Life Abroad: Week Twelve

How Life Should Be

I’m sitting in Cafe de la Luz, my third time here in the past 2 weeks. It’s a cafe by day and bar by night and this is my first time here in the daytime. The concept of this is quite charming, don’t you think? The first time I was here was with Jon, Aryan, Casey, and Aryan’s dad. The second time was with the Stoneback family and Aryan. Now, my third time, I’m alone.

This past week has welcomed so many visitors into our city which has been fruitfully sweet. Meeting the family of my friends and being able to join them for dinner, for drinks, has been such a fun excursion. But now our time has dwindled down to practically nothing- the last day that Tish, Aryan, Casey, and I are all in Madrid at the same time has already passed. We realized this when getting drinks last Wednesday night at Sala Equis, an old porn studio turned movie theater bar right by Casey and I’s place. What started with pulling out our calendars to plan another trip, another night out, ended with a sad realization: we had exactly the next four days left in our city together. This came as a surprise because though Tish and Aryan leave in April, we hadn’t really looked at how our travels would effect our time together. Casey and I are gone for almost the entirety of the last two weeks of April, and the boys have their own final trips planned before they leave.

Realizing the brevity of our time, we made a bucket list and vowed to embark on a four day bender of fun. And I have to say- this weekend in Madrid has been one of the best weekends I’ve spent abroad. And has really set up the way I yearn to live life, moving into senior year and beyond. Let me explain.

Thursday, Casey and I promised to wake up early and enjoy the first sunny day Madrid had seen in weeks. We got smoothies and pastries, went shopping in Chueca, and got the delicious and always worth it Takos Al Pastor for lunch before heading to school (bleh). After class, we headed to Temple de Debod to catch the sunset with my brother and the boys. The sunset was glorious and we enjoyed SFD (Tish has coined this term as snacks for dinner). Cute dogs, pleasant sunshine, and acoustic guitar created the perfect ambiance. Later that night we went to a bar together. Get this: the bar was the rooftop section of Gymage, the gym the boys go to. It felt like an episode of All American or Gossip Girl where the high schoolers feign coolness at a flashy rooftop but really it was just the roof of a gym. It was an inane situation but comical because of course Aryan and Tish go to a gym that has a rooftop bar.

Friday my brother left and the Stoneback’s arrived in Madrid. We ate dinner together with host mom Mairen and then met at Cafe de la Luz for drinks. Friday was the day of our bar crawl, which was so much more of an epic night than any of us were expecting- we slept at 5:30 am if that tells you anything. Saturday we got tapas for dinner with Casey’s family. We were going to go to a club at night, but ended up doing a similar bar crawl in Malasana because it felt inherent with our energy. We met up with Aryan’s friends of friends from NYU and they were perfectly New York (after exiting the first bar, every single one of the six girls opened up their purses to grab a box of cigarettes and lit up immediately). At the bars, we found both people who loved India and people from India who smelled like they were from India (you know what this means if you are Indian). I willl also have to say I have frankly learned that Indian girls are much more of a hot commodity in Europe/Spain than they are in America (sorry Sree). But the reason these nights were so precious was because I was spending quality time with my dear friends. It doesn’t take a special occasion or nightclub or even traveling across the world to do this: hanging with close friends, having a good conversation, and sharing laughs are what have made my favorite nights here. I told one of the pledges I interviewed that my life in Madrid feels like what I imagine being retired is like: having just a few of friends that you see consistently, you spend your nights talking at bars and houses and restaurants, you enjoy the sunshine and take a lot of walks and delight in life’s simplest pleasures. This is how life should be, was the thought resonating in my mind this weekend.

This goes into what I wanted to discuss with this post: building and nurturing your personal community. Maintaining friendships is something you would think sustains itself, but actually requires adequate work. I had a realization maybe a year ago that I’m bad at keeping in touch with some old friends. Or rather, I get really caught up with my close friends at the moment and what’s right in front of me, and forget to check in on friends from the past or friends I don’t see as often. First semester junior year was madness because I was taking 19 credits and recruiting for jobs while trying to maintain my social life. This led to really, really poor self-care habits and little to none sleep, but the upside was at least I formed really close relationships with some of my roommates (s/o to Common Cup for sponsoring weekend grind sessions) while finding joy in new friends (hi Vineet) I had met now that we were all in-person again. I found time to maintain some other friendships while other ones suffered. With going abroad, I wanted to try and fix this. Moving across the world with only 3 close friends in my city, I had to ensure my other relationships didn’t deteriorate (to the extent that you can maintain a long-distance relationship with someone).

