Daily Life
To my surprise, I have found life in Spain similar to life in the U.S. I am surprised to discover this (I am walking to the supermarket to buy pescadillo and raisins for dinner), and I am, perhaps, pleased.
What I mean by this: life has routines. It´s only a matter of finding them or of making them. I don´t go somewhere new every day; I´m here to live, and that means establishment and familiar faces and routines. Life in Europe isn´t one big sightseeing party, but rather, a growing comfort in different surroundings.
The kid at the photocopy shop knows me. He´s perhaps my age, with dark hair he´s growing mullet-life in the back as the fashion is, and he works every day. I´m beginning to taste a good paëlla from a bad. And I can accurately predict the routes of the four buses I take: the 628, the 625, the 625A, and the 656. The first two take me to the edge of Madrid, to Moncloa, where I catch the metro. Usually I take the yellow line (linea tres), or the brown (linea cuatro) or the light blue (linea uno), and sometimes the grey (linea seis).
Why is this important, these numbers and colors and routes?
Because this knowledge was not won easily. Because this huge part of my routine was at first overwhelming and frustrating. Because I learned through experience that the 625A bus does not go to Madrid even though I need it to, and that if I do not get off the train at Las Rozas, I will be stuck on a deserted concrete pad in a field called Tres Cantos. I can recite all the metro stops on the yellow line from Moncloa to Sol (the radius of the city from the NW corner to the center) only because I sometimes took the wrong metro and sometimes the right metro, and was once stuck at 2.00 AM when the metro closed. This new knowledge, then, is part of my new routine.
My old routine was comprised of gas stations, soup lunches, Riggs spelling rules, oil changes, Sunday dinners with my family, coffee on the front porch. This new routine is comprised of cold mornings at the bus stop, beggars in the metro, walks to the photocopy shop, classes taught in an office that smells of fresh bread every morning, and Friday noons at my favorite café. Sometimes, walks to the supermarket to buy carne pecade de terner (ground beef) or to the churreria (a churro is a pastry that you dip in hot chocolate). Sometimes, hot tea on the brick patio in the warm south sunshine, where I can hear birds and the buses, and watch the trees turning faintly green.
Are there differences then? But of course.
The section of books at the library that I can actually read is sadly small. I read newspaper articles badly. I rely on strawberry jam for my sugar intake, and on CNN for my English intake. Lunch at 3.00 and dinner at 10.00 feels odd. And I still can´t pronounce the word ¨churreria.
What I mean by this: life has routines. It´s only a matter of finding them or of making them. I don´t go somewhere new every day; I´m here to live, and that means establishment and familiar faces and routines. Life in Europe isn´t one big sightseeing party, but rather, a growing comfort in different surroundings.
The kid at the photocopy shop knows me. He´s perhaps my age, with dark hair he´s growing mullet-life in the back as the fashion is, and he works every day. I´m beginning to taste a good paëlla from a bad. And I can accurately predict the routes of the four buses I take: the 628, the 625, the 625A, and the 656. The first two take me to the edge of Madrid, to Moncloa, where I catch the metro. Usually I take the yellow line (linea tres), or the brown (linea cuatro) or the light blue (linea uno), and sometimes the grey (linea seis).
Why is this important, these numbers and colors and routes?
Because this knowledge was not won easily. Because this huge part of my routine was at first overwhelming and frustrating. Because I learned through experience that the 625A bus does not go to Madrid even though I need it to, and that if I do not get off the train at Las Rozas, I will be stuck on a deserted concrete pad in a field called Tres Cantos. I can recite all the metro stops on the yellow line from Moncloa to Sol (the radius of the city from the NW corner to the center) only because I sometimes took the wrong metro and sometimes the right metro, and was once stuck at 2.00 AM when the metro closed. This new knowledge, then, is part of my new routine.
My old routine was comprised of gas stations, soup lunches, Riggs spelling rules, oil changes, Sunday dinners with my family, coffee on the front porch. This new routine is comprised of cold mornings at the bus stop, beggars in the metro, walks to the photocopy shop, classes taught in an office that smells of fresh bread every morning, and Friday noons at my favorite café. Sometimes, walks to the supermarket to buy carne pecade de terner (ground beef) or to the churreria (a churro is a pastry that you dip in hot chocolate). Sometimes, hot tea on the brick patio in the warm south sunshine, where I can hear birds and the buses, and watch the trees turning faintly green.
Are there differences then? But of course.
The section of books at the library that I can actually read is sadly small. I read newspaper articles badly. I rely on strawberry jam for my sugar intake, and on CNN for my English intake. Lunch at 3.00 and dinner at 10.00 feels odd. And I still can´t pronounce the word ¨churreria.
posted by Eva | 12:42 PM
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