Arrival in Spain

            The lights shoot on, awaking me from a deep sleep.

            “Who’s in bed 4?” a woman says.  She points to a bed, one of my roommates says, “that’s me.”

            “Check out time was at 10 AM, it’s now past noon!” says the woman.

            Alright, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit.  I had already been awake for 10 or so minutes when the lights came on.  In any case, I did find the whole scene kind of funny- it was like a scene from some crime movie- “Who’s the culprit?”  At least now I know the hostel takes checkout time seriously!

            I arrived in Madrid yesterday morning around 9 and took a cab to the hostel.  Right when I got in the cab, I heard “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true.”  Yes, the cabbie was listening to “Don’t You Want Me” by Human League.

            After I settled in at the hostel, I took the subway to Plaza Mayor, a big, central plaza in Madrid.  Along the way, I asked a father and his teenage son whether I was headed in the right direction to get to the plaza.

            “Do you speak English?” he asked me.  When I told him I did, he said “oh, so you’re an American who actually likes to travel.”  I looked at him with a confused look, not totally sure what he meant.

            “Yeah, I suppose that’s me”, I answered.

            As it turned out, the father and son were from England and had come to Spain to watch Real Madrid play Manchester City.  Real Madrid is Madrid’s fútbol (or soccer) team.  The team is really well known and, from what I’ve heard, one of the best sport’s franchises around.  A group of people from my hostel, Hostel One Malasaña, went to the game; as I had just arrived in the country that morning and was really jet-lagged, I did not go to the game.  It would have been amazing, oh well…

            In the 24 hours I’ve been at the hostel, I’ve already met 2 Argentines!  One was a “porteño” (from Buenos Aires), the other from Córdoba capital (the city were I studied.)  Having been there myself, it was great comparing notes and hearing what they had to say about Argentina.  While in Argentina, I learned the word for "peach" to be "durazno".  Here, it's "melocotón."  It's interesting how one simple fruit has different words in various Spanish-speaking countries: I learned "strawberry" as "fresa", in Argentina it's "frutilla", "banana" is "plátano", in Argentina it's "banana", etc... 

            I’m staying in a room with 2 bunk beds in the room, so not too many people.  To put it in perspective, I stayed in rooms with 5+ bunk beds while traveling with friends in Argentina.  At this hostel in Madrid, they make dinner as well as churros with chocolate for breakfast.  So far, I’ve met people from all areas of the world at the hostel: one Swede, a couple of British, a few from Australia, one kiwi, a German, etc… at dinner last night, it was real great comparing notes on our respective cultures.  We were mainly talking about the differences between a British accent ad that of the USA.

            The one thing about the hostel that’s a bit of a drag is the luggage storage situation.  I have my computer bag, backpack, and main duffel in the storage; every time I want to get something from one of the bags, I have to come up to the front desk and ask the person to let me in, as he’s the only one with a key.  I always feel a bit bad for disturbing him…

            The TEFL orientation is on Friday and then classes start on Monday.  I’m not sure how often I’ll be blogging- not sure how much free time I’ll have once classes begin but will try to update it at least once a week.