the first adventure / la primera salida

The statue of Cervantes, Don Q, and Sancho in the Plaza de España

I confess that I wasn’t thinking about Mother’s Day when I planned my trip to Spain to do research for my dissertation.  So Mother’s Day celebrating with the main moms in my life consisted of about an hour and a half celebration breakfast at home with Margaret and the boys and a call to my mom from the road.  But I get some good-guy points back because I was thinking about getting back from the trip in time for our 24^th anniversary.  

I got to Houston Intercontinental Sunday morning in time to go through my usual nervous overseas flight travel routine for about an hour:  touch my passport, pull out my boarding pass, look at it.  Check the time.  Touch my passport again.  I’ve traveled to and worked in 35 countries, but overseas travel is like camping: if you haven’t done it in a while you forget little things.  My Orvis jacket has so many flippin’ pockets in it that it’s stressing me out because  I keep losing stuff in it.  Slowly, though, all my old tricks of the trade are coming back to me.  Ear plugs, antihistamine, money-to-stow and money-to-show, keeping your bag against your leg when you have to put it down so you can feel it and don’t have to see it. Don't go to the ATM by yourself at night.  Don't eat yellow snow (OK, that one's not for Spain in May).  

  

There’s a lot riding on this trip - all the scholarship money I was able to get together is going towards funding research of texts, documents and images at four big libraries in and around Madrid.  But I’m resolved to not stress about it; not to worry about getting robbed or losing something important, not to anguish over not finding the one magic book or image that will make my dissertation great.  My friends from Spain and that have been to Spain have told me a few things about being in Madrid:  don’t expect people to be friendly, don’t expect anybody to be in a hurry to help you out, be patient.  My ex-classmate, Miguel Zárate, who is from Madrid and now lives in Madrid, told me the words please and thank you are not spoken in Madrid (Zárate is my friend for life because when we had a class together on Medieval Spanish Literature my very first semester in the Masters program he told me I spoke Spanish “como la puta madre” which means to mean really, really well - the google translate is flat wrong - don't even look it up, this is a family friendly blog). 

I’m trying my best to use “gracias” and “por favor” as much as possible because a little bit of courtesy is just nice, you know?  In fact, I’m going to grade myself on patience and kindness every day, because sometimes I need it when I’m trying to work my way through unfamiliar systems and institutions overseas. . . . 


OK, I need more patience and kindness all the time.  

Speaking of good manners, it’s recently occurred to me to think about how we’ve come to say “thank you” in the U.S. in the last few years.   Have you noticed how inflated “thanks” has become?  The standard is now “Thank you so much.” 

                As in: “Professor, what page is the prompt for the next composition on?”

                “Page 233.”

                “Thank you so much.”  

My “thanks” just seems so inadequate and undersized.  But I’m thinking about getting with the program and unilaterally raising the bar to “Thank you ever so much” or “Bless you my brother/sister.  May your tribe increase.”

So since arriving to the Madrid airport this morning after flying all day and half the night, clearing immigration and customs, getting Euros (the money, not the people) out of an ATM machine (you don't get speedo-clad Germans out of a machine, you get them at Cancún), buying a metro pass, figuring out which metro to take to my hotel and finding my hotel,  I’ve checked in, walked around Madrid a bunch and taken a few pictures (like a numbskull I left the very specific cable that goes with my digital camera at home so pictures will have to be uploaded when I get home - the picture above I pulled off the internet - lame, I know).  My main mission today was to get oriented on where the nearest subway stations are for several lines so I can make it to the train station to go to Ciudad Real tomorrow.  My secondary mission was to stay awake so I can fall asleep tonight and get my sleep schedule on track.  

The only bummer of the whole thing so far is that I'm by myself.  It would be great to have Margaret and the boys here, but the timing and the budget wouldn't handle it.  So this will have to be a reconnaissance for a later trip for all of us.  Jackson, my 15-year old son, who is deathly, hyperventilatingly afraid of wasps and possums wants me to take him to Pamplona to run with the bulls.  So we'll need to plan that.  

And the patience and kindness grades thus far?  Strong A's.