So I just spent the weekend in Madrid with Blake Bockhold and Max Winchester. These are the same two guys that came down to Granada with me last weekend. I never gave you the back story on them though, definitely worth sharing:
The two of them have been living in Madrid for close to a year now teaching English. They have a three bedroom flat that they share with a local Spanish girl who is never there. Place is right in the heart of Madrid and pretty sweet spot. I have to say they have been living the dream. Lucky for me they are nice enough to let me crash on their couch, appreciate it. It sounds counterintuitive but the recession has been great to them. In any other time they both would have pulled great jobs out of college and been working the grind in the states but since the recession hit they decided to go live and teach in Madrid. So they signed up for the month long teaching course with no guarantee of employment and headed over to Spain. The first month they spoke no Spanish, had no air conditioning, no job and did not know a soul in Spain. After a year they both are conversational, have made money, traveled all over, made tons of friends in Spain and lived in a foreign country. In the grand scheme of life this experience will be so much better than having had a long term job straight out of college. Not that is a bad thing, heck that’s what I and the majority of my friends did. Looking at this from the outside now though, what an experience. When they are both 80 years old odds are they are going to reminisce more about that one year in Spain then about that finance deal, that trial or that one patient.
Now I believe that all experiences need to be balanced, work, play, solitude, social interaction, travel, time at home, etc. and without work play is nowhere near as fun. But as I do this traveling I see a world that many people don’t ever get the chance to see or experience. I see myself growing through experiences that can only occur in an uncomfortable setting such as Spain. Not being able to ask for what you want or have a small conversation with a Spaniard is extremely frustrating but invigorating at the same time. It reestablishes the fact that I really don’t know cr@p. That the world is a big place and the more I think I know and the more I think I have a grasp the farther from the truth I get. Now I know not being able to speak Spanish well is not a prerequisite for intelligence or knowledge but it does make me realize that there is so much more out there that I have not seen or learned about. It makes me admire Blake and Max for having the gusto/b@lls/guts to take on such a scary experience. I think that is what life is about, challenging ourselves by continuously putting ourselves in uncomfortable growth filled situations: speaking in front of a board room, tutoring an at risk youth, having children, getting married, attempting to speak a language you are sure to butcher, asking you boss for the raise you deserve, etc. These are all opportunities for each one of us to face our fears head on, accept them and grow stronger because of them.
Talking to Blake and Max about their year in Spain it makes me even more excited about my year abroad after I graduate. It does bring up a lot of the fears I have regarding it though. I have never lived outside of the country for more than a month and even then I had the comforts of a study abroad program which makes the experience much less intimidating. I have never spoken a word of Mandarin before. I am not a big Chinese cuisine fan. I will be half way across the world from everything that I know and love. It makes me ask myself, are all the dangers, fears, uncomfortable situations going to make me regret going to Southeast Asia? I don’t believe so but these are the thoughts they provoke. I think in any situation that is new and foreign (actually and/or figuratively) whether it be moving to NYC for an internship at an Investment Bank (Mose, J Brown, etc.), diving head first into a relationship, or joining a gym for the first time all of these things bring up fears and concerns. The people I admire the most are those that see those fears and decide to deal with them instead of avoiding them. Those that understand that fear is a part of life and the more you accept that fact the easier it gets to handle.
I couldn’t help reflect what I have seen and learned from both of these guys. They are both going to be extremely successful in life and I am very happy I have gotten to share this experience with them. I am extremely excited and happy to be going to Southeast Asia after hanging out with these guys.
Ok, now that is out of the way, here is a rundown of what happened over this past weekend:
Wednesday: School then basketball game against some South American’s, we lose the first game because we are half playing and half checking them for knives, second game we destroy them. Had to get big and dominate like the original Dream Team, America Rules! (theme of the weekend, more in a bit) That night I find out that someone stole my identity and withdrew $803 from my account out of an ATM in North Hollywood, CA. I am getting a new card and fully reimbursed, thanks Suntrust! Hate you SoCal, someone just got that much closer to calf implants, have fun too bad now you can’t put on your bedazzled Ed Hardy skinny jeans anymore. Enjoy that irony buddy. After figuring that whole debacle out we end up going to a club that used to be a theatre, pretty sweet actually. We saw a male Spanish Go-Go dancer get violated by a larger than life woman, my eyes still burn from seeing that. He seemed to like it though, other than that great times.
