First Entry - The Not-So-Cool Arrival

Sept. 17, 2013

First entry

Well I've had my first full day traveling alone in Spain and so far…I'm CLEARLY a fish out of water. Far from home, where I don't speak the language, I'm a total bumbling idiot. It started as soon as I got off the plane in Madrid when I realized I needed to get my luggage and transfer (on another, smaller airline) to Granada, the town where I'd be staying for the next two months. All was good getting my bag, but once I walked up to the terminal I was in, I realized "uh oh" - I gotta figure my shit out! I walked up and down the long corridor trying to find some semblance of a clue where the Iberian airline was. Nothing. Nil. Nada. It didn't help that I had to pee, so a bathroom was in order. Thank god for the international symbol of 'woman in skirt go here!' Finally, after that, I managed to locate an information booth and was told to "go outside and take a shuttle bus to terminal 4". Shit. I wasn't ready to venture outside yet. It was safe indoors. Even though little information was in English, there was comfort in knowing I wasn't going to walk onto a moving vehicle and end up in no man's land. Enter my first 'traveling alone pep-talk'…ya gotta do this, I told myself. sigh. OK 

So out the door I went, looking, I'm sure like a silly American hick with my granny, floral tapestry suitcase (love the perfect size, but it's definitely Old Lady luggage…thanks, Grammy!), my neon-green backpack, and the weathered, straw cowgirl hat I bought in eastern Oregon, which I thought made me look super cute there, but now feels dreadfully out of place. Turned out the shuttle was no big deal. It was clearly marked and easy to board and took me off to terminal 4, which was, about 2 miles away from where I was! WTF? Glad I asked for directions! 

Now a side note for my beautiful girlfriends back home…you know who you are…while riding the shuttle to the terminal, a MUY, MUY GUAPO male Spaniard boarded the bus and stood next to me. As I was feeling completely self-conscious in my road-weary clothes and turtle-esque, cowgirl appearance, I avoided eye contact. But this was the first of MANY such handsome men I was about to see in a very short period of time. It was strange honestly. I'm not used to seeing SO many beautiful people walking about in the general public. There is some sort of mix of tall, broad shouldered, thick-haired, white teeth, manly jawline southern European gorgeous gene pool at work here. oh my!! Bottom line…I'm in DEEP trouble! But I digress…finally, I made my way through checking in for my transfer flight and began the long wait for my plane to arrive. Unfortunately, it got delayed, so the wait was even longer. But the people-watching was good and I was glad I'd thought to put a few Euros in my wallet so I could get a Diet Coke in a vending machine.

Once I got to Granada, the fumbling, bumbling really kicked in. First off, the weather was sunny and hot, so I quickly shed my outer layers and threw on my sunglasses (yay me for thinking of those!). While I waited for a taxi, I practiced (in my head) how to tell the driver where I was going. Since it was an apartment and not a hotel, I had to give specific directions that Mabel, my landlady, had emailed me. "Hablas Ingles?" -- I kept thinking over and over in my head. Then, I figured, we'd have a "normal" conversation and I could describe where I was headed. Pretty straight forward. uuuhhh no! In response to my "hablas ingles" (muddled and unclear once I actually *spoke* the words), the driver said "No". Damn. Guess I hand't expected that. hhhmmm…well ok. So then I simply showed him the words on the piece of paper I had written out ahead of time. He sort of shrugged his shoulders and nodded in a way that didn't give me a lot of comfort. But the ride into town was fine and as I stared out at the buildings and landscape around me, I started to feel a high of excitement and couldn't believe I was actually here. 

We pulled up onto a street that started to look familiar…a terra cotta colored building with black, wrought iron window frames, a grove of curvy, cobble-stone alleys, and (there it was!!) the bustling, corner restaurant! These were the landmarks I had seen over the countless times I'd looked at my future neighborhood on Google Earth Maps, back in La Grande, when I had been planning and dreaming of this trip. I started to relax. I felt like I was home.

…For about three minutes. The taxi driver smiled and pointed up the road indicating where I was to go to find the apartment. Mabel had sent me photos of the entrance gate, so with those images in my mind, I grab my bags, paid my fare (again, happy for the Euros) and walked in the direction he pointed. Within moments, the panic kicked in. The gate to my new abode was nowhere to be found, and I couldn't make sense of anything resembling address markers on buildings, signs or posts. For about the next hour I walked up and down the narrow, winding cobble-stone alleys dragging my heavy granny tapestry bag behind me, desperately trying to locate the flat. 'barumpt barumpt barumpt' went the wheels of my luggage over the cobble-stones. So loud, I was certain, that people nearby enjoying their cervezas must have been pointing and snickering. Plus, there were hills. And wide, bumpy steps. To make matters worse, many of the "alleys" were actually roads. Taxis and buses and cars and motorbikes were zooming by in these tiny, narrow ALLEYS. Several times I had to quickly pull myself and my granny tapestry bag up against a building to keep from getting plowed over. And…did I mention it was hot?! shit was it hot! The sweat was quickly pooling down my back under the weight and heat of my neon-green turtle pack. 'barumpt barumpt barumpt'…up and down the hills. Around and around the alley-roads. Circling and circling. Trying to find that damn apartment. And…trying not to cry. Enter pep talk number two. "It's around here somewhere," I told myself. I saw the restaurant from Google Maps. It's got to be here. Don't give up. But shit…these bags are heavy. The streets are bumpy, hilly and narrow. And…it's SO freakin' hot!

