I now, very much by chance, find myself in Valencia. Among the travelers I realize how at home I already feel in Madrid. Finding people who are sparing no expense to pay the 12€ for a night in the hostel, the young couple getting married soon, the myriad of Spanish people taking our long holiday weekend who were able to travel despite the air traffic control strike. I do love judging the others who are writing entries on the public computers with titles like "Cold Snap" just to get the impression across that they're here long enough to capture weather.

Through all of this I'm finding a familiar nature after the drive here. Driving is such an ingrained part of my identity and just having spent several hours in a car reconfirms why that part of me is so important to myself. But all of this bullshit soul-searching really does me no comfort since I still don't understand how to relate to the opposite sex here, either. Apparently being an awkward oaf is the universal language and I excel at that.

So I left this train of thought for a few minutes and lost where it was going, so I'll just leave these first couple paragraphs for a glimpse into what's going on. Not to mention a lack of a finishing thought is much more apt at this point anyway.

Arrival

Let my just say it is completely unnerving when you realize your native tongue is an auxiliary.


Holy hell, what am I getting into?!

Before the move

So I'm more than a little bored while sitting at my parents' house. It's now 3 weeks from my arrival in Madrid and between scheduling and legal documents to deal with, it really begins to land home exactly what the hell I'm doing. For now I'm stuck watching dogs and having way too much time on my hands to think.

I've been re-reading Travels with Charley by Steinbeck (incidentally, everyone who's ever loved to travel or never felt quite right at home should read that book) along with the Anthony Bourdain marathon have allowed a strangely intimate relationship (separated by death and the unfortunately one sided communication of most media) with the idea of the middle aged globe-trotter.

The off handed remarks of their past exploits, which I can't help but view as my present make me both anxious and completely ambivalent about this crazy journey I know I am about to embark upon. I suppose it's in everyone's nature to want to have lived while experiencing so many of the joys of life for the first time, this doesn't make it any less frustrating. I still feel a need to have accomplished something grand before my first stone of the grand construction that I have no blueprint for.

Nevertheless the traditional anxieties of what I consider the "normal" person are still creeping fairly constantly into my thoughts. Everything from what linens my flat will need, how will I handle the medical system, can I really deal with not blowing up a refinery in my non-native tongue, how will I deal with people, dealing with sex and dating. Despite all of this, my greatest fear is feeling content in where I am. All in all, I'm content with the fears though, since what awe can one have at the world without a healthy fear of it.

I suppose I'll leave this readerless vent at that.

The ever so infrequent post.

So it seems that I only write in here when things are completely and totally in flux. I really would like to have a place to write now that things are once again completely turned on their head.

So I got my degree yesterday and I am still officially awaiting employment. I hope be moving to Madrid, Spain to work for the general engineering company Técnicas Reunidas. That certainly beats my current job at the US Census office.

This will be short but I do hope to keep posting here now that I have a halfway decent computer and much clearer need to stay connected with the world I will be moving into and that which I am coming from.

I have, up until now been on a practice run.