I Should Have Known

What should have been a 30 minute appointment ended up taking me the whole morning. 2 1/2 hours to be exact. I should have known.

I´ve lived in Spain long enough to realize that things here, especially when it comes to bureacracy, take forever. Yet today, for whatever reason, I was very much in an ¨American¨ frame of mind. I left promptly from my apartment at 7.30 to arrive exactly on time at the U.S. Embassy of Madrid for my 8 o´clock appointment. What was supposed to be a half an hour visit for adding additional pages to my passport took the U.S. Embassy until 10.30.

I ended up missing two of my morning classes and feeling angry at myself that 1) I had traveled so much and needed more pages to get me through these next few months of travels while I´m still living here, and 2) for thinking that I would be done with my appointment by 8.30, getting to work on time. Obviously I was expecting that the U.S. Embassy would have American employees that would actually be ... punctual. A word I haven´t said in months, a word that has, for the moment at least, left my own vocabulary.

But, al final, all worked out. I have my passport with extra pages, school understood, and no pasa nada.

Brilliant

I should really think a name for him. Or better yet, simply ask, ¿cómo te llamas? He might be one of my favorite persons in this city, that keeps feeling smaller and smaller each day. Yet I don´t even know his name. But he makes me smile and brightens up these never-ending rainy mornings.

And for all of you back home thinking, but you have a boyfriend, no os preocupeis. Don´t worry. I am in love with his music, as my favorite nameless stranger is a violinist. A brilliant one at that, always playing Mozart, Vivaldi, and Handel. So talented. He stands and plays for thousands of people busily passing by him on their commutes to work, right before the Cercanias (notice my favorite word again) entrance at Nuevos Ministerios. It´s like that story about the famous violinist, Joshua Bell, discovered on the streets of New York and who now is a world renowned musician.

I should really find out his name.

My Best Discovery Yet

For the first two months of my commute to work from the city centre of Madrid, I took the metro, the subway system that, in my opinion, the Spanish have done so right in comparison with other subways in Europe's biggest cities. Despite the metro's convenience, it would take me an hour and a half to get to work morning. And logically, I'd make the same 90-minute trek on my way home at night. I'm not sure what made more exhausted - my students or the commute.

It wasn't until I started my private English lessons after school that I discovered Madrid's best-kept secret. The train. Cercanías has become my favorite word in Spanish.

My commute is now cut in half. I can sleep in, have that extra cup of café con leche in the morning, and it's always guaranteed that I can find a place to sit and read on the train, something that was unheard of when taking the metro. I can enjoy sunlight, the views of the mountains as the train heads northward and, if I'm tired enough, even take a little siesta, knowing exactly what time I will arrive at my destination.

Perhaps it's my best discovery yet ...

The Ultimate Identity Crisis

My freshman year of college, I decided to be called Kate. After 18 years of being known as Katie, Kate seemed to be more appropriate, more grown-up, a way of separating myself from my family and friends from childhood. An act of independence, my first step in achieving it. And 5 years later, I have no regrets about this decision. I enjoy how these two names distinguish my family and my college (now young professional) friends. Even my parents and best friend since the sixth grade have gotten in the habit of calling me Kate, after years of being Katie to them. Everyone in my life was fine with the name change, accepted it in a no pasa nada sort of way (though I still have a close friend from middle school who makes it a point to purposefully call me Katie when the rest of her world, especially at UW-Madison, began calling me Kate).

Yet when I arrived in Spain, I had the ultimate identity crisis. Kate was too difficult for my students to pronounce and for the first two days of work, I was known as Kay ... a name I'm not fond of, though I completely adore my Great Aunt Kay. So I made the decision to revert to being 10 years old once again and had students and teachers alike begin to call me Katie. Yet, given that everyone I work with is a native Spanish speaker, my name was always pronounced Kah-tee.

So here I am, known as Profe Kah-tee all throughout Northern Madrid. It has been five months since this name change, but I still cannot accept whether or not I am okay with being called this. This new name presents new challenges here, as I never know how I should introduce myself to people I meet for the first time. I'm now known to many different people as three, sometimes four if you count my birth certificate approved 'Kathryn', names.

To complicate things even further, there is one Spanish teacher at school who speaks English beautifully. She always calls me Katie, pronouncing my name just as my Mom does. My second graders, the best behaved group and the class most eager to learn, are constantly confused, hearing this teacher call me Katie, and not Kah-tee, like the rest of their teachers and peers. Poor things ... I never meant to present them with such confusion. These 8 year-olds are simply trying to keep track of LIFE in two languages. Between memorizing the water cycle in English and remembering which animals have stripes (Profe, what are stripes again? How do you say 'stripes' in Spanish?) versus which ones have spots, they are now even more perplexed as to how to pronounce my name. Who really is our teacher? And how in the world do you say her name? Joder. I'm ready for recreo.

Nameless Encounters are the Best Kind

Traveling during the holidays. The logic behind it is simple – you want to spend this time with your family, your significant other or your friends. Or perhaps you´re heading home for a few weeks for some much needed comfort and relaxation. Better yet, you´re going on a trip, hopefully somewhere warm, while the kids are on break from school. The reality is, however, that traveling during the holidays was, for me, and so many others, just like Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

It was my first time travelling during this time and it was a good taste of what is to come if I continue to pursue a life abroad or in another part of the US. The flight itinerary seemed simple, Madrid to London, London to Chicago, and then, home. A four letter word that seems to have more significance during this time of year. At least it does for me, especially this year, as I am so far away from it. Little did I know, I was bound to be even farther from home during this past holiday season, given the locura of my holiday travel realities.

64 hours later, one sleepless night at the airport, 3 cancelled flights, $500 less in my checking account due to U.S. domestic flight costs, and an updated flight itinerary (Madrid to London, London to Miami, Miami to Chicago, Chicago to Milwaukee). Let´s just say that Heathrow Airport was my home away from home 24 hours before Christmas Eve.

Despite the bad luck, frustration, and anxiety of holiday travel, I can´t help but think about the great conversations I had at the strangest hours with other fellow travellers who, believe it or not, often had worse luck. Making ourselves comfortable on the hard leather couches of Heathrow´s Café Nero where we spent the night, I met a college student from Wake Forest. He was studying abroad in London last semester, went to Egypt after his studies, lost his passport in Cairo, missed his flight back to London, and was trying to make it home to Ohio before the 25^th. Then there was the older South African gent, about 60 or so, who was currently living in Nassau on a boat. No job, no plans. "I've travelled to 70 countries ... Thailand is my favorite." He knew the cleaning schedule of Café Nero like the back of his hand, and even had his own couch staked out, as he had been at the airport for three days, without enough money to get back to the Bahamas.

Not only the great conversations, but the people you see during travel make the journey interesting. My grandmother once told me, as we were sitting in a Florida airport, returning to cold Wisconsin after a beautiful Caribbean cruise, that she loved to people watch in airports. ¨You see so many different kinds of people.¨ I remember seeing the mob of young college girls from different parts of the Midwest heading to Sevilla for their semester abroad. Or the old German man with a heather green cap helping his wife with her oversized luggage.

Words are never spoken, names are never asked, and everyone goes on their way, hoping to make it home, wherever that may be.

Round II

So here I am, back in Madrid, after three wonderful weeks of comfort, security, relaxation, my family, boyfriend, and best friends back in Milwaukee. How hard this transition has been … completely removing myself from those few weeks of home and suddenly forced to accept and participate in this other life, this new life, I have created for myself these past few months.

Slowly but surely, paso a paso, I am getting used to the daily work schedule once again, though I can never seem to master the Tetris-like configurations of madrileños on the Madrid metro on my hour and a half commute each morning. But I must admit, it´s lovely being back at school with my students. I am now, once again, known as Profe Kah-tee.

¨Where does cotton come from?¨

¨Can you hear the difference in the /i/ sound between ¨sing, wing¨ versus ¨night, fly¨?

I am kept busy with my second graders and their preparation for the Trinity English exam in a few months. There is a true need for native English speakers in the public schools of Madrid, and I am happy to be a part of it.

Yet when the days are rainy and the wind from the sierras makes everything seem colder and everyone more irritable, I find myself dreaming about the trips ahead and the trips past.

How I´d love to go back to London with friends, Euan and Yadira … to fall in love with Big Ben all over again, and drink a pint or two. Or repeat December´s Barcelona trip, to view all of Gaudí´s fascinating works once more, to listen with such fascination to Catalán on the metro, and to stay out until morning, walking and drinking cañas along Las Ramblas. And Granada … to return to La Alhambra and feel its majesty and mystery all over again … to hear that wailing of the late night Flamenco, to smell the freshness of the rich citrus from the orange and lemon tress, and to feel that harmony and eternity of the mix between the Spanish and Arab cultures.

Yet then I think to all my travels ahead and that intense curiosity that continually consumes me and make me anxious to head to Barajas airport and hop on the first plane to somewhere. Dublin and Belfast, to the country of my family, la patria, to learn more about the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, the conflict that has, in many ways, shaped what I believe in, and where I come from. To Italy, for its art, romance, rich food and lively, beautiful people. To Berlin, for the history, for the past conflicts of WWII and the Cold War. To Morocco, Sevilla, Portugal, France, Scotland, Egypt. For? For the experience.

Grampa (spelled as we pronounce it) gave me a charm necklace this past Christmas that reads, ¨Not all who wander are lost.¨ Although I must leave those shores of comfort and family de vez en cuando to fill that seemingly unquenchable desire to know the world in which I live, I am not lost. A wanderer I may be, but I know, from all of my travels, even at the age of 22, that no matter where you go, there you are. And of course, all roads always lead to Rome – or better yet, home.

Stay Tuned

Updates on the following after the holidays:

- New apartment downtown, no more naughty four year old boys!
- Travel adventures and pictures
- Tremendous loss of a dear friend ... Sweet Little Maddy Leigh

http://Madison-Wright.virtual-memorials.com
http://www.legacy.com/jsonline/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=120828779