Kelli in Madrid: Week Two

Hola! Have no fear, America, I’m still alive as ever.

The past week was rather hectic as I was in a phase of structural unemployment.  I suppose that’s a story best reserved for face-to-face, but all is more than well.  Basically I had been having some doubts about the original internship placement Cultural Vistas had given me, due to being relocated at the last minute to an office in the suburbs and some minor breakdown in communication.  I very well could have smoothed out the issues with that NGO, though at first having to handle such an issue in a foreign language was a daunting task.  However, my host father proactively responded to my iffy job situation by requesting and securing me an internship with the design company on whose board of directors he serves.  And since that was all-around an offer that was hard to pass up, I figured everything out with my supervisors here, in NYC, and back in AA, and all the green lights led me to start the new job there last Thursday.

Eerily enough, I had already read about the site in a news article that Cultural Vistas gave me back when I arrived in Spain, but it’s called Matadero.  Yes, the Spanish word for slaughterhouse.  Ironic, right?  Since I practically grew up in one.*  Their livestock-murdering days are in the past, though, and now what the Municipality of Madrid had originally elected to tear down has been renovated into a sort of strip mall for cultural and art-related activities.  The particular office where I now work is called la Central de Diseño, and from my perspective their mission is essentially to promote all genres of art and design throughout the city of Madrid by organizing exhibitions and opportunities for designers to network and show off.  Being the hardcore economics major I am, I find it to be decently suited to my interests.  For example, so far I get to sift through piles of interior designers, look at their products (read: sweet pics of hipster inventions), and assemble their contact information for the upcoming Madrid-wide exposition.  Then in September there’s a similar event on a much larger scale for designers from all Spanish-speaking countries and good-old-Portugal.  I’ve also been translating Spanish documents into English, which makes me feel genuinely useful because writing is one of my stronger suits, as opposed to terrifying tasks like answering the phone or the door.
(An intimidatingly large designer awards ceremony was going on in the auditorium next to my office yesterday - really cool to eavesdrop on!)

(Post-thunderstorm view of the workplace)


Besides all that work stuff, I’ve been working from only about 4:00PM to 9:00PM.  Therefore every day I have huge plans to make the most of the morning but usually fail to respond to even my 10:00AM alarms.  I suppose my Circadian rhythms were designed to adapt to the Spanish schedule.  But with the remaining time before work, I’ve been (a) going on runs through the various trails and parks and not-the-sidewalks-because-those-are-for-walking-unlike-America, (b) reading Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal and-understanding-it!, (c) incessantly poring over my Spanish grammar book, and (d) meditating to the ambient tunes of my favorite band Hammock.  So it’s a good life, though I could use more socially-oriented hobbies.

(I can never truly escape American culture.  Spongebob and... Veggie Tales?)


With that goal of being more social in mind, I’ve been taking it upon myself to go out in public solo (ßthat’s Spanish for alone) and make friends every night after work.  Personally I call it social skydiving, as I read of that concept in a blog many years back and ever since try to recognize the potential for friendship that lies in the strangers we daily ignore.  Today is Thursday and somehow I was wholeheartedly convinced it was Wednesday since I woke up.  Not sure which day I missed.  But Day Three here I am typing in the Starbucks in Gran Via where I have been chatting with the barista the past few hours.  Day Two I went for a stroll along the Madrid Rio right outside of Matadero after work and hung out with a bunch of teenagers in the skate park.  Yes, I skate now.  And I’m still a teenager myself for five more days.  And Day One was spent talking to a pair of siblings, aged four and seven, on the swing set near my apartment.  They may have been the hardest to understand.  They didn’t understand why I didn’t know the name of what I was swinging on.  At least now I know.  Columpios: never forget.  I’ve been meeting some cool people and trying to force myself out of my comfort zone, which is super easy when you almost never feel "comfortable" to begin with.  Not in a bad way.

I also took a hugely notable field trip last weekend with Hannah, Ashley, and Chris to the quaint mountain village of Granada in southern Spain.  Chris and I caught a 6AM bus down there, arrived at noon, walked two hours to our hostel (again, sometimes in a foreign country that opportunity cost of having to talk to people and also pay money outweighs the alternative), and took a nap.  Naps are becoming a semi-daily occurrence here.  Later that evening, while my friends were touring a cathedral, I was up on top of some mountain touring the gypsy/hippie residential caves that the government allows to operate independently of property rights.  Again met some pretty cool people from all over the US and Canada while climbing that mountain.  The next morning included even more uphill expeditions, as the Wolverine crew took on the apparently world-famous former Islamic palace called Alhambra.  Waking up at 6AM for the second consecutive day to get in line for tickets proved to be well worth the struggle.  One of the more gorgeous views of my whole life, as shown below.  Thanks for reading my one-week late update of the second week.

^<-- Gypsy caves!

Peace and blessings,
KP