Our first month in Madrid, as I mentioned in my last post, was a little rough. While I tried to be as realistic as possible with my expectations, there’s really no way to know what it’s going to feel like to leave everything and everyone you love behind until you do it. Not having a place to live doesn’t help; nor does a rapidly diminishing bank account, or the reality of looking like a fool every time you attempt to speak to any other person for any reason.
Hola chicos!
Today is October 26th, which means we’ve been here in Spain for just over a month.
The past four weeks have been incredibly exciting and also mind-numbingly mundane at the same time. Sure, we are starting our lives over in a whole new city, country, continent and culture — which is thrilling! But the day to day reality of what that looks like is: finding an apartment. Obtaining a transport card. Opening a bank account. Applying for a residency card. Choosing a cell phone plan. Setting up WiFi. Purchasing a trash can. Doing a month’s worth of laundry. Etc.
I will go into more detail about some of those little adventures in future posts, because I found it really helpful to read about other people’s experiences before we arrived. But for now, I’ll start with a general overview of what we’ve been doing and observing and feeling.
Leaving Iceland was bittersweet as could be. We made our way to the airport early on Tuesday morning under gray skies, with a cold rain falling and a gusty breeze. It was literally the first bad weather we’d had all week — which in Iceland is just shy of an actual miracle.
While we were sad to leave the country behind, we were more than satisfied with the great trip we’d had. The experience had exceeded all of our expectations. And we knew we’d be coming back someday to pick up where we left off.
We were also finally starting to get excited for Spain again. Though anxiety over beginning this new chapter had come and gone throughout the last week, being at the airport with our bags and plane tickets in hand, I felt ready.
Goodbye Iceland. Hola, Madrid!
But first… Norway happened.
On Sunday, we left Iceland and planet Earth behind. Perhaps the solar system too.
The landscapes we saw that day were unlike anything we’d experienced along our trip to that point — which is saying a lot, considering that everything we’d seen so far had almost defied belief.
Our fourth day in Iceland, Haider and I planned to visit the Snæfellsnes peninsula, but we woke up late, ill-prepared and feeling a little off. Rather than stress ourselves out trying to cram the day as full as the last few had been, we decided to take our time.
We picked up some groceries and plotted out a few highlights of Snæfellsnes that we wanted to hit, while keeping our schedule decidedly unambitious. We reasoned that it wasn’t worth trying to maximize every second of daylight if we’d only end up irritable and burnt out.
It was okay, because (to quote countless white girl Facebook memes) the real adventure of the day was the journey, not the destination.
On my third day in Iceland, I awoke to the gentle baa-ing of sheep just outside the window. I hadn’t forgotten where I was — in a hotel room in Iceland with Haider and Raz (whom I’d just met still less than 24 hours previously) — but I didn’t remember there being any sheep when I’d fallen asleep.
We woke up, showered and headed out to the main building for the complimentary breakfast (score!), but as soon as we stepped outside, we stopped dead in our tracks. It’d been pitch black the night before except for the aurora, so we had no idea that our hotel was nestled up next to the steep, craggy wall of a glacial mountain. Seagulls were wheeling along it far above our heads, and below was a lush, peaceful field full of grazing sheep.
find me in the air 