La Calle de Delicias: One Week In

After opening my last blog entry with some thoughts on anxiety, perhaps I should begin this one with a sense of peace. I find it strange how relaxed I’ve really been during my first week in Madrid, especially while in search of a piso. In my first week here, I’ve seen much of the city while scouting for potential neighborhoods. I’ve cold-called countless online ads and numbers off the street (Hola, buenas. ¿Ví que usted tiene una habitación para alquilar? Ah, ya la ha alquilado. Bueno, gracias.), asked countless Spanish grandmothers and shopkeepers for directions, and chatted with wedding dress designers, physics students, teachers, government officials, policewomen, all in search of the perfect room.

And now here I am en la Calle de las Delicias, the street of delights, because yesterday was piso day, as Janel (my new Fulbright flatmate) and I affirmed as we took off on the metro to see an attic room in Lavapiés. I instantly knew I couldn’t live there, but she was trying to talk herself into it. I suggested wandering Atocha, instead, as I had fallen in love with the neighborhood two days previously when checking out a couple of other rooms. Besides the Museo Reina Sofia, bookstores, music conservatories, theaters, and several supermarkets, Atocha boasts a train station where I can catch a cercanía, which will make my four day a week commute outside of the city a bit easier.

And we found a place! Nuestra casa en la Calle de las Delicias begins to remind me of la casa en la Calle de Aribou from Carmen Laforet’s novel Nada. A bildungsroman of its protagonist, Andrea, Nada relates Andrea’s growing awareness of her place in the world and a certain ambivalence about her vocation as a writer, a profession she decides reduces her to mere spectator.

Nuestra casa en la Calle de las Delicias, new home to a few language students, may serve as the antithesis to Andrea’s resignation from the arts. Our landlord, Fausto, studies theater and works in set design. This piso is going to serve as the backdrop of our year in Madrid. Fausto assures us that this is “una casa que cambia,” a house that changes the people who live in it. I’ll accept that, though I’m fairly sure that this Fulbright experience would have accomplished that no matter where I ended up living in the city. And though I don’t yet know what’s coming next as we settle in and start teaching, I’m feeling ready for it. It’s going to be a great year.

Unpacking my room; note the horse/cheetah painting, Tiffany style lamp and light streaming in from my balcony.

Photo Credit: Janel