Bienvenidos a la tierra prometa (welcome to the promised land)

So I´m writing this from Spain--yay! I´m sitting in Hostal Valencia just off of Gran Via in Madrid, next to the Puerta del Sol and the Plaza Mayor. Getting here was an entirely different story, however.

I took off on Tuesday around 4pm from the Indianapolis airport, had a slight layover in Newark so that I could charge my computer, and then had a six hour flight from Newark, NJ to Madrid, Spain. The flight was very enjoyable because I was able to write in my novel, Resonance and chat with two very wonderful women, one who is a professor and high school teacher of Spanish and the other who is going back to Spain from an exchange program in Connecticut. Karen, the school teacher, told me that she was returning to Spain for probably the 31st time to visit her children because they live Madrid and lead lives here even though they were born in America. (though they are half-Spanish). Anyway, I got off the flight and went through customs fairly quickly, only to realize that my equipaje, my luggage was a little heavier than I thought it was going to be. Not to worry, though, because I was going to get to the Metro, get on it, show up at Hostal Valencia, shower and nap, and do some sight seeing around Madrid. Well, as luck would have it, rather God since luck isn´t real, the pinche Metro was down for the day for whatever reason. So I asked the information desk how I could get down to the Puerta del Sol which is just near Gran Via. She told me to take a bus there. So I walk out of the aiport and look for a bus, realizing that I don´t have any €€€ (euros). So I have to go back into the airport with my heavy luggage and find an ATM. Finally find one and take out aronud 70€ so that I don´t have to worry about ATM fees for a little bit. Back out, I´m entirely confused because none of the buses say that they´re going anywhere near where I want to go...so two buses later, I´m finally on C/ Americana in Madrid. Note, I´ve never been there before and thought that maybe the metro would be running there...it wasn´t. So I ask for directions from an information desk and she tells me to take Bus 1 to where I want to go---I found no such thing. So I´m trying to navigate where I am to Gran Via, which is quite a distance...at least 1.5 miles and that´s in Madrid which is equivalent to walking that far in New York City. Imagine walking around with 70 or 80 pounds of baggage on a hot day that far in New York. It sucked. Thankfully I had a nice young woman with straight dark hair, big sunglasses, and pouty red lips tell me that Metro was down while I was glancing at the Metro Map. I informed her that I knew but I was checking to see how to get to Gran Via from where we were. She didn´t know what bus to take since none of the local ones from the road we were on went there. So she pointed me in the right direction and I started walking...and walking...and walking.

Now I´d like to say that I´m very thankful that I speak Spanish otherwise I´d probably be dead on the side of some road in Madrid from heat exhaustion and getting lost. Using my country boy skills and Spanish I was able to navigate through the narrow calles in Madrid to get to my destination, nearly 2 hours later. What struck me as the funniest thing today, besides the hairstyles over here (you thought mohawks were bad--Spaniards actually think mullets are cool) was that I met pouty red lips not very far from Gran Via, silly decked out in her huge sunglasses, straight black hair, and red skirt. She said, ¨Hey you made it!¨I nodded and asked which way Gran Via was, she then told me that it was to my left and said ¨Alli¨ which means over there, but not too far. So, with blisters on my hands, my shoulders sagging under the weight of two bags, and ready to pass out, I finally came upon Gran Via and felt as if I´d reached the Promised Land. My hostel was there, waiting for me, a twin bed, private shower, sink, toilet, and a small HD TV.

Immediately I took my clothes off and realized that even my jeans were soaked from sweat. I showered and crashed on my bed listening to Spanish news for about 3 or 4 hours. Now it´s just past 10 here and though early for most Spaniards, I´m about ready to crash. Today was probably one of the most trying days I´ve faced in a long time and with a little bit of patience and a lot of walking I made it to where I was going.

And to think---this is just the first day.