Los finales de un mes en Madrid

Bueno compadres, first, a brief revision to last week’s statement: Lest you think that two governments are funding mere frivolity in providing me with money for tapas, sangria, and maybe vespas, well, last week was another week spent outside of the classroom due to complications of scheduling.

Last Sunday, I took off for Toledo with Janel, Leah, and our last minute compañera, Casey, who just happened to be online as we were headed out of the piso. I intended to spend a day outside of the city before getting into the school routine. The day wound its way though twisting cobblestone streets to delicious traditional Spanish food, better company and impressionante views of the Spanish countryside.

On Monday, then, I showed up at school, expecting a brief meeting with my coordinator and the other Fulbrighters before sitting in on some classes, but no, the governing powers of above would not allow us to enter the classrooms until schedules had been revised and approved. Disappointed, we met a few of the teachers with whom we’ll be working, gave our datos personales to the secretaria, and headed back to the city.

What to do, then, with my time?

Tuesday I spent the morning searching for an autoescuela, hoping to find one that offered classes for a Permiso A1, the license one needs to drive a Vespa in Spain. After inquiring at a few, I found one! I enrolled on Thursday, and hope to get my theoretical tests out of the way in October or early November to move on to the actual driving tests.

I’ve also been taking a Spanish class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Why, you ask, after 8 years of formal study, would I feel I need this? I want to brush up on my grammar, since I’ve only had literature and linguistics courses over the past three years, except for a brief grammar review last summer in Cuernavaca. Also, it’s fun to learn new phrases, like, “ser uña y carne,” which translates literally to, “to be fingernail and flesh,” or more generally to, “to be good friends.” Who would’ve guessed?

Perhaps you saw the news on Wednesday of the strikes throughout Europe protesting labor reforms. Madrid went on strike! One of the strikers’ main goals was to shut down transportation throughout the city, so I stayed in most of the day and started to knit a sweater, only going out in the early afternoon for a brief walk through the neighborhood, where almost everything was closed anyhow. We did brave the metro in the evening to join some friends for vino y queso before checking out a language intercambio night at an English language bookstore.

Thursday all of the auxiliares in Madrid met for a 10 hour long jornada de formación. Our day consisted of sessions detailing the organization of the public school system, the new literature and language curriculum, precautionary statements from the Embassy along with offers of their cultural resources, ideas on how to best support teachers in their classes, and, my personal favorite, activities to incorporate poetry into the classroom.

And finally, Friday night Janel, Marta, Hector, Fausto and I had a little housewarming masquerade party for a few friends.

During the first part of the week I was feeling a bit useless and wondering why I’m here if I’m not really accomplishing anything of substance, but as I look back, maybe that’s what I’ve needed as I’ve been settling into Spain. I’m coming to this after four years at Hope, which were an opportunity to explore academic and personal interests I’d never realized I had, but also at times felt like a giant checklist to complete before graduation: take this class, write these papers, read these books...So far in Spain, I’ve woken up everyday asking myself what I’d like to accomplish today. There’s no master list to the “Madrid experience.” Also, coming to Fulbright after working a few entry level jobs in which one’s productivity is measured by the number of referrals she makes or her ability to cajole customers into spending more is liberating.

But tomorrow I start class (for real this time). I have a full week this week, and then next weekend, Leah, a Fulbright researcher, and I are taking off to walk the last 100k of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route through the north of Spain, since we have a long weekend, what with the Fiesta Nacional de España’s being next Tuesday. More updates after that!