. Small world. Another guy there went to Amherst so we know a lot of the same people too.

After that we met up with one of Kate's Spanish roommates and his friends and went to a club. The music there was pretty interesting. At one point they were playing songs from Grease. We got pretty excited about this for some reason. The Spanish people did a really intense coordinated dance to one of the Spanish songs that reminded us of Moldovans getting up in a bar or club to do the hora. We didn't join in on that. Again, I got to sleep around 7 am.

I just have too much to write about so I'm going to skip to the best day, which was Monday. The sun was out, it was 60 degrees, and we had a super precious afternoon in Retiro Park and out on the pond in a rowboat. We packed a picnic of bread and cheese and strawberries and laid around for a while then decided to take a boat out on the pond nearby because it looked like too much fun to pass up. Luckily Melissa is an athlete so Rebecca and I didn't have to do any of the work. After that, we went to the museum the Reine Sofia that has a ton of Picasso and Dali paintings. Loved it.

All in all, the trip was fantastic. I definitely want to go back to Spain someday. For now though I'm happy to be back in Moldova. Joe Biden is visiting tomorrow which is a really huge deal. He's speaking on the square of the Opera which is right by my house so I'm lucky I won't have to deal with the traffic. There are already enormous American and Moldovan flags covering the facade. The next post will most likely be about his speech. We'll see how it goes and what the reaction is from the press and everything. He was meeting with Medvedev yesterday I believe and discussing the Transnistria issue. Maybe there will be increased efforts to resolve this problem.