Returning to the mothership

As you should know by now, I am back in España after a 2 month hiatus. I arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon after a fairly uneventful flight. The first leg, from LA to London, took only 10 hours and the time passed relatively quickly thanks to the wonder that is on demand entertainment. I can´t remember what people did before this marvelous invention. Probably read or engage in some other, non-mind rotting activity.

The last time I came to Spain it was with a purpose in mind. Goals are not usually things I am very interested in, mainly because they decrease my ability to appreciate life for what it is and not as some small part of some future goal. Anyway - last time we had a goal. Kind of.

This time I have no immediate plans to walk across the country. Instead, I have plans to engage in a similar lifestyle while eliminating the whole exercise bit. Ha. But seriously. Instead of completely changing my life, the plan is to try and live the same life I lead in California (or some other approximation of a "normal life"), except in Spain.

Why? Now that´s an interesting question and one I try not to dwell on. How about "why not"? Why do we choose to do anything? Why did I choose to come to Spain last time? It was mostly on a whim, but it ended up working out for the best. I try not to override fate too often and when I do, I´m unsuccessful more often than not. So when the opportunity presented itself to come back and stay in Madrid for a while, I couldn´t think of any reason not to.

The big problem with this is that I am an illegal immigrant. Or at least I will be if I figure out how to make money. This is still left to be seen. It is kind of important, though. I probably won´t be able to afford to come back to Madrid after the holidays if I can´t. But that is a concern for another time.

Back to the present - I am living a room approximately the size of a shoe box. It is really quite a challenge for 2 people to stand in it at the same time. This apparently is not uncommon here (meaning europe or new york city). For now, it works. and it´s free. At least until the landlord gets tired of my freeloading, which is something of a possibility. On the upside, I do have a rather large window that looks out on a beautiful light well. One of the neighbors happens to be an aspiring opera singer (really) and two others seem to be in a very unhappy marriage, from what I can understand of the Spanish yelling.

The rest of the apartment is very nice, at least comparatively. There is a nice living room, but there is some older gentleman who must be subletting or something from one of the other people who sits in there all day watching television. No one seems to know where he came from or why he is here, but he seems harmless enough, if perhaps kind of depressed (when I say he watches TV ALL day, I mean it). There is also a balcony, which looks out over the Plaza de Reverencia.

Right now I´m leaving in north-east madrid, probably about 3 or 4 miles from the center proper. That´s really not so far, especially considering the ease of taking the metro in this city. There also seems to be plenty in this area - it´s definitely not a suburb, it just isn´t as old as the old city.

Today is a national holiday. It seems as though there is some kind of holiday or something every other week in this country, meaning that many of the shops will be closed. This doesn´t really matter for me, thankfully, since I have no plans to buy anything, but it can be rather inconvenient.

I am going to head out for a walk soon, my first venture into he city alone. Just me and my poor spanish skills.