Atención. Estación en curva. Al salir, tengan cuidado a no introducir el pie entre coche y andén…

9 Sept. 2011

            Today marks the last day for orientation in Madrid. I’m sad to see all the other Fulbrighters go. Most Fulbrighters are placed in Madrid and so I won’t see them until the mid-year conference. Many of them have already left to go to other cities, move into their apartments, or move into their hostels which they still look for apartments (which is the case for me!). However, before I make my way to Alicante, I am enjoying the last day my visiting some of the places I commonly visited while living in Madrid.

            Earlier in the day, a few of the Fulbrighters and I went to a cafeteria/café just around the corner from the Colegio. We ate a fairly simple lunch of bocadillos (sandwiches—although here they are served on baguette), but mostly everyone was just happy to not have to eat the food at the Colegio. When our group broke up, I decided to head to el Parque de buen retiro in the center of Madrid. 

I know that it sounds silly, but I did take a slightly longer route to Retiro because I wanted to be able to follow the route I used to take two years ago when I went to the Instituto where our classes were held. I started in Arguelles and changed lines at Sol so that I could get off the metro at Banco de Espana. It was amazing how I fell right back into the rhythm of everything. However, what I did notice were the changes to the city. 

Anyone who has been to the city in the few years could tell you how spooky the tunnel at Banco de Espana was. It was the dirtiest and creepiest metro stop. Now, they've painted it white and blue and put up some sort of fake stone wall art. It looks so much nicer, but already has some graffiti about an ingreso in September. 

Then, I walked by the Instituto and the Ritz (where we would see protests several times a month). Once at the park, I tried to just relax and enjoy the moment. The last few years have been really stressful as I worked to complete my degree in Spanish as well as write my thesis. It's really hard to stop and know how to enjoy life. This is something that Spaniards do much better than Americans. 

In the United States, people live to work. We spend hour in the office--some people eating while sitting at their desks or standing up during a ten minute break. We work this way so that when we retire we can enjoy our "free time." However, by that time we don't really know how to relax or we are too infirm to do so. The Spanish have the opposite attitude--they work to live. So much about Spanish culture is about the idea of enjoyment or disfrutar (literally: to take the fruit; meaning: to take enjoyment in something). Take for example the long lunches or siestas (naps). My school has a 3 hour lunch break (!) during the day in which students can go home, eat lunch, maybe take a nap.

So since graduating from college, I've had to ask myself, how do you truly relax? When I have free time, I often don't know what to do or if I do something I feel guilty because I'm not doing something "productive." Even in sitting here writing, I'm worrying about finding an apartment and figuring out what I need to do when I reach Alicante. Hopefully, I'll get better at relaxing...