Life Abroad: Week Six
Less is More
This past weekend, my friends Sara, John, and Eric from Bursley, my freshman year dorm, came to visit me in Madrid. Sara is studying abroad in London, John in Paris, and Eric in Barcelona. I was honored to have been chosen as the meeting point destination, but really the decision stemmed from Eric and I both being in Spain already and Barcelona had a curfew until recently. Eric arrived on Tuesday night, so we we went out Wednesday to Dubliners for 1 euro shots. It was crowded with Americans and our roommates decided Casey and I were cool for the night, so we were with them as well. The debaucherous night ending with me calling the police on the brink of filing a missing persons report trying to find one of our roommates who wasn’t home yet and not responding to her phone. She had somehow ended up at Kapital alone partying with strangers but was too drunk to remember to tell the rest of her friends. You would think our roommates would’ve learned by now but alas, some things may never change.
Friday night, John and Sara landed in Madrid and the four of us had a tight group hug; really, how strange is it that four of the first friends I made in college are 1) in Spain with me right now and 2) still my dear friends. We drank Jose Cuervo mixed with Fanta Limon and ended up waiting in line for Club Malasana for over an hour. We stood next to a girl from the Canary Islands who did an exchange program for 2 years in a random high school in Vassar, Michigan. She told us she had a crush on a guy named Nathan who played football, who happens to be one of Casey’s boyfriend’s current roommates at UofM. I cannot stress to you all how many times weird coincidences like this has happened- this high school had 40 people per grade. I keep meeting people who know people I know in all corners of the world. We went inside and were welcomed with house music (apparently bad house music according to my brother). I drank a fancy moscow mule and danced which felt silly because well, it was house music and not what we’re used to dancing to. We also went to Kapital Saturday night, the famous 7 floor club and I tried to soak up all the joy I had with my friends there. I danced with Sara on the Latin floor and we made friends with Mexican girls who fought off the Spanish boys.
Saturday and Sunday were spent walking around (like, 25,000 steps each day) taking in sights, stopping for street performances, and strolling in the sunshine. I had made an agenda before they arrived with restaurants and things I wanted to show them, but I found that with a group of friends like this, a relaxed pace worked better. We also were hungover both Saturday and Sunday so that contributed to our slower pace, but it was nice to have a weekend that moved with leisure. When I travel, I like to see as much as possible, do as much as possible, so it was a nice change of pace. Really, it was less so about where we were and moreso about who we were with.
Like every weekend, the best parts of their visit were the conversations we had. We sat in McDonalds for 3 hours on Saturday to spare our aching feet by fueling up on chicken nuggets and conversation. Being able to discuss the “peaks and pits” (as Sara says) of study abroad and sharing the similarities and differences that exist between our respective locations abroad. Meeting up with old friends in new places makes time feel like it hasn’t gone by while simultaneously making it feel like so much time has passed. Do you know what I mean? The dynamic is the same and we remiscine about fond memories, but we aren’t friends that text often so hanging out is when we get to catch up the most. It’s special having people you know you’ll still be friends with even after days have gone by. Keeping in touch with so many people regularly is unrealistic; having regular conversation also doesn’t equate to close friendship.
The rest of the week I spent doing homework and sleeping in. I’m getting anxious about abroad being over soon but really there’s about 10 more weeks and I need to relax. I always do this to myself (I know Reena is rolling her eyes reading this). With the influx of abroad social media posts, I find myself going down rabbit holes of self-doubt and deprecation about my own abroad experience: Should I go to Switzerland too? Should I get that coat from Zara? This leads me to the paralysis of choice. I get overwhelmed when opening Spotify and choosing a playlist because I have more than 70 options. Or when Casey and I try to pick a movie/restaurant but it takes forever to decide because of how many choices there are. I’ve experienced a bit less of since coming here, but I don’t await its return. I could be living a thousand different other lives, I actually wrote a blog post about this when I was in early high school:
“Today is April 9, 2016 and I have a fervent case of wanderlust. I've always been bitten by the travel bug, but tonight's case is especially rampant because of the near end to spring break and the fact that my dad is traveling to Germany tomorrow morning. The concept of getting lost in a new city, a new country, a new continent?! Now that's what I call thrilling.
But not actually getting lost, I consider myself a person dependent on my loved ones. In fact, one of my biggest fears in life is being lonely. So, if I were to travel around the world, I would need a companion.
Anyways, that's a little besides the point of this post. It scares me to even think about the enormity of this earth; this only makes my problems seem more minuscule by the minute. Don't you ever feel sad knowing that you will never be able to experience everything that there is to experience in this world? (that was a whole lot of experience in one sentence) It saddens me to ponder the fact that I will never be able to know what it's like not only to be Taylor Swift, but to be her hair stylist, her tour manager, her mother, and her "# 1 Fan" with floor tickets to all her concerts. Because THIS is the stuff I daydream about in Algebra 2: the realization that I cannot be everything. I cannot experience everything. I am not everything.”
That excerpt is ridiculously dramatic but the sentiment still rings true. Limiting our options gives us room to ideate, to breathe without fear of missing out on something else. There’s relief in waking up and wearing the same jeans and black turtleneck while making it somehow look different than the day before. Or eating whatever Mairen brings for dinner, even if that means it’s not the best meal I’ve ever had because I have no other choice but to find something good about it. Or going to the Carrefour Express (grocery store) around the block from us and getting 1 of the 3 chip flavors we like here because there’s limited selection. If we had everything we thought we wanted, we’d find more ways to perpetuate dissatisfaction. Silly humans, we are :)
Another thing that’s related: I like that not many people know what I’m up to every day, besides those who I choose to tell (or those that I send this blog to :) ). Experiencing life tastes more personal now because they’re fully my own. Not that any other experience wasn’t my own, but when you’re in Ann Arbor and surrounded by your closest friends there are more things experienced together. Or people come to find out about your experiences and make opinions on them. There’s an obvious beauty to this because shared experiences bring people closer together. But similar to how in high school it was hard to get away from the opinions of other, Ann Arbor can feel like that because of how close-knit circles are. Here, the only person who’s opinion I care about is Casey’s because she’s the only one who knows the full picture of what we’re experiencing. It’s bringing a new kind of peace into daily life. Things feel more simple, more black and white, in a way that isn’t reductive but rather just more dear and tender.
I miss you all and am sending love, especially to Miss Sreya who turns 21 today! I wish I could be there to celebrate you and your coffee addiction because I know your 21st is going to be chaos in the way we do best. Thank you all for reading, and happy happy living :)
With love,
Rachel
