My first day in Madrid
I’m writing this post while in the bus, on my way to my old University. I want to go there to visit my roommates and all the friends I have still there. I’m going to go also to the international relationship agency to start the process to evaluate my degree in Canada. I have no plans in the short term to work in Canada but I think it will be useful to know what is my degree’s equivalent in Canada, a document I can also use in the US and in other Commonwealth countries.
I’m suffering a strange cultural shock, specially surprising because I had been only 3 months and a half in Canada. Everything appear slighty different to my senses. The streets are… different because the urbanism is completely different, the stores are different, the cars are different but specially this morning I realized that the people is completely different. There are no black people. There are no asians. And the clothing style is different too.
Another very interesting thing is that usually I’m thinking in English and actually my ideas come to my mind in English. Basically I find myself traslating from English to Spanish and I realized that I have forgot lots and lots of spanish vocabulary. That must be the reason for me to say “good morning” to my 95 years old grandfather when he had waked me up instead of the traditional spanish “buenos dias”. He wasn’t surprised thought, he had lost a lot of hearing capacity in the last years and I’m sure that he didn’t realize that i was speaking in English because I’m sure that he didn’t listen half of my words anyway.
Another interesting matter is when something annoy me and I say “fuck” instead of “joder” or for example, today in the subway, when I had push an old man and I said to him “excuse me” instead of “perdon”.
And the subway… Madrid’s subway trains and stations appear to be sci-fi compared with the TTC. I realized that when I enter in “La Moncloa”, one of the newer stations in the subway system. My first unconscious thought was “this is like a space port!“.
Is really interesting, is like rediscover Madrid again. I think that I will notice lots of other interesting things now that I can see the city from another perspective.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:06 am
It’s the beauty of travelling, it makes you see everything that you think you already knew in a brand new light.
Definetly a learning experience which many around you won’t understand.