this is definitely not home

monday morning, up for orientation. woke up throughout the middle of the night. my body is confused. in the kitchen, carmen has breakfast set out for us: a bag of oats and dried fruit mix and mini muffins. to drink: tea or instant coffee. instant coffee. ....instant...... coffee.... if you do not know, i'm a coffee addict. i drink it black. i drink it often. i drink it in large amounts. my roommates and i at home make 2-3 pots a day on average. i look at the mugs. they probably hold as much as a table spoon. i thought people drank coffee here? as i reluctantly put my "mini- mug" of water in the microwave and wait to mix in the instant mix, i shove down a mini muffin. later, i learn there's a starbucks a block away. and every block after that. i am rejuvenated.

carmen is not awake and does not wake before my roommates and i leave. we head out an hour before orientation starts. i snap pictures of the snow on the way to the bus stop, and then slip and fall right on my ass. cool. at the bus stop we try to remember what carmen told us about the routes, but really have no clue what the hell she was talking about. we pay a euro and get on circular 1 (which was actually right), but little did we know we got off about 5 stops too early. ....where are we? we wonder in moncloa (area north of home) for a little while and then diana attempts to ask a passerby, who next asks a taxi driver, and points us to the right. we walk down that street for quarter of a mile. ...where are we? we walk the way we think is right. ...is this right? diana tries to ask two boys walking by where avenida de valle is [the street our school is on]. they don't know. we look around at each other. what the hell do we do? we don't have phones, we don't have wireless at the house to search it, no one knows where this place is, we don't speak spanish well enough to get help, we don't know where we are.... we walk up to the next street. it's avenida de valle. ....we knew that. and only 10 minutes late. fashionably.

the four of us all have different orientation groups, so we split. i know a few girls i met on the flight, including renata, are supposed to be in my group but i don't see any of them yet. a cute guy let's me go in line before him and i introduce myself. he says his name, then silence. welp... i guess that's that. i head to the front of the class and sit down and talk to some girls sitting there. our group leader starts passing out our student ids, insurance cards, student guide, etc.

my ears catch my name from the back. a small voice says, "nicki? ...where's nicki?" and then i hear, "NICKIIII????" i look back and see renata sitting in the back row neck stretched, eagerly searching for me. i call back to her and she smiles and waves excitedly. hahaa what a nut.. i like this girl. a school counselor talks to us about culture shock and then the group gets up to rotate to the next room. i reunite with renata and the girls from the flight. we ask how each other's senoras are, how our roommates are, what we had for dinner, talked about how our beds are like sleeping on cardboard with a napkin for a blanket...

the next room we watch a warning video about pickpocket-ers and partying, which was made by students so was actually pretty entertaining. ariadne, the dean of students, tells us about the emergency phone the faculty has on at all times and takes turn taking home at night. she explains what is and is not considered an emergency, explaining that a student has called her at 3 am asking how to say "ranch dressing" in spanish. hahaha.... how do you say ranch dressing in spanish? sounds kind of important... although the dean of students, she seemed to find a lot of humor out of the incident.

our group moves on to student life, campus ministry, sports coordinator, student government, the neighborhood tour.... blahblahblah. on the neighborhood tour, our tour guide lead (an attending student), shows us the essentials-- metro, post office, supermarket, etc. we pass the golden cock (..interesting name..), "this is where people go to drink in between classes." the next day i saw students going in there at 11 am. someone asks where the cheapest school supplies are, "go to a chino. they're just little hole in the wall stores just jam packed full of shit. they're not actually called chinos, but we call them that because that's who usually run them. really cheap." it's true. they have everything from silverware to towels to 1 euro bottles of wine to slippers. i haven't seen one bigger than the size of my room. and he's right. it's all asians at the checkout counter.

we went back to campus, bought phones, and signed up for day trips. segovia saturday, toledo sunday. my roommates and i talked to the IT support and got our wireless running. after a long day, we started back home. and this time, we knew the way.

now relaxed, we started to actually look at what was around us. the shops, restaurants, businesses. there are a lot of musician street performers. i snapped a photo of my favorite. i'm sure their all thinking, stupid american, taking pictures of all this dumb crap. i finally know what it feels like to be one the other side, to not know the language well, to be in a different country, to realize they don't understand me when i speak, to take pictures of dumb crap-- just like the asians on our campus in stl. do i now feel sympathy for them? ...no. this isn't my home, i'm not trying to fit in here. i'm trying to experience it while it lasts.

for dinner, carmen makes some weird thing that's kind of like a toasted ravioli but not, this bland pasta, salad, and banana yogurt for dessert. i've liked everything she's made us so far, which must mean i'm already maturing. but. you knew that was coming right? but. a lot of the food is drenched in oil. the vegetables, the salad, the pasta. i try not to look at it when i eat. after dinner i give carmen my school schedule and my new phone number. she, in turn, gives me hers. alphabetically, her number fits right underneath caitlin, a girl i met at school. i say a prayer i don't ever accidentally confuse the two and drunk dial carmen one night.

that night, diana and i decide to go to golden cock after dinner. renata and a lot of the people we've been friending are going up there around 10:30. we don't know if we are supposed to tell carmen or not. it wasn't in the rules. but is it rude not to? we did choose independent over family environment on the application. carmen is in the kitchen when we leave so we peek in and say adios. carmen smiles and says something. ...all her smiles are starting to look really ...forced? we take the metro for the first time (we've been hiking the mile and 1/2 to school the past 2 days) and find it's pretty easy. except we don't know where we are when we get off the metro. we know we are in the right neighborhood. but it takes us about a half hour and a few circles around the block to find the golden cock. being lost is exhausting. especially because you walk all over creation trying to figure out where you are. i think i've been lost at least once a day since i've been here. but despite the extra leg work, every where i get lost becomes something i'm now familiar with. every time i get lost my mental map grows by like 28%.

godlen cock is good. i heard beer sucked here but i order a SanMiguel and really like it. it's a light beer, but has more flavor than budlight. maybe a sweeter taste? idk, but yummy. i try sangria. tastes like jungle juice to me. every time we order a round or a pitcher, the owner brings out a free plate of appetizers to us. when me and diana got there, they had already gone through homemade potato chips, pork/bacon...chunks? (crispy, kind of crumble in your mouth, sam would love them), and little slices of baguette with tomato spread on them. as we socialize, a spaniard creeper moves slowly our way. his name is miguel (he says). he talks with us a little, then tries to tell the girls he can do magic tricks. "what kind?" "with cards." we tell him to show us but he has no cards. renata calls for the owner, "antonio!!!!" but they don't have any. he looks at one of the girls sitting with us and asks, "are you bored?" she says no. but he keeps asking her why she's bored. then he keeps asking the group what we are doing. we tell him that this is what we are doing. drinking. at a bar. with friends. finally he leaves. the next day, one of the guys swears he see "miguel"'s picture on an orientation slide. i look up at it. ...no.

the next day after orientation, carmen knocks on my door. through broken english, she tells me that i was too loud last night coming home. "lo siento," i say. ...how? i took my shoes of before i walked in so i wouldn't make noise... i used the bathroom, then went to bed.... i don't get it. apparently she tells the same thing to diana, and also brittany-- who didn't go out , but used the bathroom in the middle of the night. ....uh oh. things are not looking up in the senora department.



...this post is boring. more later.