The bus journey on Saturday somehow seemed to last both hours and no time at all. Having a relaxed driver did have its disadvantages, since the overzealous one from last time would undoubtedly have banned the irritatingly loud music the burly black guy opposite was playing from his phone. On the plus side, after he’d put on some typically masculine classics from Shania Twain, Enya and Whitney Houston, guessing what on earth he would put on next did provide some entertainment.
Then, all of a sudden, six hours had gone by and we were pulling into Madrid’s Estación Sur. Ali, who was sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was feeling nervous. If I wasn’t before, I was by the time we’d finished a conversation accidentally completely freaking each other out. I realised I felt slightly sick and wasn’t so keen on getting off the bus after all.
Unfortunately there was nothing for it, and within ten minutes we’d collected our luggage and were ready to go our separate ways. Alicia and Ali were being met by the families for whom they were au pairing, and they were already there waiting. It had been such a comfort to travel with them but now, watching them leave together, I suddenly felt very alone.
Lugging two suitcases, a bag of bedsheets and a huge beach bag up and down four escalators to get to the metro didn’t help matters. Then, I got to the ticket machines only to find there seemed to be no way of buying the month ticket I needed. The security guard confirmed this, so I decided the best option was to buy a ten-journey card. I was so flustered by this stage that I got completely stuck in the metro barrier (yet again). The security guard gave me a disapproving frown and told me to come around again, where she could help me through with my ridiculous amount of possessions.
Then, as if I hadn’t made enough of a prat of myself already, it wasn’t until I was on the other side of the barrier that I realised I had absolutely no idea where I was going. Luckily, by this stage the security guard was either warming to me or was just starting to feel a bit sorry for me for being so pathetic, because she smiled and patiently explained the whole route.
Unfortunately I had to make a change in the middle, which meant yet more stairs - and this time, there were few escalators in sight. For the second time that day, people went out of their way to help me - first, a woman who took my huge case up the escalator, then, when she had to go a different way, a guy who carried it down to the platform.
It just so happened that the guy, whose name was Soufiane, was taking the same metro and getting off at the same stop as I was. He offered to carry my case the whole way and we got chatting. He was a foreigner like me - except he was from Morocco and had lived in Spain for years. I was lucky that he turned out to be a really nice guy; he had to be, to put up with carrying my monstrous case up and down so many flights of stairs. When we finally got to the exit of our final station, he took my name and number and told me I had a friend in Madrid whenever I wanted.
I didn’t have to wait for long before Patricia, my landlady’s daughter, turned up at the station and walked me to the house. She seemed really lovely too; she insisted on taking my case and was amazed that Spanish wasn’t my first foreign language. We’d reached the house in five minutes, where her mother Jaqueline was waiting.
We unlocked the metal gate, which was more like a door as it was enclosed by an exterior wall, and walked through a neat little paved courtyard to the front door of the house. Jaqueline rang the bell and, after ascertaining that there was no one in, we went straight in. A brief tour later, the rent paid and my case safely upstairs in my bedroom, I was left alone again.
The house was just as impressive and modern as it had seemed in the pictures; the front door opened into a spacious kitchen-dining-living area, with doors leading to two bedrooms and two bathrooms. On the right-hand side was a steel and wooden staircase leading to three other bedrooms, one of which was to be mine. Unexpectedly, as luck would have it, I’d ended up with the only double bedroom in the house.
I passed what was left of the afternoon starting to get some things organised before heading out to the supermarket just at the end of the road. It was no Mercadona, but it was pretty good value for money and conveniently close-by. I returned laden with shopping bags and made myself a paella and finally sat down to rest. It was actually quite nice to have the whole place to myself. I lay on the big corner sofa and was so lost in my TV programmes that I was taken completely by surprise when, just before midnight, I heard a key turn in the front door.
The landlady had told me that my male housemate was English, so I started conversation with a friendly, “Oh, you must be the English guy!” Unfortunately, he was actually Belgian. He had a friend over too, but both of them were going back to Belgium in a few days. It wasn’t much of a disappointment to be honest; he was a bit weird and not very friendly. That night he was going on a date and leaving his poor friend, who had come especially to visit him, in the house with nothing to do. This wasn’t the only time, either; over the following few days I saw more of the friend than I did of my housemate.
I was just settling down to an episode of Glee in bed when my bedroom door was flung open and I was confronted by the vision of a confused and slightly alarmed-looking Chinese girl. After the most profuse, frightened and prolonged apology I think I’ve ever received, she retreated shyly out of the room. I came to the door and said, “Oh, are you my Japanese housemate?” in Spanish, then, when she looked bemused, tried again in English. She told me that no, she was Chinese, which made me look a massive racist for assuming she was Japanese, so I tried to make her understand that this was what the landlady had told me; clearly Jaqueline didn’t have much to do with her tenants.
The next day I met another Chinese girl and was left feeling more confused than ever. Her Spanish was a little better than the other girl’s and the Belgian guys’, but I still couldn’t seem to get a straight answer to the question “When are you leaving?” I thought she’d understood properly when she said September, but then both she and her friend left and took all her things with her that afternoon. I guess that was that.
I hadn’t got up until late that morning so it was nearly lunchtime when I ventured out to explore and to get some bread. In my wanderings I discovered that (miracle of miracles) the local supermarket was open on Sunday mornings, and that there was a beautiful park along the river just down the road, with stunning bridges, landscaping and views of the whole city.
On my way back to the house I met a cricketer running down from the pitch to retrieve a ball. Before I knew it we were going through the whole rigmarole of introductions and kisses on cheeks, and he was asking me for my phone number. I don’t usually have a problem getting out of these sorts of situations, but this was in broad daylight and without the aid of alcohol, so I couldn’t think of anything for it but to say yes. I couldn’t even give a fake number because I couldn’t be certain I knew the correct format of a Spanish one. I paid for this mistake when he started texting and calling me several times a day, without receiving any kind of reply from me - to the extent that all the guys on the office had to be on alert to answer the next call to get him to leave me alone.
That day, once I’d managed to make my escape, I went back to the house and passed the rest of the afternoon unpacking and catching up with other things I’d long needed to do. That evening I met up with Lauren, a girl from my old school, who, by some amazing coincidence, was on her Year Abroad in Madrid. When she’d seen my status the day before she’d messaged me and we’d decided to meet and catch up on the past three years.
I was a bit nervous going into town, having already heard several stories of people getting mugged - and I’d only been there for twenty-four hours. However, everything went perfectly; I had no problem catching the right metro and even arrived early.
It was really nice catching up after so long, and we stayed out until way after I’d anticipated, so that I had to respond to anxious texts from Alicia and Ali wondering why I hadn’t posted my return on the Facebook thread yet. In all honesty I was a bit concerned when I nearly got on the wrong metro line and I realised how infrequent the metros had become, but I got back without any problems.
The next morning I had to start work at 10am, so I left just after 9 to allow plenty of time. The idea of starting work at an international firm, not being a native speaker of the language, was fairly terrifying, and I was so distracted whilst getting ready I accidentally poured orange juice into my coffee.
Despite the coffee fiasco, I managed to leave on time and I had no problem arriving at the correct metro station; the problem was getting form the station to the building itself. After walking the length of the road, I went right back up to the top and suddenly saw my offices; I have no idea how I’d missed the huge metal number on the first building on the road.
At any rate, I succeeded in entering the building and obtaining my temporary employee card. Then I had to go up to the sixth floor to my department, which meant an unavoidable awkward lift scenario. Lifts are inevitably not the places most inductive to comfortable conversation, but my friends can confirm that I am particularly awful in lifts, because I somehow always underestimate the amount of space and back some poor helpless individual into a corner - which is quite funny when you’re friends, but in a business atmosphere it’s just plain weird.
Lift predicament successfully over with, I went into the office and was met by Victor, who I’d been emailing and speaking with on the phone since the first girl I’d been talking to, Clara, had gone on holiday the week before. He was a lot younger than I’d expected (especially with a name like Victor), and when he introduced me to the Marketing Team, most of whom were in their twenties too. Everyone was really welcoming right from the outset, and it didn’t take me long to settle in.
My first day was spent editing a manual for their company social network, which had been translated from Spanish into English. When 2 o’clock came and it was time for our two-hour break, my colleagues invited me to eat outside with them on the nearby green. If I’d been worried about making friends, I needn’t have been. Everyone was doing everything they could to make me feel welcome. That evening, after work, Maria was going to Principe Pío to go to the first day of sales, and invited me to come with her.
The next day I continued with the sixty-page manual and, by the time I’d done a supermarket shop after work, had had another long day. I got back to the house to find one housemate gone and the other returned from travelling. Her name was Marellia and she was from France; now the Chinesa girls and the Belgian guys had gone, it would just be the two of us.
The next day, I finally finished the manual and started some other tasks - sometimes correcting other translations, sometimes writing my own - for company presentations, webpages, press releases, etc. Even though the days were long (8.30 to 6.30), it was rewarding to be doing something I was good at and that, hopefully, was going to be useful to the company.
Thursday was the beginning of the Orgullo Gay (Gay Pride) festival in Madrid, so José, Maria, Elena and I went to a couple of the stages after work. Stages had been set up in various squares all over the city, especially in the Chueca area, which is described by Lonely Planet as “extravagantly gay, lively, young, and always inclusive regardless of your sexual orientation”. I have to say, this is absolutely true, and we had so much fun dancing to the Spanish music in the crowded squares. At one point, a blonde woman I recognised from an awful TV advert came on stage and sang “Dame dame dame” (that is, “Gimme Gimme Gimme” in Spanish).
Work finishes early on Fridays, so that afternoon I decided to make the most of the spare time and take my first trip to Gran Vía. I spent all afternoon scouring the shops for work-appropriate outfits but, as is always the way when you actually need something, only came away with one thing.
And just like that, my first week in Madrid was over. It still felt somewhat surreal to think that I’d become this person, living in Madrid, with Spanish friends, working as a translator. It sometimes feels like I’m watching myself from afar because it seems somehow unbelievable to think the person I am now, compared to the lost and insecure teenager I was, lifetimes ago. Going to university and doing a Year Abroad are the best things I’ve ever done - and now, living in Madrid, I was beginning what was set to be another short, but incredible, phase in my life.
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