The End of an Era

Exactly a month ago, I was in the same position.  The packing position.  The messy position.  This position:

There are more questions swirling through my head than there are items of clothing heaped on the floor.  Where’s my toothbrush?  How many pairs of socks do I need?  Should I really bring my laptop?  (Correct answers: in the ziplock bag with the Neosporin, as many as I can stuff in, and heck yes!)  Even when I come to conclusions like these, I still feel a bit like this:

But at least now, after a month of Spanish literature classes and real-life Spanish use, I know how to express how I feel.  Estoy agotada– I’m exhausted!  My twin sister, Mandi, is flying into Paris on Saturday and arriving in Madrid on Sunday.  While she adjusts to the time difference, which took me practically two weeks, I plan to relax.  In the month that I haven’t been posting, I’ve taken eight classes and visited three other cities– Segovia, Salamanca, and Toledo.  Here are the highlights:

 

El Alcazar of Segovia is a Fortress-Palace from the Catholic-Muslim wars of the Middle Ages.  As you can tell, it was getting pretty gloomy!  The trip to Segovia, during my first week in Spain, was the only time I’ve ever been rained on in Europe.  Not a drop since.

This cathedral in Salamanca was absolutely gorgeous.

In Toledo, the workers didn’t care that there was a tour group of 100 people standing at the bottom of this staircase.

 

Toledo is famous for its gold jewelry, its marzipan, and its amazing, enormous cathedral.  An unguarded little doorway led us off the street and into this little corner of the cathedral, for free!  As you can guess, we didn’t get terribly far, but the view was worth every penny we paid.

The Royal Palace near Segovia was ornate and gorgeous, surrounded by lovely garderns.  But the tour through it was a long, drawn-out snooze!  “This chandalier is a baroque French style.  The small etchings in the crystal indicate that … .”

These apartments in Segovia were too beautiful not to photograph.

Now I’m off to Portugal, then across the south of Spain, back through Madrid to Barcelona, and then who knows?  As I said, I’ll have my laptop with me … provided I can stuff it back into my suitcase!

P.S.  I did eventually stop crying.  And then I started again.  The waterworks still come on every few days, without much prompting.  A fellow classmate commented that it was so sweet that I was so homesick and missed my family so much.  I do love my family, but the fact is I’m just a crier.

 

… And when I woke up, I was on a different continent!

One of the inherent difficulties of a travel blog is that the writer is dealing with a new experience — new food, new people, and new internet connection issues.  I think I have mine sorted out, now, so the updates should be more consistent from now on.  I’ve been in Madrid for six days, now, but I’ll start from the beginning and work my way forward in the storytelling.

 

The long silence on this blog could well have indicated that I killed myself out of frustration with the passport system.  That is not the case.  (I have decided, though, that the time I was arrested for trespassing was a more positive interaction with the government than these long months of anguished waiting and unresponsive customer service representatives.

 

As it turns out, I did get my passport – 23 hours before my flight left.  This is the lovely man who brought it to my door.  I could have kissed him!  (… Maybe not.)

 

Can you tell how pleased I am?

So I did indeed board the plane to Chicago, and then board another to London, and then board another to Madrid.  Aside from bouts of crying on the planes and two small run-ins with the airport security, it was an unremarkable voyage.  (First, I forgot to put my hand gel in my 1-quart clear plastic bag.  Then, the security made fun of me for having so many 3 oz. packages in my bag.  But they let me through nonetheless.) 

My luggage even made it with me all the way to Madrid!  After it came down the carousel, I put on my packpack, slung my (very heavy) daypack over my shoulder, and rolled my little suitcase behind me. I then proceeded to take the Madrid metro toward the house of Amy Menchhofer, daughter of my beloved high school English teacher.

Thirty minutes later, when I arrived at her apartment, I was so dehydrated and jetlagged and exhausted that the floor seemed to move under my feet.  Amy and her Spanish husband Nacho offered me beer and wine and soda, but all I could do was gulp down water – about 2 liters of it.

After I napped and showered (both much-needed after almost 20 hours of flying), we went out for tapas with some of Nacho’s relatives around 10:30 p.m..  We shared plates of spicy green peppers, potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce, potatoes in a milder cream sauce, and some other tasty treats.  We also shared two pitchers of sangria, and by the end of the night (about 1 a.m.) I was so tired and “tipsy” that I was falling asleep at the table.

 

They let me sleep on their couch, and as I fell asleep the lump started growing in my throat again.  To quell the tears, I repeated one phrase over and over: “You can’t cry while you’re asleep.  You can’t cry while you’re asleep.”  And then I slept.