City Living

So, here I am, finally settling down into the place that will be my home for the next year, if not more. I arrived in Madrid a little less than three weeks ago. In my first few days, I was still here with Rui, staying in a hostel where our bedroom had a balcony on Plaza Mayor. Not bad for 17€ a night… Having been through the city several times before, I showed Rui and her visiting college friends what I knew. We went out to El Escorial and Valle de los Caidos, the former a proud symbol of Spain’s imperial past and the latter the unpopular but undeniably impressive monument of Franco’s dictatorship (that includes an underground basilica as large as St. Peter’s in Rome). We indulged in churros con chocolate and tried out some of Spain’s most well-known staples, jamón ibérico and queso manchego. However, tourist time had to come to an end, and before I knew it, it was time for the Fulbright orientation.

However touristy I may have been in those first few days, I did have one landmark achievement: finding an apartment. I’d been talking for a few months with a Spanish friend of mine about where I ought to live, and as it turned out, he was in the market for a new apartment as well. Thus, within hours of arriving in Madrid, I met up with Javi to look at our first option. After standing for 15 minutes at the entrance of the wrong building, we didn’t feel too confident, but it turned out that this first option was also our last. As soon as I walked in, I knew I wanted it. Let me preface this with the fact that my apartment in Alicante felt like a hospital. The floors were cold tile, the walls paper thin and plain, the shower tiny (with a plastic curtain that got water everywhere and no place to hang the showerhead), and worst of all, there was no living room. While I adored my roommates and miss them to this day, I knew I wanted something totally different.

My new place is actually an attic apartment, which I was a bit worried about at first, being over 6 feet tall. Our landlord knew this, and thus had the departing resident hang around for our visit. He was even taller than me, and put my fears to rest telling me that within days “it’s like the Matrix. You just avoid the low parts without even thinking about it.” While it means that parts of the apartment aren’t really usable for me, I love it. The wooden ceiling beams, the wood floors, the stone walls, etc. all add great character that my Alicante apartment never had. We even have granite countertops and a DISHWASHER! It was exactly what I’d been hoping for. Sure my jumping abilities are severely limited by the fact that the ceiling is less than a foot from my head, but I can live with it. (And the shower is fantastic. It has jets that spray your back.)

Kitchen

Living room

And the neighborhood is the best part. We’re living in Lavapiés, the immigrant barrio of central Madrid. It’s in the middle of everything: the Prado, Atocha, Reina Sofia, Plaza Mayor, La Latina, Puerta del Sol… All of them are less than a 15 minute walk away. It is also a very cheap neighborhood with lots of cool bookstore cafes and the best variety of food in Madrid.  Everywhere you look, there are halaal markets with ingredients that are impossible to find anywhere else. Those of you who have lived in Spain before know that the hours of operation for supermarkets and such can be quite frustrating. Here, it’s fantastic. Immigrants are willing to work far longer hours, so I can go to the fruit market next to my building at almost any hour of the day. Sure, it’s a bit rough around the edges, but I couldn’t be happier here.

Before long, I’ll update you on school and the Fulbright community, but for now I’ll just say that as I take the bus home from my school in the suburbs and see the Cuatro Torres (four towers) that make up the entirety of Madrid’s “skyline” I’ve already begun thinking of it as home, something that never happened so quickly in my other experiences abroad.

Dirty little secret: The towers are nowhere near the city center.  This ain't America, y'all.

Guess who's back?

After an extremely busy two weeks, this will be the first of a two part update. Luckily for you, dear readers, it’s the more exciting part. I arrived in Madrid about two and a half weeks ago, and left immediately to Porto, Portugal to meet up with a friend. Five days later, we went to Valencia to prepare for two days of Spanish revelry before moving back to Madrid, where I’d begin my Fulbright adventure. I leave you with the 7 most important lessons I took from our week-long sojourn.

