Visiting Madrid

I just realized that I never blogged about my visit to Madrid…and that was like a month and a half ago. Let’s see if I can recap it all.

As always, Madrid was great. I was super excited to go and see everyone. I arrived on a Thursday afternoon. Tess picked me up from the airport and we spent the rest of the day hanging out and catching up. It was so great to see her.

On Friday, the boys (Xalba, Iñaki and Unai) made dinner for us girls (Tess, Sara and me). It was a wonderful dinner with lots of good food and good conversation. It was like old times again and it made me so happy to be there among some amazing friends. I, of course, had to be nosy and check out my old room. There’s an Italian girl living there now and it was weird to see it with her stuff and not mine. The boys said I was a better roommate (ha!). After forcing Xalba to sing and play a couple songs on his guitar, we continued the fun times at a discoteca. The night ended with Tess and I stopping for chocolate con churros on the way home.

On Saturday, we had our second annual Halloween Party at my old piso. This was the main reason I came to Madrid. Halloween last year was such a success that Tess and the boys wanted to have another party and they wanted me to be there. This year I dressed up as Gripe Porcina (or swine flu). I dressed in all pink, wrote GRIPE on my shirt, and wore a make shift pig’s nose. People didn’t quite get it at first but it caught on.

The party was even bigger this year. There were so many people, people I had never seen in my life! I knew maybe ten people there. I found myself hanging out in Xalba’s room most of the night to avoid the crowd. I was feeling suffocated. Other than that it was fun. The next day however was not so fun. I had to catch a very early flight Sunday morning, so I went straight from the party to the airport. I pretty much spent the entire day sleeping as soon as I got home.

My trip to Madrid was bittersweet. It’s a known fact that I love Madrid and my heart will always be in Madrid. But being there also reminded me of the worst part about Madrid: the lack of permanency. It reminded me of how people and friendships come and go in Madrid. I don’t know if it’s just because I meet the same kind of people in Madrid, outsiders from other countries or other parts of Spain. This aspect of living in Madrid always made me sad. Every time I leave and come back, I lose old friends and have to make new ones. It’s always fun to meet new people and make new friends, but it’s not that easy to do after a certain age. That night of the party, I thought about a lot of people and I was missing all of them.

My weekend in Madrid made me wonder how long I would have lasted there, knowing that most of my relationships were temporary. I like to think that I would have stayed for a long time. After all, I am crazy about the city. But another part of me think that that probably would have gotten pretty old. Now that I’m looking for a little more stability in my life, I probably would have grown to get tired of it and leave. This then leads me to wonder if I left Madrid at a good time, before I got sick of it; Is it better that I left with good memories rather than leaving, running the hell out of there? I guess we’ll never know.

By the way, in case you were wondering how I was able to afford a ticket to Madrid…well, I couldn’t. Being an awesome friend that she is, Tess bought me a ticket. Since I couldn’t quite get enough work to buy me a ticket, she decided that instead of her buying herself a ticket to BCN, she would buy me a ticket to Madrid. So she called me one night and told me she was doing so. I was glad and very grateful to take her up on her offer. I hope someday I can surprise her with a ticket somewhere.