Luckily another taxi came by slow enough that I waved him down and showed him my address. He pointed *behind* me and gestured to go up one block then over another. Turned out, the first driver had me going in the exact opposite direction. My flat was actually directly BEHIND the point where he had dropped me off. Geez! Poor Mabel had been waiting for me over an hour. I felt awful, especially considering she's 9 months pregnant and due any day. She was not happy! But she graciously showed me around the apartment, and again, because I had studied it so many times online, inside was all so familiar to me. 

Once she left, I just sort of stood there, looking around, taking it in. Now what?! What do I do? Where do I start? I felt like a deer caught in headlights, frozen by surprise and not sure how to move. I started to unpack. But that would take too long. I tried to open the windows to look outside. But I couldn't figure out the lock mechanism. My hands were trembling. shit. I needed to relax. I needed to cool off and probably get something to eat. So I changed my sweaty clothes, ditched the cowgirl hat, grabbed my keys and left. Since I didn't want to get lost again, I carefully took note of my surroundings. I read the marker on the hallway and counted the three flights of stairs as I made my way down. I also decided to stick to one main road as I wandered about. 

Now with a fresh perspective, sans luggage and sweaty traveling clothes, I could see how FANTASTIC my neighborhood was! Just along this one main road, there were several little, quaint cafes, bakeries, wine & cheese shops, stores selling this and that, an open-air gelato place (mental note…go there SOON!), and lots of people strolling, shopping, eating, and speaking Spanish. There was the buzzing of motorbikes, the occasional honk of a passing car, and all those other sounds that seem exaggerated when you're in a new place. My senses were on fire as my eyes and ears and nose darted around in a million different directions. 

It was now about 4:30 pm local time. I hadn't eaten since my early morning "breakfast" on my flight into Madrid, so I was hungry. Normally, I would have found a cool cafe and settled in with a beer and a salad and sat back to take it all in. But here, alone, with no real Spanish skills heightened by my hunger and nervousness, I kept wandering, undecided if I should try a sit-down place and stumble through it or take the chicken way out and grab a taste-less to-go item from a convenience store. hhhmmm…Every menu in the cafes were in Spanish and nothing seemed to translate, so out of fear of ordering goat brains or some such thing for my first Spanish meal, I decided on a walk-up cafe that had photos of the menu items. I could simply mumble "por favor" and point at the dish. After doing so, the (very cute) guy smiled and asked, "chicken or beef?" Really?! YOU speak English, but not my cab driver?! wow! So I get my sandwich and pay the guy, and I think from my nervousness during the Euro bills/coins transaction, I musta tipped about 40%. 

At that point I decided there was no way I was going to be cool and collected through all this. Time to make peace with my bumbling self. So I headed straight to the gelato stand, ordered up a pistachio cup of yummy goodness, sat down with a great view of the street life, and decided what to do next. The brilliance here was that I could do ANYTHING! I could do whatever I wanted in whatever way I wanted to. THIS was why I was traveling alone. THIS was what this trip was going to be about for me. And all these little bumps along the way, I knew, would be the delicious stuff of great stories and adventures.

With a full tummy, I walked back the way I came and took advantage of the landmarks I had noted before. With a bit more confidence, I bought a cheap bottle of white 'semidulce' wine, wandered into the cheese shop and left with several slices of Havarti and salami, then picked up half a baguette from a nearby bakery. After that, some ice tea, then back to the apartment. Now, a nice long nap and I'm ready to unpack and settle in. I can't help but think about all the things I *should* do…like find the nearest wi-fi hot spot so I can check my Facebook and email to tell everybody I made it, and make a plan and buy tickets for all the places I want to see, and go to the grocery store to get coffee and other supplies. But the honest-to-goodness reality is…those things can wait. I'll get to them in good time. My main goal, truly, is to take everything one step at a time, not panic, and give myself a chance to settle in. Stay grounded. That's really what I need to do. And all that other stuff will fall into place.

Despite the fumbling and bumbling that's happened so far (and I'm quite sure there will be much more where that came from), this town and this apartment are already capturing my heart. This is a dream. A dream of a lifetime. And I intend to savor every wonderful, beautiful, sensual, awkward second of it. I might not have the comforts of home. My internal clock might take a few days to right itself. The language might never flow smoothly from my lips. But it's all good stuff. Really, REALLY good stuff. And there's no place on earth right now I'd rather be!