They're all pretty little snidpits that I hope can show just how fun exchange can be.
1) My first day of school.
My first day of school, unlike that of many of my fellow exchangers, went absolutely perfect. First off, I woke up at about ten in the morning to go, and I would only be there for a few hours. I had no idea how long it would be, what we would be doing, or where it exactly was, but nonetheless I set off in a carefully picked outfit by myself on the warm sunny streets of Madrid. I found my school (after a little bit of asking police officers) and entered the gates of the small, ugly concrete building amongst the rest of my excited and yet to be known classmates. I kept my gaze ahead and pretended not to notice that people were staring at me. I pushed my way to a board that everyone was fighting to see, found my name, and read the names of my new classmates. At this point I was feeling quite overwhelmed, but still very proud of how adventerous I was being. A girl noticed me checking and rechecking my name, and told me she was in the same class. I stood awkwardly with her friends for a little bit until a bell rang and we somehow knew to go upstairs to our class. I sat down and looked at my feet as twenty five fresh young faces flooded the room and old friends were greeted and embraced. I felt like an intruder. What was I doing here? I wasn't Spanish... These people don't have a need for me... Why didn't I just get up a go?
Suddenly a different girl popped in to my field of vision. "Hola." She said. "I'm blablabla. Who are you?" I understood nothing. I smiled. I said hola. I choked out that I was American and that I didn't speak very much Spanish. I was just so grateful to this girl who had seen the strange blonde foreigner sitting alone about to cry and thought it would be nice to say hello. Her eyes lit up when I said the word 'Americana.' She called to her friends, my friends, and they all swooped in on me and jumped up and down in celebration at how they had an American girl in their class. I didn't understand the Spanish, but I did comprehend the simple act of the girl's human kindness that very well could have resulted in the wonderful relationship that I now have with my Spanish friends. It's still a beautiful sunny day in my memory.
2) Getting my Monthly Metro Card
Being as I am in the city, I rely greatly on public transportation with a large level of frequency. My first month here I decided that it would be my best option to give up my one-a-go paper tickets and upgrade to the local Abono, a red plastic electric card that allows unlimited access to the metro, train, and bus. Oh yeah, AFS also paid for it, so why the hell not?
I gathered enough information from my new Spanish friends to form a general idea of what I had to do. However, the most difficult thing I could say in Spanish was "I would like to buy my Metro card" and I still had no idea how the process worked. (Sorry, Spanish friends. You tried to help. You really did.)
This was one of those adventorous times where I packed up my purse and set off into the wild world by myself to get stuff done and be proactive and all of that. I went to my local Metro station. Nope. can't go there. Gotta be in a different metro station that happens to not be this one that you are in right now. (That only took five minutes to understand.) I carefully planned out my route on the metro to get to a central office inside of a different station. Not that one either. First lady had given me bad info. I went to what was finally the right office and waited my turn calmly and collectedly in a line full of adults buying Abonos for their kids. It was my turn. Nope. Sorry. Gotta go online first, and then return here. I went home. The website (that was also in English?) had no information about Abonos. Went back again for my third consecutive day. Passport, photocopy, three pictures? No? Well, why are you here?
I must mention (so that you will later appreciate the bigger moral of the story) that my host family did not help me at all with any of this. Every time that I tried to ask for help, or to express that I didn't understand very well, they would make a big fuss about having to take the time to assist me. It wasn't exactly the kind of environment in which I wanted to express my vulnerability and ask for someone to do something for me. I realized that, like many things in life, it would turn out to be something that would or would not be accomplished solely depending on wether or not I was strong enough to do it by myself. I sat down, put on my big-girl pants, and got to work.
To sum things up it went a long a tiring process that included lots of waiting in lines, lots of time spent on the metro (which was not helped by the major worker strikes), and many many visits to do the same thing over again. When, one day, after three weeks of constantly going to Avenida de America after school finally resulted in a plastic red card with my picture and name on it, I was the most ridiculously kind of happy that I had been in a long time. I smiled at the people on the metro (the metro that I had paid for with the slap of my purse against an electric pallet) and took a bunch of screaming pictures of myself to commemorate this happy moment of the success of an underdog. I did it sín ayuda. Just me. My own wits. My own perseverance. I can't remember ever being so sillily proud of my doings. I learned a lot of valuable life lessons in this moment, and I would like to mention that (with the significant help of my new host papá) I have repeated the process to change the type of my Abono to match the living arrangements that I have now. And I only had to return three times ;)
3)Gambia the Giraffe
Confessions time! I did the change of host families a bit specially. My liason, who is sort of an aunt/guardian figure in my life, was
instrumental in finding me a new host family when the old family
The next day I went to Spanish Thanksgiving with my AFS friends. We were in Sol, buying two falling stars for one Euro, when I got the call from my liason. They wanted to meet me. They were pretty serious about hosting me. I started crying. Right there. With all of the tourists and with all of the world. I told my AFS friends that I didn't want to leave the city. That I was scared. That things shouldn't be like this. That I should be happy, gosh darnit! They all group hugged me and told me to be strong. I could almost feel the empathy in the air. I laughed and let them cheer me up. I got home, called my liason, and she told me how it would happen.
She picked me up in the morning. We went for a walk in the charming neighborhood of Moncloa and addressed some of my fears. My future host dad's car pulled up. I introduced myself. My liason left me in good hands. On the car ride to their house I maintained a fairly correct level of Spanish that I think impressed everyone. We had lunch. I met the family. The dog, who is usually scared witless of people, buddied up to me. The food was good. The house was pretty. These people were so nice to me. It was a kindness that I had forgotten. I watched soccer with my host brother, and could imagine easily doing this a thousand times more. My host sister took me to Las Rozas Village, a designer shopping mall, and expressed genuine interest in my life. When it was time to go, I was presented with a stuffed giraffe that happened to be in the house from my host dad's work. I named it 'Cambia,' Spanish for 'change,' because that was what it represented, but called it 'Gambia,' because that's how it was pronounced with a strong American accent. In the end they asked me if I wanted to move in with them. I gave an enthusiastic 'yes.' They made sure that the distance from the city didn't bother me. I said that I valued a good host family over location. They expressed how lovely they thought I was, and how excited they were to have me. I couldn't help but say the same. Gambia the giraffe tied me over until I changed two weeks later, and she and all she represents is still here smiling at me from my desktop as I write this right now.
4) The Package
The package from my family in America. It was sent in September. It arrived the 8th of January. It's history is no doubt an interesting and complicated one, much of it taking place in an odd foreign customs office. It contained: clothes that I had requested for the warm September weather, shoes (including one shoe for the right foot. I had the left foot here with me in Spain), American Candy, American Toiletries, and a surprise gift. It should have taken a week, tops, to arrive. See, what had HAPPENED was that my old host family had given me a wrong address. How did that happen? Well, I asked for their official address, expressing the clear interest to receive a package from my parents, of which I spoke animatedly. They sort of grumbled out a number. I copied it. A month of waiting showed it had not arrived. We asked them to do something to see if our part needed to do anything in customs. Nope. The package (how in the world did it do that?) returned to my parents. At this point they chose a different company and sent again. Still no. As if by magic, it returned again. They added Christmas presents and mailed it to my new address, which was completely right and stressed over. Now my 19 year old sister thought I lived in the city of Madrid, in the state of blank. I line the city of Las Rozas, in the provence of Madrid. If I lived in the city of Madrid, I would also live in the provence of Madrid. (New York, NY.) We were informed that it was in customs, but that the contents were not declared and things were gonna be difficult. My host dad handled everything and the package arrived shortly after Christmas.
Who knew deodorant could be such a wonderful Christmas Gift??? Regular, American deodorant. Not this crazy Spanish stuff. And candy! American candy! My other shoe! Comically useless clothes, and gifts for my host family and friends. The least I can do is give something back, even if Spain isn't too keen on North Carolinian peanut brittle. It was beautiful and well worth the wait.
5) Dananananana
This last one takes place in school, on the sixth floor during computer class. Computer class is usually pretty entertaining. The work isn't too hard, and I enjoy my classmates. One day we were assigned to make PowerPoints. Now, I'm American. I am entitled to basic technology in my school. I am the Queen of PowerPoint. Out of all the cool, interesting things we had done thus far in computer class, the PPs blew the Spaniard's minds. Each gaudy gif. and unprofessional slide change was amazingly technologically advanced. The letters spiraled onto the page, the pictures mooed with the click of a button--what sorcery was this!?!? I laughed in ironic amusement at the weirdest parts of cultural differences.
One of the requirements for the project was to add sound. The two boys next to us decided that they wanted that song that I can only describe as 'dananana na na nana na nana na na' to play as they presented their PP about viruses. But they didn't know the name. Or the artist. Nor the lyrics. It's one of those songs that, if you heard the theme right now, you would instantly recognize and be able to sing along, but only the older members of our lifetime would be able to identify it. The boys began their hunt. Seeing that they were getting nowhere by typing 'dananana na na nana na nana na na' into the search bar, I kindly offered that the song was definitely from the 80's America. My partner, who was doing all of the work, was intrigued and joined us in a mini break. She was positive that she had heard it in the movie Dirty Dancing. It seemed plausable. The boys tried searching 'dananana na na nana na nana na na Dirty Dancing' to no avail. I took control of the keyboard and utilized my internet skills to search 'Dirty Dancing Soundtrack.' We went though each song on youtube, but none were it. I was sure that the song would be in one of those Top 80s Music lists, so we listened to those on Youtube too. This search began to feel Life or Death. We were enthralled with the challenge. We would have found the song by continuing with my current method, but my partner suddenly remember that it wasn't Dirty Dancing that she remembered, but The Karate Kid. We searched the soundtrack to Karate Kid, but it still wasn't there. On a limb, I searched the music from Karate Kid II. When A-ha's Take on Me started coming through our shared headphones, we all four leapt out of our seats in joy. The boys did a victory lap around the classroom. We cheered without caring about who was staring. The teacher didn't dare yell at us right then. I felt so successful, and I felt the communal accomplishment of how working in a group had paid off. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but it was incredibly funny and a high point in my memory. I don't think I'll ever forget how one normal day in computer class in Spain turned into an emotional search for the theme of 'dananana na na nana na nana na na,' and resulted in triumph.
I could include a thousand more memories. I could talk about Sevilla and Cordoba, outings with AFS, fiestas with my Spanish friends, a brief and terrifying encounter with the Spanish KKK, the Chinese Mafia of the late night news, and many, many more things. The truth is, everyday in exchange is memorable. Maybe not for the best reasons, and not always for fun ones, but these experiences are not had sitting in the safety of your home country. And just remember, I've still got five more months of memories to be made.