1. George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport is hellbent on destroying my life (and giving me free trips)- I have a few reasons to like Houston: my sister, my nieces, and one of my best friends all live there. Unfortunately, between the Spanish consulate and IAH, it seems that the city is doing all it can to make my life more difficult. Just to give you an idea of the amount of work that IAH is putting into this endeavor, no less than 4 out of my last 5 flights through Houston have been either canceled or delayed to the point that I missed a connection. The causes have ranged from tornadoes, to mechanics who bring the wrong tools to fix the plane, to a flat tire noticed moments before boarding. This time, it was another mechanical delay, but I happily got to spend an entire day in New York City with two of my lovely friends from Geneva before heading over to Madrid.

2. Porto is a severely underrated destination- I had been to Portugal before this, three years ago, when I visited Lisbon. After an inadvertent beach nap, that trip had ended in the most painful sunburns of my life and a severely limited ability to walk. Porto revived my love for the country. Every day was between 65 and 75 degrees with a light breeze, and the city was beautifully perched on hills overlooking the Douro river below. Rui and I spent multiple evenings watching the sunset over the Atlantic in the distance as we sat drinking a bottle of delicious vinho verde. Slowly the lights of the city came on below us and we could head down to the river for an incredible (and cheap) seafood dinner. We also discovered queijo da Serra de Seia, a delightfully pungent soft Portuguese cheese that became our snack of choice.

3. A visit to the Porto wine cellars will make all your troubles disappear- For those of you who haven't tried port wine, it is a wine fortified with a strong brandy that is added to stop fermentation and maintain sweetness. Many of the port houses in Porto are actually British-owned. The wine comes from the vineyards upriver in small boats and is then transported to the cellars to age. These cellars have all taken to giving free tours, and more importantly, free tastings, so you're able to walk around the area in the afternoon and within hours feel quite content without spending a euro. While port in the US is typically red, we did also try white and rosé varieties. Red is more popular for a reason…

4. When life doesn't give you tomatoes, please don't throw shirts- In previous posts, I discussed my excitement for La Tomatina, a massive festival outside of Valencia that culminates with the world’s largest foodfight. I’ve been to major festivals before, but nothing prepared me for the madness awaiting in Buñol. Groups of Spaniards formed large rings, and when anyone tried to pass through, they’d immediately rip their shirts off, whether male or female. With fire hoses cooling the crowds, this quickly became a massive wet t-shirt contest of another variety, as in, a who-can-hurl-this-wet-tshirt-hardest contest. Unfortunately, this proceeded for an entire hour before the tomatoes began, and being tall, I was the recipient of many smacks to the face.

5. When life gives you tomatoes, try to receive them away from large crowds- There are crowds, and then there is Tomatina. Buñol normally has around 8,000 residents and this year, it was estimated that 45,000 people were cramming the streets for Tomatina. As the tomato trucks wove their way through the crowd, it instantly compacted. I was unable to move my arms, and I saw people involuntarily being moved 10-15 feet just from the sheer force of the crowd. By the time the tomatoes were unloaded, I could scarcely move enough to throw anything, resorting instead to a sort of hop-and-shrug to at least move the tomatoes landing on my head and shoulders.

6. La Zurra beats La Tomatina any day- The night before Tomatina, we visited a festival in another small town, Requena, that was celebrating the beginning of the wine harvest. After a pyrotechnic display that rivaled many 4th of July celebrations here in the US, everyone made their way to the bullring for the Zurra. It was similar to a bullfight but instead used baby bulls whose horns were covered with cork. Anyone who wanted to was allowed into the ring to challenge the bulls, and if you haven’t ever experienced the joy of watching a drunk American tourist being tossed into the air by a bull, you haven’t yet lived. As the festivities proceeded, I made friends with a group of Spanish teens in front of us who explained everything that was happening between massive gulps of vodka and Fanta. Needless to say, they thought my Spanish skills were de putamadre. Not only does alcohol make the drinker think they’re speaking a language well, but it also improves his or her perception of others’ language skills as well!

7. Rui Bao is the world's best travel companion- Rui and I met back in high school at the US Senate Youth program and have stayed in contact ever since. Upon arriving, we realized that this trip would be the longest we’d ever spent together, but nonetheless, I felt like I was with one of my oldest friends. I couldn’t have asked for better conversation, and we were completely compatible in what we wanted out of the trip: a bit of relaxation. It was a wonderful reunion. ‘nuff said.

Overlooking the Douro in Porto