How I Spent My 23rd Birthday

Saturday, October 2nd was an important day for two reasons: it was my 23rd birthday, and it was the day I left for Spain. After two days of packing and preparations after getting my visa, my parents and I made a long trip to Toronto's Pearson Airport to put me on my flight to Barcelona. It was tough to celebrate my birthday while driving, but it was worth the sacrifice to finally be turning my long-hypothetical occupation into a reality.

As much as I like traveling, I really do not enjoy flying. The planning process is frustrating, the restrictions are limiting, and something about airports and airplanes gives my head a funny feeling. I attribute it to lack of oxygen. In any case, I was not just traveling, but MOVING to another country, which entails various issues with customs as well. I was pretty wound up, to say the least. Having said that, things did go very smoothly.

The flight was unremarkable, but let me remark about it anyway. After a delay at the gate - some minor repairs - we left about an hour late. Somehow we still made it on time, which shows you how much discount airlines pad their schedules. Once in the air, I found myself still too on edge to sleep, so I did my best to enjoy Grown Ups and Iron Man 2. I specifically did not put my headset on for Letters to Juliet, but the screen was so bright I ended up watching most of it anyway. I don't think sound would have added anything to the story that I didn't gather from the images. One positive about the flight that I didn't acknowledge until afterwards was the absence of crying babies.

The final stress test was passport control, where I was entering with the visa for which I had paid $125 and waited one month. I guess being on a plane full of tourists has its advantages - the customs agent simply stamped my passport with a visitor visa and didn't even look at the student visa filling up page 12. It was a bit frustrating to have it be ignored after all that, but in the end the lack of hassle was worth it.

I took a train from the airport to Barcelona-Sants Estacio - one of the city's major train stations - bought my ticket to Logroño and pondered what to do with myself for a few hours. I revisited the sites of my previous arrival in Barcelona. Like last time, I had not slept. Unlike last time, I was not ill or suffering from the theft of my wallet. I strolled past the police station where I had reported the robbery, then took the subway to the Plaça Catalunya and took a look at the Canadian consulate that saved my bacon (pun intended). And then I wandered down La Rambla, passing the first of many Western Union offices that I would use last summer to get money from my parents after losing my wallet. After an hour that reminded me why I was so happy NOT to be staying in Barcelona with its army of tourists, I returned to the train station and boarded my four-hour train to Logroño.

Boarding Spanish trains is like boarding North American planes used to be. There's a long line waiting to get on, attendants check your ticket, and you need to pass your bags through an x-ray. Once on the train, however, Renfe (the Spanish national train company) employees are a rare sight. Although I did not have much space to myself, my sleep deprivation ensured that I couldn't keep my head up for more than a few minutes at a stretch. The countryside looked a bit like the American Southwest looks in pictures - which is probably why the spaghetti Western film genre began. It was a stark reminder of how different this place was to anywhere I had lived before.

Beatriz and Ana, two of my English-teaching coworkers, greeted me at the Logroño train station. I haven't asked how they knew it was me yet, but I imagine a ratty t-shirt, a baseball cap, and tons of luggage were a pretty dead giveaway. They helped me find a place to stay for the night and later I went out for a small dinner with Ana and her boyfriend Anibal, who doesn't speak English (but is quite aware of the comparisons his name raises with Hannibal Lecter).

As it turns out, there are quite a number of other language ambassadors in Haro, the town in which I will be teaching, two of whom are there to teach French and the rest English. It seems most people live in Logroño and commute, which I regard as a bit of a shame, but convenience may demand that I do it as well. In any case, I am off to Haro for the first time tomorrow to see the school and meet the faculty. From what Beatriz and Ana have told me, they have never had someone from my program before, so the standards are as low as can be, which is exactly how I would have preferred it.