Bienvenidos a Madrid!

Yeah... big fat welcome... I'm here, but my luggage isn't!!!

Friday, the day I flew out was going pretty well... I had shit sleep as I always do the night before I am travelling alone. But, I got up, took a long, hot shower, had a cup of tea, and tried to wake up. Got everything packed, even made a last minute trip to the bookstore to pick up a notebook and a folder for school (if I'll need it, who knows!).

Joel was going to escort me to the airport, and thank goodness he did. We took the bus (30 santimes vs the 7Ls cab ride), and really thought we were leaving early enough for the small Riga airport. Well, must be because it was a Friday or something, but the airport was packed!! Air Baltic had a line that wrapped and weaved and surpassed all the other lines.... and they only had 3 windows open!!! HELLOO?????? The KLM counter had three windows open for the ONE FLIGHT they were checking in. Grrr... anyway... after standing in line for about an hour, we get to the counter, and the guy just gets on the phone, won't tell me anything about what is going on, but isn't handing me any boarding passes either. Finally, the guy who was behind us in line (who had already gone to a different window, and was done) said that the flight was overbooked, and he was being bumped. I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case with me, because Munich was not my final desitnation. So, the guy manages to squeeze me onto the flight, putting me in "first class". Mind you, on Air Baltic, first class just means the first rows of the plane... the seats aren't any bigger, and you only get the preferential treatment if you've actually paid for the seat. So I was glad that Joel was with me through all of this, cause he kept his cool, and helped me keep my cool. If he hadn't been there I would have probably already been crying in line. Unfortunatley, because the line took so long, when I was finally checked in, I had to run to security and passport control, and had about two seconds to say goodbye to Joel. One quick kiss later, I was on the plane.

So, I tried to sleep on the plane. There was a kind of crazy Spanish lady (CSL) sitting next to me, and she started freaking out to the stewardess about not being able to make her connection to Madrid, because the flight from Riga to Munich had departed late. I said I was on the same flight. The stewardess took my ticket and went to talk to the captain. The Spanish lady insisted that SHE be allowed to talk to captain, but the stewardess turned her down. Anyway, she finally came back, told us which gate we had to go to, and told us to go straight there on landing, that we would get boarding passes at the gate.

Of course, the flight to Madrid was in a different terminal, from the one we landed in. Of course. So we walked as fast as we could. Got stuck with ornery security people. I abandoned crazy Spanish lady, because her bag got searched, and I wasn't sticking around for it. Finally made it to the right gate, and got on the plane. Breathe.

At this point I realized that I was STARVING. Usually you have some time at some airport to get a bite, a water, ANYTHING. Well, because I had run at the Riga airport and through Munich, I had had nothing more than a piece of toast and a cup of tea to eat that day. I haven't been very hungry lately in general, but, at this point in this particular day, it felt like my stomach was eating itself. I was HUNGRY!!!

Thank the goddess for Lufthansa. They served a proper meal, and it was vegetarian!!! I ate the whole damn thing and didn't leave a crumb. Oh, it felt so good to eat.

So, I thought things would be ok then... but then I got to the baggage claim, and me and crazy Spanish lady end up the last two just sitting there, watching an abandoned sleeping bag go around and around on the belt. Thankfully, CSL ended up being quite helpful, and taking me to the lost baggage people, and telling me what to do. So, I filed the lost baggage papers, and went to find the person who was supposed to be picking me up.

I had all the directions on where to go depending on which terminal I was in, but, then I realized that I didn't know which terminal I was in!! Thankfully, I heard some very obvious American being spoken up ahead, and speeded up to ask some girls if they knew. Turns out I was in terminal 1. And I was right where I was supposed to be to meet the Endicott person. It was a young woman, probably my age. She must have been Spanish, but her English was very good. She was obviously in a big hurry though, maybe she had to meet other arriving students or something, but she basically handed over some maps, and threw me in a cab. She didn't even ask why I didn't have bags. Ah well. Nothing against her, but I didn't feel very taken care of.

The cabbie took me to the hotel though, and I got in fine. I rested for a while....told Joel everything that had happened over text messages...and then finally, when I could no longer play solitaire on the computer or watch Spanish tv or Sky news, I went for a walk. I wasn't hungry, but I wanted some water. Going into the shop, and dealing with the guy, I totally understood everything... he asked how I was, asked if I wanted a cold water (since I had picked up a warm one), and then told me what I owed him, etc. I understood it all... but did I have the vocab to answer him? No. :( I've spent ever since then trying to recall some Spanish that I know, but I keep getting confused...is that French? Was that Italian? Am I making this shit up?

Now, it's Saturday... I'm still waiting for my luggage. And of course, I gave the luggage people my mobile phone number as a contact, and now the battery is dead. So I just called them, and they said to call back around 5 when another flight will come in from Munich, and maybe (but they don't know!) my bags will be on it. MAYBE??? Ah well, I gave them my hotel phone number. Hopefully, I will have clean clothes, soap, make-up, lotion, and did I mention CLEAN CLOTHES soon.

Tonight I'm supposed to be meeting some people from the program for a walking tour through central Madrid...we're supposed to meet at 6:30...I hope that I can call the airport at 5, and figure everything out with them, and then get to the place I'm supposed to meet them by 6:30. Cause, I don't have a phone to call anyone anymore!!! :(

It's 1:30 here now... I've washed myself, and my shirt, so hopefully I won't smell too bad. I'm not hungry, otherwise I would go out and find some food. Maybe it's better this way. Oh yeah, cause I forgot to say that last night when I was just walking around trying to stay very close to the hotel, I got lost anyway. I had to pull out the map, and figure out where I was. I was headed in the right direction, but hadn't gone far enough. Madrid's streets are crazy... they are small, and they go in all directions, I mean, they are not on like a grid at all, so far as I can tell. So anyway... trying to get to the city centre tonight has me freaked out... but I will try.

If this is the last you ever hear from me, know that I was kind of lonely and stinky on my last day. :) Ok, I'm just kidding... but seriously, I'm fine, but I am kind of lonely and stinky. What can you do?

Welcome to Madrid. It can only get better from here on out...

Jani, or mid-summer's eve... the shortest night of the year

It's the shortest night of the year, and in Latvia, that means really short! It was only truly dark from about 2am until 3:30 or 4. We celebrated this year out at Marianna and Jeremy's, or Marianna's parents country house out in Saldus, Latvia. You'll notice a theme of fire throughout the night... we do this to symbolize the sun. This is the night to worship the sun, as she is with us the longest on this day. But, for me, it is a day of mourning, as it means that from here on out, the days get shorter. :( Either way, it was a great time... here's a few shots of the night...

Singing and dancing round the big oak tree. Latvians sing and dance incessentaly this night (if not all nights).

As tradition requires, the Janu Mate (Jani Mother) offers Janu cheese to all her guests.

And the Janu Tevs (Janu Father) offers beer.

The ladies spent hours weighing down this table. Believe it or not, in 24 hours, we'd pretty much consumed all of this food.

Dig in!

As the night wore on (it's about 10pm in this picture) the kids started getting a wee bit tired. Here is a victory shot... Mikus, Joel's youngest nephew, seems to finally have accepted me, as he was willing to be in my arms as he barely hung on to consciousness. And yes, you can quit making fun, I am OBVIOUSLY delighted at the fact of having the kid in my arms!

Joel and Jeremy, and others, built this Jani torch and lit it with the help of the other men folk.

The campfire. The boys also built this, and were delighted to light it with a big "whoosh" as fire caught to gasoline and dry wood.


Around midnight or 1, maybe, we continue singing and dancing round the campfire. The picture looks dark, but I swear it wasn't pitch black out yet.

Around 2 we headed down to the lake to light a mini-fire on a raft. Joel leads the way bearing a torch. I told you, it was dark by then. The raft-fire wouldn't light and wouldn't go the right way, so, even though I was shivering dressed, Joel got in the water to save the day/night and re-lit the raft and pushed it out into deeper water.

Morning breaks. Due to a headache, I had gone to bed, but Joel stayed up to greet the sun.

more...

there were a few more good pics... and here they are in no order at all...

The trip... Bremen and Venice...

Here I am in Bremen.... this was in the city center...an old church. That night we just walked around and marveled at all the shops and all the variety of stuff. We had Chinese/Thai take-away for dinner. It was great because they actually had tofu on the menu, and it was delicious. (If you can't guess, the Chinese places in Riga don't have tofu on the menu.) I was pretty sick on this first day of our trip, so we stopped in a pharmacy and got me some drugs. I think I passed out in bed that night around, um, 7 or 8. And yes, I slept through the night. Very normal for the day after the last day of school though as well. :)

Here is Joel by a cool fountain in Bremen.

And we just couldn't pass up this picture. It was a gallery of some sort...I think it must have been that the artists name was Schmuck...but, it was just a photo op not to miss. :)

And here I am in Venice. This was the first big bridge we came to. Had to take the pic!

And here is the first picture of Joel on a bridge! :)

And here we are together!!! Gotta love the self-shot. We did a few of these, cause asking people to take pics of us was just too annoying. Also, just so you know, we walked without a map. Our purpose was to stay off the beaten path, and just find our way. It worked marvelously. We walked down so many tiny little walkways, through lots of areas that were obviously just residential streets...and we still found our way to all the big sights as well.

Here is me in front of St. Marc's catherdral. No, we did not go in... the line was about a mile long. And some girl at our camping place told us that she had stood in line for 3 hours to get in. Yeah, glad we didn't waste so much of the little time we had doing that. I'm sure it's fabulous on the inside, it was beautiful on the outside too.

You can see in this next picture that many of the buildings themselves were very dilapidated. I can imagine that trying to remodel or do external renovations would be very hard...there is no place to put scaffolding! But, even if the buildings are old and worn they have character, added to by the fact that almost all windows had window boxes full of big bright flowers and plants! Here is a great example.

This reminded me of China, but was cuter... they hang all their laundry in the air between buildings. This little alley had an adundance of laundry. Some of it was in snatching distance! :)

Here is the most famous of Venice bridges which crosses the grand canal, the Rialto.

Ah, now here we are at our "resort". It was actually called a camping place, as you'll see later. It was a pretty big place and had many kinds of accomodations. There were tents with cots, little trailers with two twin beds, a little bedside table, and a closet and a bathroom. There were bigger trailers that had more beds and I think an eating area. And there were cabanas. I have to admit, I wasn't overly impressed with our little trailer at first, but, it turned out to be great. The beds were easy to push together (get your mind out of the gutter, it was just more comfy for sleeping!), and it had air conditioning for cooling off after being in the sun all day. And I guess the fact that there certainly wasn't any tv was a good thing because it means we didn't spend any more time in there than we needed to. Anyway... the place was about a 20 min private (but cheap!) shuttle bus ride from Venice. But it had a nice pool (pictured below), a restaurant, a bar, a take-away food joint and a market. It was very nice.

Here I am reading by the pool on our third day there. This day we decided to hang out by the pool in the morning/early afternoon, and head into Venice later. Yes, I am several shades of red/pink from this laying by the pool...but it was awesome. :) I read two books on our five day trip, mostly pool side. Awesome.

This was Joel's favorite place. There were two hot tubs by the pool. But, Joel was telling me that in Oz hot tubs are called spas. In this case, I'll call it a spa, because truth be told, the water wasn't hot at all. But after 30C heat all day, it was nice to get into cooler water with bubbles. But Joel spent so much time in there that he got a silly burn just on the top of his shoulders/arms and top of his chest. His tummy is still white. :)

Here we are on our second day in town, doing another self-shot, with the Rialto bridge in the background.

Back in St. Marc's square, a picture with me and all the pigeons. You could buy seeds and feed them. Did I? NO! They are like dirty flying rats. Ew. Surpsingly, for as many pigeons as there were, there was little pigeon poo. We wondered if they were trained to do it elsewhere. :)

We went up to the top of the bell tower in St. Marc's square to get a "from up on top" view of Venice. It was amazing. All the buildings are so close together. You can't tell where there are walk-ways and where there are canals. The buildings all just look like they are squeezed one next to the other.

Here is a shot that shows really well how they make use of the space. The buildings literally go to the edge of the islands.

Ok, someone saw us trying to do a self-shot, and offered to take the pic. Here we are with Venice in the background.

The last thing we did in Venice was go on a gondola ride. It was something we'd been pondering for days, whether to do it or not, because it was quite expensive. But, as we were heading to the shuttle bus after our last dinner, we decided, what the hell...gotta do it. So here we are in the gondola. The gondolier (a cute one at that! Thanks Joel!) took this pic.

And here is the pic the gondolier insisted on himself. Thanks gondolier! How cute are we??? So romantic!

Since we took this ride at night, not many good shots were possible...but here's one that turned out ok.

As we were saying goodbye, we decided to take a couple of shot of our "resort".

From there, we left Italy, and headed back to Bremen for a night. That afternoon we found a vegetarian store, and I was able to stock up on some veggie products that you can't get in Riga. Whoo hoo!!! :) We also had tex-mex for dinner, and guess what, it was actually somewhat spicy! Yes!!!

It was, by far the best birthday present ever. See the next post for a little more blabber on the subject. :)


Thanks Joel!!!

The trip... a bit more...

Well, just got back to Riga this afternoon from the best birthday present ever. It was a wonderful trip. The weather forecast for our time in Venice was for thunderstorms the whole time. Well, someone made a big mistake, because not only was it not thunderstorming, we saw about one cloud a day. It was near 30C everyday. It was beautiful and wonderful and gorgreous! :)

Also, just before going, we'd heard from some people that their reactions of Venice were that it was crowded and smelly and dirty. Well, neither Joel nor I mind people, so although, of course, there were some crowds, they didn't bother us one bit. There were a couple of times that in our meandering walks we smelled sewer smells, but it certainly was no worse than Riga, or any other old city. And as for dirty... nah. Again, it's a historic city, and a tourist destination, so to some extent there was garbage and stuff, but our general feeling was not that it was a dirty city. In my opinion it was certainly more cheery than Riga, but, again, in my opinion, that's not hard to do. Of course there was all kinds of longed for things like customer service with a smile, people saying please and thank you, treating you like a valued customer, even if you are just a tourist, people walking around you in the street, instead of straight into you...ah, just a few of the small things...

As for the food... I found myself in the very unlikely position of not being hungry pretty much the whole time I was there. That kind of sucked. But, knowing that I would probably not be back in Venice, or Italy any time soon, I just had to eat some of the gorgeous food. Let me tell you again, that I love modern developed nations...everywhere we went there were choices abounding for a person like myself who eats a vegetarian diet. I had sandwiches (pre-made, deli style, just sitting in the window waiting to be eaten), I had pasta (Spaghetti pomodoro-just fresh tomato sauce...but you know what, it was GOOD, cause it wasn't and didn't taste like ketchup! Gnocchetti in a tomato cream sauce... YUM! Papardelle pasta in a mushroom cream sauce... again... YUM!), I had pizza (just cheese again, but oh so good! Oh and in my opinion it was more important to eat pasta than pizza most of the time, so I had this pizza in the airport when we were awaiting our departing flight...and it was STILL better than anything you can get in Riga!). So the food was good. Of course the gelato was yummy too. I only had it once, but I enjoyed every last lick. :) And the wine... I don't know anything about Italian wine as I usually buy Australian or South African wine... so while in Venice I just ordered the house reds... and they were all delicious! I was surprised that they were served cold...but, it didn't take away from the experience. I loved sitting in the outdoor cafes, watching people and sipping on some drink. I am a big fan of ginger...and at one afternoon stop off, I saw a drink called a Gingerino. I ordered it, and loved it. Now, I just have to figure out what you might call it in English/Latvian/Spanish and what is in it. :) Ok...

I got a haircut

And there it is. Short again! :)

Best Boyfriend Ever...and here's why...

It's my birthday today, and I was just presented with my present...

It was a clear cover folder with paper inside....titled Mara's Birthday Quiz.


With questions like:

Joel started hanging out with Mara because...
a) He was looking for a girlfriend
b) He was bored and had nothing else to do
c) He was looking for a good cook
d) She invited herself everywhere he went

and

In Joel's opinion the best thing about Mara is...
a) Her opinions about eating habits
b) Her ability to tell a story
c) Her cat
d) The amount of belongings she has

I had little chance of winning one of the three prizes.

There were 10 questions all together...I got 3 right according to Joel. Apparently I don't know "us" very well. But, as you can see by those questions it was a tough call on each question... for that first one for example, the real answer is probably (b). However, he said it was (d)...which is SO untrue, because HE was the one that invited me everywhere he went for the first week we hung out...which is why I ended up meeting his family that week, seeing his flat that week, etc.
And for the second question there, I circled (c) because it was obvious these were all the things that annoy him the most about me, and I chose the one that annoys him most. He ended up telling me that there was no answer to circle there, which means I got it wrong for circling an answer.

But in the end... he let me trade up from envelope A, to envelope B, and finally to envelope C. Envelope A contained the prize of spending the weekend at school with our old board. There is a lot of history there, but basically, I would actually rather slit my wrists. Envelope B's prize was a weekend in Daugavpils (the MOST Russian city in Latvia = ew, why would you want to). It included taking a bus there, camping in a tent for 4 nights, and then hitchhiking back. Envelope C, the final prize, was a 5 night trip with 2 nights in Bremen, Germany, and 3 in Venice, Italy!

My jaw dropped when I saw the word Venice. We recently watched a BBC show called Perfect Holiday about Venice. And it seemed perfect. Of course, we're not going to have quite the accomodations that the couple on Perfect Holiday had (I think they actually stayed somewhere that was USD$5,000 a night because the show pays for it all of course), but we'll have access to the city, and it'll be great.

So... there you go... I have the best boyfriend ever. :) I'm floating on air! We leave on Saturday! :)

How silly...

So... I leave for Madrid in....22 days! Yipes!

But why am I worried? I moved to China by myself... I moved to Latvia by myself... why would I be so anxiety ridden about going to Spain by myself?

Well, for starters, it's not like I'm just going for a vacation or a job... I'm going to study. It's been 4 years since I had to read text books, do research, write papers. It's been 4 years since I had to try to appear highly intelligent. I mean, come on, my Kindergarteners think I'm amazing for being able to print (as in write by hand) so fast (yes, they actually say that to me- "How can you write so fast Ms. P? Wow!")! So, although I am doing well with getting most of the pre-assigned reading done, and planning to start those pre-assigned writing assignments any day now (probably when school gets out) I'm still nervous about the actual academics. And just the other day I sent in a completed pre-course survey that one of my profs sent by email. Today I got an email from him saying that I have the distinct honor of being the first person to get it back to him. I have his compliments and his thanks. :) I guess I'm off to a good start, at least with him.

Ok, so school is worrisome, and will probably be stressful even once I get there and get into it, but as usual with school, I'm sure that as long as I stay in action and working, I'll be ok.

So why else am I anxiety ridden? Well, here is the scenario that keeps running through my head.... I get to Madrid, somebody from Endicott picks me up from the airport and takes me to my apartment. I am happy to have been taken so far, and probably equally happy that night to settle in, unpack, get comfortable. But then, Saturday comes. I wake up, and I'm hungry. But paralyzed with the fear that if I leave the apartment I will either get lost, or not be able to find a grocery store, or get mugged, or not be able to communicate effectively enough to buy anything, or not be able to find my way home, or not be able to get in my new flat on homecoming I sit in the apartment all day starving. When my roommate arrives Sunday afternoon, I am so happy to see her that I abandon all vegetarianism and civility and eat her. See why I'm nervous? In my own mind, I'm already a cannibal!

I found out yesterday that on Saturday the 30th (my first full say in Madrid) is the Gay Pride parade in Madrid, and they are expecting 2 million people in the streets that day. Sounds like LOTS of fun, if only I had someone with me. I'd love to go out and celebrate my "straight but not narrow" identity. Alone, the sound of that absolutely terrifies me.

I don't speak Spanish. I've heard that Madrid in summer time is like Riga in summer time, no locals, except the ones that are there to serve the tourists. So, it's possible that the lack of Spanish won't be a huge problem. But I also don't want to offend anyone, or commit any cultural faux pas.

But, this is an opportunity for growth. Because, lets face it... there is room to grow. Let's look back at previous experiences.... when I came to Latvia in 1999 to visit my then boyfriend, I didn't leave the house during the day, because I wasn't going to go out alone. I spent WAY too much time watching really bad Latvian/European tv. And what a sad way to spend 3 weeks in Latvia in summer time! Then, in China...I was so overwhelmed by the WHOLE experience that I literally did not go out of my apartment without an escort for the first couple of weeks. That first day, I didn't even know how to find my way out of the compound! Lord how overwhelm can cloud the brain. So really, it can only get better. I did much better when I came to Latvia this time, but I think I had the language skills on my side, upping my confidence.

The thing is that I know once I get to Madrid, and especially once my roommate gets there, I will be fine. I'll figure out where things are, how to work the locks, what I can and can't buy, and enough of the simple phrases needed not to mortally offend any locals.

But, see, this knowledge doesn't stop me from being anxiety riddled now. How silly.