It gets frustrating when you haven’t talked to someone in so long that you can’t remember every little thing you’ve been meaning to tell them; it would take too long, and you don’t want to talk about yourself for the whole conversation. So, part of the reason I started this blog was to share updates and pictures with my friends in a detailed manner which didn’t require Facetime calls or hundreds of texts. Also as an extravert, I do have many relationships I like to maintain in my life which can get overwhelming. So yes, if I have been sending you links to these posts, I care immensly about you and our friendship. I wish I could be telling you of all of these thoughts over a cup of tea instead :)

When I think about senior year, nurturing my community will be a priority of mine. I remember talking to Varun about this when he was graduating, and he shared a very similar sentiment. It usually does take the brevity of time to realize how good you have it, and this is no exception. Many of you know that I was planning to run for pledge mom, but after deliberation, I’m probably not going to. Yes, I think that it would be extremely rewarding, one of the most fulfilling things one could do in college. But, it’s one of the most intense time commitments to behold, and I want to be more selfish with my time to be present for the community I already have. After not being in Ann Arbor for a semester, I want to spend my year cherishing my relationships and strengthening them to maximum potential before leaving. I’m also going to be in 17 credits for both semesters, may re-recruit, and I don’t want another repeat of first semester junior year where I feel stretched too thin to be there for myself and some other relationships.

Instead, I want to spend my time cooking recipes with Vineet, Facetiming Charanya, making fun of John and Eric with Delasi and Sara, going on Taylor Swift/1D drives laughing about Louis (hopefully to EL to see Pearl) with Reena and Naomi. I want to try new restaurants with Sree, eat snacks with Casey, watch Korean youtubers with Joan, cuddle with Sreya in her bed, get drunk at Greenwood with Aryan and Tish and end the night and morning after debriefing with my house. And find time to visit Akul and Varun in Chicago, Karah in Indiana, Kayleah in Cali :) Because I always have to pinch myself and remember: these people are not to be taken for granted. Being a phenomenal friend is something I strive for, moving forward.

Growing up I loved the late-night “deep talks” at sleepovers with friends: being vulnerable was more of a once in a while occurence, a hush that you saved for revealing secrets only fit for the night. Now that my emotional maturity and sense of self have developed, I can reveal these things at a much quicker pace. The fulfillment from having close friendships with people who truly know and care about you is immense. It is so gratifying to look at yourself and see how you’ve changed as a result of your relationships. Not only how you’ve become more alike to someone because they inspire you, but also how their words and love have helped you grow more comfortable in your skin, to become a truer person. It’s rewarding to know someone so well and trust one has your best interests at heart. With the SLU girls I have for roommates, I know that this isn’t a universal guarantee.

I’m also someone who cares what people think of them (sadly). I have theories as to why this is, but it’s something I’ve been trying to self-correct for a while now. As I have a best friend like Reena and spent so much time recently with Casey, (two people who are really good at not caring what others think), I think I’m slowly but surely getting there. It’s a work in progress. As you get older, you do care less about what others are saying about you and more just how you feel and what your loved ones think. With so few opinions to care about while living here, I understand how this makes life much easier, much more about your own needs. Not in a selfish way, but a self-preserving one. I know I’ve already written about this, but it’s something I really hope to take away from these past couple of months; this is something I had never thought would be a takeaway from study abroad.

Sunday afternoon Aryan and I got his favorite Spanish tortilla that he had been begging Casey and I to try and then walked around because it was 70 degrees. We went to a park and whispered about these kids that looked way cooler than us, as they smoked on a grassy hill and listened to music on a speaker. They looked like the cool kids from Elite. Aryan wanted to approach them but I got nervous and he did too I think. It was also Sree’s 21st bday; he drank for the first and only time he ever will so I got to hear the recap of his experience. These days were sweet and all that I needed. This is how life should be, after all.

Thank you all for reading and happy living, my dear friends.

With love,

Rachel