Katya Discusses Dogs and Goes to Church

...I saw a dog with socks today. Not on all four paws--just the back two--but this brings me to a fascinating trend among the Spanish--or at least the Madrid, city-types. People bring their dogs EVERYWHERE. Moreover, I have seen dogs with collars that were actually scarves or wearing fur-hooded* jackets and sweaters. Granted, it has been rather chilly** in Madrid lately, but I can almost imagine that in the summer they just dress them in sundresses and shelter them under umbrellas. My conclusions are that Spaniards love their pets like children, and those rich enough to, clothe them as such.

Also, sooo many women wear fur coats here. I'm quite alarmed. They seem to love animals very much, but they wear a LOT of fur***. Whilst we are on the subject of animal skins/hair/fur, our apartment has a cow rug. I have decided to call him Brown Cow. I'm told people like blogs with pictures, so I figure I better get you a pic of the rug if I want your continued patronage. (Annea, close your eyes!)

How Now, Brown Cow?

Anyhow, tomorrow is my first day of classes. I’m excited to get a schedule in place so that the world can start making sense again. I just found out that for the first time in university, I got straight As last quarter! Yay! It is a bit of a miracle, because last quarter was very stressful for me, with getting ready for this trip financially and organizing a sublease and trying to make plans for upon my return. Yeah. I’m pretty happy about this. But, this is a travel blog, so now I will transition into something more on topic….

I visited a church here today, for my first Sunday in Madrid. It is called Immanuel Baptist Church, and was the only English speaking congregation I could find within a reasonable distance via metro and walking. Even then, it is about a 30 minute commute. I really liked it, despite feeling very out of place at first. One of my flat mates came with me and we both want to go back there in for future Sunday services. There were people from so many nationalities there! It was like a UN convention. I look forward to checking-out their university group, which meets every other week. I think that this will be a wonderful new community to be involved in.

Hopefully, I will give you all a run-down of my first day of class soon. I have classes back to back from 4pm to 8pm Monday/Wednesday and from 3-5pm on Tuesday/Thursday. NO CLASS ON FRIDAYS! WOOT! Good times.



Footnotes for the criminally insane:

*Don't get me started on how gross it seems to clothe an animal in animal hair...weird. Like, what if humans wore human skin? Ughh.
**And to think, I almost didn't pack more than one long-sleeve shirt. I think it has managed to get below freezing while we've been here. Also, fun fact: "Madrid is situated in the middle of the Meseta, and at an elevation of 646 meters (2,119 feet) above sea level is the highest capital city in Europe" (nasa.gov)
***In one walk, I think I counted 5 fur coats. Annea forewarned me.

Katya Meets Jet-Lag and Visits Madrid's Soul

Time adjustment is going pretty weird for me right now. People eat dinner here super late (10:30pm) and young people party as late (or should I say “early”) as 6 in the morning. I think* it will be easier to manage my schedule once classes start. For now, I’m sleeping usually twice a day at awkward times**, eating at even more awkward times, finishing the novel Heather-Freaking-Awesome*** gave me for my birthday, emailing contacts, grocery shopping, getting a phone, and running other dubious errands. 

I think jet-lag intensifies my ADD-tendencies. I have moments of extreme focus and energy (like me typing away here, at like, 2:30am) and then languish in my bed (like I did at 2pm this afternoon), fuzzy-brained and petulant, knowing I have errands still to do in order to be ready for the up-coming school week. You know, sort of important errands. Like buying food. So I can eat. Anyway, this probably would not have been a proper travel blog if I did not discuss the debilitating effects of jet-lag at some point. Be satiated, oh, travel-blog fiends****.

When I do get outside, Madrid is so unique. Like a person, I’m getting to know how it is like others I have met, reconciling differences, learning weaknesses, and gaining glimpses of its beauty. I visited the center of the city today and the poetic side of me clapped with joy at the significance of the center plaza being called Puerta del Sol. 

Firstly, I know Puerta del Sol means Sun Gate*****, but it is a phonetic match for soul, and there I was at the center, the soul of Madrid, Puerta del Sol*(x6). From the exorbitantly priced smartphone store, to the free café with my buffet, the rooftop of the high-rise everything-you-could-need store to the metro station, it’s soul was bare before me. The good, the bad, and the meh. Secondly, if you did not know, Madrid is shaped in a concentric, circular pattern, with lines of streets shooting out from it's center, like rays radiating from the sun. I wonder if they named the plaza before or after the city grew in such a way. You had all better prepare yourselves right now for future poetic frippery from me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
 

For now,  I will stop my soliloquizing and merely say goodnight. I’m praying for this city and it’s people and trying to let myself love a place which I plan to leave in just 5 short weeks. But I’ve never been good at guarding my heart from loving places—or people.

Footnotes for People Who Can Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too: 

*read: "hope"
**though, here they have this thing called a siesta (observed religiously by Spanish grandmas from 3-5pm), which I could certainly get used to, and which corresponds nicely with the time when my urge to sleep on West Coast time grows strongest.
***-Mc-She-Who-Must-Not-Finish-Being-Named-Because-This-Is-A-Public-Post-And-I-Do-Not-Want-Her-To-Have-Stalkers
****I have a feeling that the only travel-blog fiend reading this post is the one and only Heather-Freaking-Awesome-Mc-She-Who-Must-Not-Finish-Being-Named-Because-This-Is-A-Public-Post-And-I-Do-Not-Want-Her-To-Have-Stalkers, but I cannot be too careful about pleasing my audience of 3. This is the interwebs, after all. Also, I apologize if at this point my asterisks are beginning to look like they are taking the place of words-which-must-not-be-named and are shocking anyone. Superscripts are out of my league right now. I'm still learning how to even edit...

*****I actually only knew sol meant sun and puerta meant door, so I got the official meaning from google. Thanks, Google.
****** (*x6): This also is a false cognate for a poem I once wrote called "Portal to a Soul". Weird, yes. But also a third reason why the name struck me.

Katya Learns to Walk Again But Her Luggage Can't

I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep since my mom and sister drove me to the airport yesterday morning (Pacific Time). I have a pretty nice apartment, and of the 7 girls living here, am the only one with my own room!! What a blessing! Just had an amazing sandwich at a local place. After I nap, I am planning on going by the frutaria and a cafe to stock-up for breakfast the next few days. All checked-in with my study center and have orientation tomorrow morning. The rest of the day is ours to spend as we wish.

I was a hot mess at the airport and on the metro. While I have yet to be convinced that I over-packed, I will most definitely be sore in the shoulders tomorrow from lugging my huge carry-on* and giant roller suitcase** from the gate to the metro to the center to my apartment.  Thankfully, I traveled with new friends from the program that helped me laugh about my awkward tripping, dropping, swinging, and bumping incidents. Plural intended.

Also on the plus-side, a young Spanish gentleman was kind enough to offer to help me take my huge suitcase down the stairs into the metro at one point. I would have enjoyed the moment more if I had not immediately proceeded to trip on the stairs behind him, almost breaking my ankle/neck/you-name-it on the stairs. Kudos to one of my new friends, the only person who saw me, who burst into semi-silent and terrified*** laughter with me as I auto-corrected and managed to make it to the last step on my feet in time to take my luggage back from this kind Spaniard-Samaritan. I am deciding whether or not to keep a tally of male-Spanish gentility, but at this point am undecided. If I were, the score would currently be Chivalry-1:Whatever-the-Opposite-Is-0.

I have since attributed my extreme lack of coordination to a case of me-no-sleepy and paraplegic luggage, but will cherish this in my memory as one of my first moments bonding with Spain. Below is all I could manage to record when I first wrote this event down:

[Soooo tired right now, but wanting to capture the precious memory of when that Spanish dude offered to help me carry my stuff down the stairs when the escalator disappeared—oh, I certainly let him!—followed by me biffing it on the stairs behind him. I stumbled, but by the grace of God didn’t go down or hit my head. Just ended-up waving my arms in a frenzy and lost my footing...

Going to go crash now. Exhausted. May post after my nap….. ]
(finished post at 2:29pm Madrid time)

I debated titling this post "Katya Survives and Spanish Chivalry" but decided to eschew the gross misappropriation of alliteration for a more bombastic heading. Anyway, now it is a few days later than my aforementioned nap, and I'm sitting here transposing and editing my notes from the piece I wrote that first day--believe me, it needed a lot of editing--and don't want to mess with the integrity of this post anymore. Asi, hasta luego!


Footnotes for the easily-bored:
*my carry-on is tearing at the seams. I think this may be it's literal and proverbial last trip. At least it got to go to Europe first, right?
**my roller suitcase is missing the part on the bottom that is meant to help it stay at rest and upright when I'm not pulling it. This results in frequent, frustrating, and comical falling-over incidents which have left me asking existential questions about life.
***our laughter may have been classifiable as manic, since we were both running on crazy little sleep and looking around us, disoriented and exuberant, like babies fresh from the womb.