Thursday: Heavily caffeinated class session, last of the week. Grab a bus to Madrid and get into Madrid around 9 pm. Reunited with the aforementioned Blake and Max and the glorious weekend begins. I have to say I already played tourist last year in Madrid so this time around I was looking to just have a good weekend with friends that live in the city.
To start off Blake and Max cook from scratch every night. So in their tradition every night we would head to the grocery store and grab the nightly necessities. The first night we had homemade Sangria, nachos with turkey meat and homemade salsa. The second night we had Caesar salad with shrimp and tapas with French toasted eggplant with caramelized onions and salmon on top. The third night was the day of the world cup match between the US and England so we ended up going to their friends place and BBQ’ing. We made black and bleu burgers with sweet potato fries. We had some leftover meat so Blake and I were downing burger on top of tomato, lettuce and bleu cheese. I called this our game day tapas but Max told me that they weren’t tapas. I think he was pissed b/c he missed out on my sweet creation, Black and Bleu tapas !
Thursday night we didn’t end up doing much other than eating and hanging out. We did reminisce about our families, haha always a fun talk. Great sangria, great food, great night. Love you Family. J
Friday: Slept in (going to be a theme for the weekend as well), Blake makes a quiche best one I have ever had at least until he made a better one Sunday, we go to the gym. The gym is nice but for some odd reason Spanish gym goers do not like to wear deodorant. There was a corridor of the gym that smelled like a soiled diaper, dipped in a vat of 4 day old sweat. Sorry for the description but it was palpable, safe to say I chose to do free weights on the far side of the gym. We eat dinner, its great and head downstairs to Blake and Max’s American friends place. They are celebrating something and there is a British guy named Pedro there that is hilarious. We end up going out to a club called Joy. It is three stories and pretty cool. It cost 11 euro to get in but you get a free drink with admittance and drinks are 12 euro. Blake and I both got our one drink, whiskey on the rocks and make it last. That drink literally lasted 3 hours lol. We leave the club around 4 pm and head back to the flat, their buddy Aaron comes back with us. Aaron is a Fulbright scholar that writes poetry and teaches English. Oh Aaron also played linebacker at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, real cool guy. We all end up smoking hookah until around 7 am and talk about life until we realize that it is light out. Fun night.
Saturday: Sleep in even later, it is game day though. The World Cup has started and the US is playing England at 8:30 pm in Spain. We get the food for the BBQ and head over to their friends place. Blake has a 1996 USA Grant Hill jersey on I am jealous because I have no red or blue. That ends up not being an issue. The group we meet up with is dressed ridiculously and has red, white and blue paint (see pic). We are blasting the theme music to Team America, Charlie Daniels, and anything remotely American while singing our national anthem throughout the day. Blake continuously kept yelling out “Freedom”, we were set to have a great time abusing whatever Brit’s we saw. I personally had 1776 and USA tattooed on my forearms and red, white and blue face paint. Game time is upon us so we take our overly obnoxious group of ‘Mericans and head to an Irish bar. Turns out foreign countries don’t have English or American bars but they do have a ton of Irish bars. So we head to one and get a room in the back because ownership was sure not going to let us out amongst the normal’s. We do make it a point to sing the national anthem amazingly loud, loud enough that people were coming from other rooms to catch a gander at the awesomeness that is our Star Spangled Banner rendition (see clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWZhzw5yGqQ ). For anyone that didn’t watch the game, we ended up with a draw, 1-1. We played a good match and considering were a little lucky with our goal I was more than satisfied with our performance. I will concede Mr. Ryan Moseley, England might be better but we have a better goalie, God Bless Tim Howard!
After the game we head back to the flat, eat some cereal, watch “The League”, great show for those who haven’t seen it and call it a night.
Sunday: Sleep in (shocker), Blake makes a quiche and I pack up. Oh I hadn’t mentioned the weather was horrible all weekend long until Sunday. Sunday was beautiful, we walked all around Madrid, had some café con leche while people watching, ate Tapas and played a bit of tourist. I said goodbye to the fellas around 4:30 pm and headed back to Granada. Unfortunately the woman next to me partially filled up my seat and hers and smelled like cat food. Looking on the bright side I did get most my reading done for class this week, something about the smell of cat food keeps me awake. ME-OW!!!
Safe to say it was a great weekend and I can’t thank Blake and Max enough for making it happen.
P.S. I am writing this right now because I can’t sleep thanks to sleeping in so much this weekend. Looks like a 2 pm siesta is in my cards for tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment