Patient of 19 years presents in the emergency room of Hospital Universitario de Madrid on March 14, 2016, at 22:30, reporting throat pains and suspecting an obstruction by foreign object. Patient reports swallowing a salmon spine. Patient reports no preexisting medical conditions nor allergies to medications. Medical professional inspects the throat and oral cavity. He visualizes no obstruction but cannot visibly inspect deeper than the oral cavity. No specialists are available to investigate further. Patient is instructed to take ibuprofen for pain and to return the following morning for specialist attention.

Patient of 19 years presents in the emergency room of Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz on March 15, 2016, at 01:30, reporting throat pains, suspecting a foreign object. Patient reports difficulty swallowing and breathing, has not experienced increased salivation. Doctor inspects the throat and oral cavity but visualizes no obstruction. Cervical and lateral x-rays of the throat and oral cavity reveal no obstruction. Endoscopic inspection of esophagus by ENT reveals no obstruction. Patient is instructed to strictly avoid pain and anti-inflammatory medications. Patient should return if he experiences immunological response (inflammation) during the next 5 days, in the event that foreign object is present.

While eating dinner Monday night, I swallowed a forkful of salmon and went pale: a bone had become lodged in my throat. Staving off the initial panic, I mustered through the meal, eyes watery, returned to my room and attempted to write homework —to do anything, to deny the dread. But I was disconcerted. Distraught. Sweaty. I panicked. I solicited advice from my parents and host family and swallowed mountains of breads and liters of water to dislodge it and paced the hallway neurotically until requesting that we visit an emergency room.

There was a fish spine stuck in my throat.

In the emergency room of a private hospital, my host father and I waited two hours for attention. I squirmed in my seat. I stared pensively forward, maintaining my head for fear of pain, denying my predicament. My host mother and IES negotiated by phone with hospital professionals, all for the frustrating end of a doctor’s pawing my throat and prodding my tongue with a depressor. They had no ENTs on call. They sent me away, to return the following morning.

“Yes, well, sorry,” said the English-speaking doctor. She said little more.

Eyes drooping from exhaustion, emotional distress prolonged well into the night, yet aroused by the persisting pain, I wobbled into a taxi en route to a public hospital. There, with the program director from IES, we waited another two hours for more appropriate attention: an x-ray, inspection by an ENT, endoscopic examination, all in a fifteen minute flurry. I could feel the bone. I waved fingers at the location. Like a spiny bridge whose supports dug into opposite esophageal walls. Help, please.

But he couldn’t see it.

He discharged me. He didn’t show me the x-rays or endoscopic images, he barely conversed with me, he didn’t reassure me. He spit out a diagnosis and sent me home. I was bewildered. He was wrong. It betrayed the obvious and painful reality —I could feel it there, swallowing, breathing, prodding. There was a fish spine stuck in my throat. That night I barely slept, exclusively preoccupied that my throat would inflame itself at any moment and I would surely suffocate in the night. By the fish spine.

Two stories. Two accounts of the same reality. One is lying.

In my latest run-in with the Spanish healthcare system, this time featuring brick-and-mortar establishments of the private and public variety, I happened upon a diagnostic dilemma that plagues medicine: when medical “reality” contradicts patient “reality.”

In the United States of Certain Distrust for Doctors, Americans frequently disagree with (and ignore) their medical professionals. We stop antibiotic courses when we “feel better,” despite strict orders and the bacterial resistance it breeds. Stories of cancer patients and paralysis victims that “proved the doctors wrong” permeate our media, even though the majority pass away or purchase wheel chairs without notice. Our nation harbors reactionary attitudes towards vaccinations and medications, patients opt for “alternative medicine,” and many die because of it. Beyond the States, I can’t be sure. But given Spain’s homeopathic bend, the same likely applies there as well.

Perhaps our individualism and “can-do” spirit has generalized to medicine —we believe our will can supersede even medical fact. But our emotions and experiences contribute too. In my kerfuffle with the salmon spine, I was truly convinced that it remained lodged in my throat, even after damning evidence to the contrary, conjuring delusional scenarios in which the spine had burrowed into my esophageal wall far enough that it therefore remained unseen.

Two stories. Two accounts of the same reality. Which one is lying?

Having unequivocally survived the fish spine without immunological response nor suffocation nor death, I must admit: my story is lying. That is, medically lying. The doctor’s reports far more accurately detail the physical reality. But what about the emotional one? What about the patient’s perceived reality? At the time, my story —as I perceived it— wasn’t a lie. It was my truth. Invented in my head, yes, and misled by the lingering pain of swallowing (and completely consuming) a fish spine, yes, but still the perceived truth.

The medical reports were lying too.

In the unthinkably complex reality —all including, all excluding— we cannot perceive anything purely or objectively. That’s the human reality. But in the case of medicine, where our closest approximation of objetive reality is king, this creates conflict. Because patients don’t believe it. Because humans are subjective. Humans are emotional. Humans swallow fish bones and panic and envision their suffocation in their sleep because, although medicine is rational, they aren’t.

When skepticism meets medicine, when patients with armchair medical degrees (or WebMD) dismiss their doctors, the issue is often patients. But it’s doctors too. It’s the non-empathetic forty-something that begrudgingly woke at three o’clock to check a paranoid tourist’s throat, rushing the tests and patient out the door. It’s the insufficient reassurance and, often, insufficient emotional services —why do cancer patients reject doctors’ diagnoses? Surely, the answer is emotion. And surely it’s better resolved with chemotherapy and psychological therapy. It’s a lack of education, too, when doctors’ tight schedules prevent the detailed consultations necessary for patients to understand their pathology, their test results, and (if applicable) why their treatments matter.

This fish spine is the story of modern medicine: miscommunication. And it offers a lesson in the empathetic, interpersonal arts: that reorienting and retuning our communication between patients and doctors might forward public health more than any breakthrough could.

Sometime around midnight, when the moon rises over Michigan, when I’ve finished the day’s readings and arrow-pushing mechanisms and essays, I walk. Under the starlights and streetlights, among the scurrying student groups that scribble chalk on sidewalks. I draw South Quad’s doors into the chilly night with headphones in-ear, and Kelly Clarkson serenades me forward.

Depending on the night, and how overwhelming the week, I stumble here and there. I’m not paying attention. My eyes are watery. Sometime around midnight, you start to feel the campus, being at Michigan, because sometimes you crumble under the stress because nobody has it figured out, because sometimes your responsibilities and accomplishments and memories sneak up on you and smear a cold sweat and silly smile across your face, because emotions are complicated.

Sometime around midnight, or maybe ten past, I reach the Dental Building. It’s ugly. That 1970s architecture and beige brick. Why am I here? Why Dental? Maybe it’s the habit: I commute back and forth —South Quad, Dent, South Quad, Dent— rhythmically, unthinkingly, day in and out. I practically live in the Dental Building for research. That must be why. As my eyes skitter up the research tower, the stars above steal them instead, entrancing me in the infinite purples and glittering whites, although only for a second, because the humming Blue Buses at C. C. Little and the giggling chalk-scrawlers inevitably jolt me back.

Sometime around midnight, or maybe twenty past, I cross the MoJo Bridge and loop around Palmer Commons. All around, dorm windows flicker. Life. Students chat and drink, or frantically pull their hair, studying, sexing, crying over relationships or grades or applications for futures that haven’t convinced them yet. They should close their blinds. You never think about that. Blinds. A random detail. Whatever they’re doing better commands their attention anyway. More than blinds. I shouldn’t shortchange them; maybe they feel some inherent interconnectedness that commands them to publicize themselves. To show themselves to the world, to walk around at midnight, watery eyes and hearts on sleeves. For all to see.

Sometime around midnight, or maybe thirty past, I glance down. I startle. Out of the trance. I catch myself. My feet skirt the Diag M, tracing its outlines with tentative toes and wavering over its serifs. I rarely look down; you don’t get far by looking at your feet. Except now. You are never to violate campus traditions; you are never to touch the Diag M, because when a university shapes and remakes you like this one, when it reinvents and inspires and hypnotically trances you for midnight walks and stadium-full spectacles, and when you find yourself humming its tune like a melodic music box at midnight, or maybe thirty past, without purpose, without thought, emotionally stirred, you believe in magic. Magic that exists in the singular tradition of never touching that M. Because it isn’t some sidewalk paver. It’s a tradition that has triumphed and changed the world and expunged high schoolers and replaced them with leaders for more decades than you have years. Like it’s doing to you too.

So you walk around it. You pay it respect.

Sometime around midnight, when the moon rises over Madrid, I stir in my bedroom and push aside the grammar workbook and reach for my headphones; Kelly Clarkson serenades me forward. I rummage for my favorite shoes and the appropriate jacket and whatever else I bring on walks —I couldn’t tell you, it’s become so habitual— and I open the apartment door, starlight and streetlight spilling inward, cars and pedestrians scurrying all about.

As I stand there, before crossing the threshold, my eyes skitter up the building’s facade like always, or what feels like always, the stars above clouded by urban smog, taxis buzzing in my ears. They annoy me now. Didn’t they before? My eyes reach the topmost windows and I’m suddenly disoriented. All around, apartment windows flicker. Life. Spaniards chat and drink and emphatically express themselves to one another, arguing, sexing, romanticizing the details of their personal lives and personal worlds like always. Like always? This isn’t right.

I startle. Out of the trance. I look down.

Why did I look down?

My feet skirt the apartment threshold. Marble steps and stone sidewalks. Safe this time. Safe to look up again, because you never get far by looking at your feet. Madrid extends endlessly before me, an urban metropolis of centuries-old stones juxtaposed with concrete modernity, a tunneling maze of organically grown alleys and underground subways and an unpredictable populace whose culture marries old and new. I’m entranced. Like magic. That word doesn’t taste right. Magic. The chilly air brushes my cheek and I shutter, but I press onward, closing the hefty apartment door behind me because even though Ann Arbor is safe, South Quad still has impressive security, heavy doors, key-card entry, always patrolled by one security guard or another, and I push one foot beyond the threshold and anticipate that midnight Michigan when I realize that I don’t walk at midnight anymore.

I don’t walk at midnight.

I startle. This is a trance. I don’t catch myself. I look back down. Did I step on it? I anticipate that symbol of optimism and tradition and home, The Victors twinkling in my head like a melodic music box, without purpose, without thought, emotionally stirred, like magic, but my head tilts sideways, and the music fades out, and my eyes fill with tears because instead of glimpsing student groups scribbling around that emblematic M and seeing my feet trace its outlines and waver over its serifs, I don’t. I don’t see it. I see sidewalk pavers. Stone sidewalk pavers.

Despite living in Madrid for nearly two months, I still haven’t established a routine. The city is a constant hustle-and-bustle, and I am constantly tired. But for those of you wondering about my international lifestyle, about a “typical” day, I have decided to end the secrecy and reach into the vaults of my personal calendar and release the itinerary for one day and one day only, to let you glimpse my glamorous, albeit inconsistent, life.

This was Marie Antoinette’s downfall. “Let them eat cake.”

My better judgment notwithstanding, here it is, today’s schedule:

6:15 Wake to my first alarm. Hit snooze.

6:30 Wake to my second alarm. Snooze again.

6:45 Wake to my third alarm. You guessed it.

7:00 Realize I’m late. Lurch into the shower.

7:25 Eat a modest breakfast of pan de leche, ham lunchmeat, and cheese. Coffee optional.

7:30 Cram passengers deeper into Metro cars so there’s room for me.

8:15 Arrive at the IES Center (read: a Complutense dorm that rents us space).

8:20 Perch inside the lounge, get ousted by cleaning staff, sit on floor instead.

8:30 Finish the day’s homework, on the floor.

9:00 Rise, like a phoenix, and reclaim my glorious sofa seat.

9:45 Chat with friends, in English, like loud Americans, surrounded by side-eying Spaniards.

10:00 My first class: Internship seminar.

11:30 Eat lunch. Always a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Yes, I am adventurous.

12:05 Check my watch, realize I should’ve arrived at my internship five minutes ago.

12:15 Roll into the Complutense's Dental School by opening absurdly heavy doors. Damn.

12:20 Internship! Serenade some bacteria.

2:00 Crawl back to the IES Center. It’s a fifteen minute crawl.

2:15 Purchase vending machine chocolate, regret it within two bites.

2:30 My second class: Spanish language.

4:00 Herd more people inside subway cars.

4:30 Arrive at the Prado Museum, my final class. Gawk at art for ninety glorious minutes.

6:00 So many god**** subway riders.

6:15 Walk home and, en route, buy gel candies. Regret it. (This is every day.)

6:30 Arrive home, eat pastry with host family. I have a problem.

7:00 Take a nap. Eating is tiring. And it’s midterm week. I deserve a break today.*

7:05 *Speaking of, I should get McDonald’s —no, Nolan, resist the urge! Resist it!

8:00 Wake up, disoriented, wonder where I am.

8:05 Capitulate to readers: Write blog posts, manufacture creativity. You're welcome.

9:00 Eat! Today, fried pork and small baked potatoes. Not the most Spanish plate…

9:45 Finish writing this post.

10:00 I lied, I’m still working on it.

10:05 I lied again, I was procrastinating.

10:15 How is this not done? It’s just an itinerary!

11:00 Hasn’t happened yet, as of writing. But hopefully finishing my homework.

(More likely: Procrastinate, pretend I’m doing homework. That’ll fool myself!, I’ll tell myself.)

11:30 I like a little mystery in my life.

12:00 Remove the (unfinished) homework from my bed. Will I have started it? Who knows?!

12:05 Brush my teeth for the duration of the ABC song. (You know you do it, too.)

12:10 Dream of bacon. And chocolate. And gel candies. My favorite things.

There, now you’ve seen it. I’ve said too much. I hope you’re happy.

Featuring visits to Teatro Arriaga (opera house), La Ribera Market, St. James Cathedral, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao (with an Andy Warhol piece), and St. Anthony Church.

To our surprise, we also chanced upon a bust of John Adams. While touring Europe to research models for the Constitution, he apparently stayed in Bilbao awhile.

(Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28)

Featuring visits to Mount Igueldo (which we rode up and walked down), the historically aristocratic beach, Miramar Palace, St. Vincent Church, St. Mary Church, the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, and some beautiful government buildings.

​(Sunday, February 28)

Featuring visits to the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz, the Cathedral of Toledo, the Synagogue del Tránsito (Sefardí Museum), the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, the Museum of El Greco, and the Church of Santo Tomé (with El Greco's "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz").

For my namesake and Catholicism, I shared a picture with El Greco's "St. Matthew."

​(Friday, February 26)

Hello, everyone.

I apologize for my absence the past two weeks. I had the stomach flu. It started in Granada and left me decommissioned an entire week, removing me from three days of class and internship. Somehow, despite being 6.500 kilometers from the University of Michigan, I still caught the campus plague. Not sure how that works.

Michigan never leaves you.

But don’t worry. It gets worse. I’ve been unable to access my messages and photographs because one night, in my viral delirium, amidst a hasty rush to the bathroom, I dropped my phone in the toilet. After which my first reaction was to rinse it off in the sink.

Yes.

It spent three days in rice, in a sock, on a shelf, then hobbled through a few days of sub-normal functioning, and finally collapsed. It’s visiting Apple tomorrow.

And last week, of course, I played catch-up. Trying times, these two weeks. But the stomach flu did have a silver lining: being confined to bed meant that I didn’t get lost in three days. New record. Another upside: I can share my experiences with the Spanish healthcare system. Spoiler alert: It’s not like the American one. Cover your ears, children. It’s public.

Yes, Americans, most developed nations have public healthcare systems. I didn’t personally participate in the public one; when I awoke after a rocky night, much to my surprise, the doctor appeared at the home. This categorized her visit as private and meant I’d paid out-of-pocket. Cash only. She watched me borrow money from my host mother.

The system is structured roughly like this: The government funds the vast majority of the healthcare industry through taxes and extends equal coverage to all citizens. Should citizens desire different or more immediate treatment, they can visit a private hospital and pay out-of-pocket. But in a country whose highest, most prestigious profession is medicine, the best physicians flock to the public system for higher prestige and lifetime employment, the latter of which all functionaries enjoy after passing an “opposition” exam.

Back to my bodily functions. Before leaving, the doctor prescribed five medications. For the biochemistry junkies (and actual junkies), I got ondansetron to prevent vomiting, as a shot in the hoo-ha; metoclopramide, also for vomiting; Sueroral Hiposódico, a yucky orange, fluid-and-ion-restoring Gatorade, whose English identity I still don’t know; acetaminophen; and my personal favorite, racecadotril/acetorphan, an anti-diarrheal that isn’t legal in the United States.

That’s right, my precious acetorphan, I’ll have to enjoy all of you before leaving.

Now, four of the medications were over-the-counter, so “prescribe” is a strong word. Even “examination” is a strong word, since she basically prodded my stomach and advised self-medication: “Here are some drugs. If you find yourself dying more quickly than usual, visit a hospital.” In her defense, though, you can’t do much more for the stomach flu.

But this reminds me of another run-in with Spanish healthcare. Three weeks ago when my roommate was suffering a rough cough, we visited a pharmacy and he requested cough medicine. The first bottle the “pharmacist” brought —and this horrifies me— was a homeopathic solution. I repeat: A homeopathic solution.

Now, in case you don’t google drugs in your spare time, homeopathic “medicine” premises that water molecules “remember” the shape of curative or active agents. But the “medicines” themselves don’t contain any active ingredients because lower concentrations are supposedly “stronger.” Which means the solution my roommate received was not medicine. It was sugar water. Why the pharmacist offered it first, I don’t know. Why the pharmacy even carries homeopathic remedies, I know neither. He didn’t buy it.

Criticisms aside, the experience is representative of, what seems to be, a more “natural” Spanish culture. Spaniards don’t appear to partake in the… let’s say, creative “health trends” of the States —anti-GMO, anti-vaccination, anti-gluten (all three of which are either ineffective or dangerous). I’ve seen evidence of only one health trend here, as a lone poster in a store window: “detox” cleanses. And I can’t be sure they’re popular.

Spanish food itself is healthier; they eat a Mediterranean diet with virtually no processing or added sugar. (And since this post has become Health Advice with Nolan, added sugars are the primary culprit in America’s obesity crisis. Not fats, the historically popular answer.) Perhaps diet explains the unfathomable Madrileño fitness, because they’re all in amazing shape. They’re all beautiful, too, but diets fails as an explanation there.

No healthcare system is perfect, including the Spanish one. It suffers limited public funding amidst rampant unemployment. But I find it admirable that, despite unemployment or pre-existing conditions, even a cancer-diagnosed homeless citizen could receive full healthcare without question. And that, Americans, is objectively better than our system.

Last Friday morning, I rose with groggy eyes and congested sinuses to board a crowded bus to Granada, a city of worldwide historical importance. In 1492, a recently united Spain expelled the final Muslim presence from Granada and, with its newfound security, financed a trans-Atlantic expedition to access Asian spices. Since I also recently visited Segovia, the crown’s medieval home, I’d like to reflect on Spain’s history.

Now, hold on. I know what you’re thinking.

Don’t exit out. History is fun, dammit.

The history of Spain reads like a bittersweet Shakespearean tragedy, a dramatic tale of triumphant rise, prolonged enrichment, and painful faltering.

Until the fifteenth century, Spain was an international non-player, a fragmented collection of kingdoms that loosely shared languages. But with the unification of Castile and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand, and with their bankrolling Columbus’ voyage, Spain (plus Portugal) dominated the international scene, ferociously importing American spices and gold, constructing unprecedented labor systems, and revolutionizing Western food, government, medicine, and science. That is, until its inflationary habits and strained colonial organization crumbled its economy, left it trailing behind streamlined empires (like Britain), and fostered within it a vulnerability to fascist dictatorship.

Bittersweet.

But that’s your history too, my love. It’s all Westerners’.

The United States is a reflection of Spanish history: imperialistic roots in monstrous Spanish and Portuguese empires; involvement in Latin American countries that were purposefully underdeveloped to serve Spanish imperial needs, and whose revolutionary turmoil was the aftershock of ours; a history of slavery pioneered by Spanish and Portuguese plantation and ingenio owners; a budding capitalism that necessarily developed from complex international trading. We, Americans, are Spaniards too.

For better or worse.

Early in my program’s orientation, a professor related the “two Spains” hypothesis. Exactly how popular it is, I don’t know, but it goes like this: Modern Spaniards reflect on their nation as if there were two, one that represents their rich culture and proud progress, and one that contains the nation’s historical blunders. The latter wasn’t their fault: the wrongdoing of misguided, unrepresentative leaders, a collection of unfortunate, often unavoidable circumstances. The former represents their best, truest selves. The following excerpt from the poem “Apología y petición” captures it:

Yes, yes, of course I was going to translate it:

What is Spain today? It’s a hesitant, chaotic democratic monarchy with economic dysfunction and Great Depression unemployment. A country whose children must, of necessity, live with their parents into their thirties, and whose government’s volatility reflects its forty-year-old adolescence. I recently read an op-ed in the newspaper ABC that desperately encouraged Spaniards to vote with continuity, not for new “trendy” parties, and that posited faithful democracy as the best (and perhaps only) solution to their economic woes.

Spain is also a country whose culture radically emerged from rigid Franconian dictatorship with an uncertain yet fierce pursuit of free expression. It is distinct. In the metro, in the park, wherever, couples osculate carnivorously, publicly, to the embarrassment of the puritanical American. Across the Complutense campus, student groups have defaced literally every building with gaudy graffiti, reading “anti-fascism,” “anti-capitalism,” and whatever other superficially poignant phrase they could produce. It’s “free expression?”

According to natives and my own limited observation, Spanish culture currently struggles to reconcile a proud yet tumultuous history with post-dictatorship rebirth. It’s a battleground for cultural cornerstones, new and old, all competing for dominance. Case in point, bull fights: In certain regions, bull fights are wildly popular, capturing a bloody yet rich cultural heritage, a spectacle of inexplicable gore, yet millions of Spaniards despise them for animal mistreatment —and for misrepresenting modern Spanish culture. The debate is a regular news story. Turn on the TV and there it is. Barcelona recently banned them. Madrid is heading that direction.

American culture is, by no means, static or homogeneous. But as I dip my toes into Spanish culture, there’s a noticeable tentativeness. Like a silent whirlpool of influences that could, without warning, swallow new influences or eject ones of centurial standing.

Spain stands at a precipice. It’s surveying its options. And the direction it chooses will, like the Spain of centuries past, draw our whole Western world with it.

Featuring visits to Arabic baths, the Cathedral of Granada, a flamenco dance performance, and the Alhambra, a complex of fortresses and palaces built throughout the Middle Ages.

(Friday, January 29 to Sunday, January 31)

This upcoming Monday marks my third full week in Madrid. And as the honeymoon phase wanes, the homesickness waxes. Let me be clear: Madrid still enchants me, and it won’t ever stop. But there are some grievances that I need to address. Most importantly: How much I miss American bacon.

This is serious. On more than one occasion, I have walked the bustling streets of Madrid, glanced the word “bacon” on a diner window, and clamored to the counter to try it —only for the disappointment of basically thinly sliced ham. Not crispy, lean American bacon. Just marbled ham.

I need a moment. To wipe my tears.

The Spanish pork industry is massive. Spaniards eat as much meat as Americans but with a strong preference for pork. All cuts, especially as thin filets. Stores exist that sell nothing but pork products, with pig legs (literally pre-cut, still hoofed and hairy pig legs) hanging in the windows. And the Spanish language has produced a word exclusively for them: jamonerías (roughly translated, “ham stores”).

But there’s no American bacon.

I’m getting desperate.

Send help.

Despite their meat consumption, though, Madrileños are beautifully fit. Impossibly fit. Dumbfoundingly fit. How do they do it?! They eat five meals per day! Breakfast, large snack, enormous lunch, modest dinner, tapas late at night. Is it the lack of processed sugar?! Is there a fountain of eternal thinness? On top of that, the past hundred years of limited immigration, in-breeding, and sexual selection has produced the most attractive (consistently, naturally attractive) people on the planet. Gods and goddesses of man.

Goodness gracious.

But back on point: food.

Spanish breakfasts are simple. No bacon and eggs (actually, eggs are rare here), no waffles or pancakes, instead just coffee and fruit or pan de leche (sweet bread). The coffee isn’t drip-brewed either, rather espresso. My host mother maintains an entire pot of espresso, permanently waiting on the stovetop. You just take a shot or two, add milk, and microwave it. And although their national patriotism is subtle, Spaniards are aggressively patriotic about their coffee. Whenever I tell someone I’m American, their first comment to me is frequently: Your coffee is terrible.

“Hola, I’m Nolan. I’m American.”

“Your coffee sucks.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Then they say something about weak, dark water.

Nobody walks around with coffee either. Or food, for that matter. In the States, every morning hater walks to work or class with Starbucks or muffin in hand (and then consumes it in class). Not here. And despite their lack of any coffee-walking balancing act, Madrileños walk frustratingly slow. As a fast-paced American, I have places to be! Things to do! How are you so slow?! The pace of life is slower all around.

(That said, and my host mother confirmed this, when an American shoves you out of way, they apologize, albeit insincerely; in the unlikely event you’re slower than a Madrileño, they just shove. At this rest stop yesterday, an older woman apparently couldn’t walk around me, so she stiff-armed my stomach to hunt down potato chips.)

Whenever I’m trapped behind slow walkers, though, I do have the opportunity to people watch. Staring is culturally acceptable, so I analyze everyone. Once again, I’ll emphasize their astounding attractiveness. But compared with Americans, Spaniards’ faces are also softer. Less tense. As if their relaxed lives manifest in their facial muscles. Maybe the culture is warmer and more welcoming, maybe it’s the aggressive in-breeding —I don’t know. But whenever my eyes meet someone else’s on Gran Vía, a popular shopping avenue, they seem happier. More satisfied with life. More so than busy Americans. Their faces soften. Maybe that’s what’s so beautiful.

Before closing out, I’ll offer one last choque: sexual slang. That’s right. Sexual slang. My vocabulary is very Latin American, with a Mexican bend, due to my educational background. In Spain, many words have different meanings. For example, here the verb “coger” means “to grab” something: something you’ve dropped, answering a telephone, whatever. But in Mexico —and this is seriously the definition I knew before arriving— it means to f***. Vulgar connotation and all. You can imagine my bewilderment when my host mother told me to f*** the telephone and then f*** the silverware while setting up dinner.

Another: “Leche” is milk. It means milk worldwide. But an online admirer recently suggested that we lie together in bed and drink milk. Which confused me to no end. Why would we drink milk in bed? Incidentally, and this is true, “leche” can be slang for semen.

Bonus: Here is a picture of me legally drinking wine.

Two weeks ago, I embarked on an international adventure: studying abroad in Spain. For the next four months, I will live and breathe Madrid, learning the culture, practicing the language, and drinking wine. It will represent cultural exchange, coming-of-age, self-finding, and legal-alcohol-buying all in one. I will have a life entirely separate from my American one. And I'll be four months removed from Donald Trump. I can't wait.

This is the inaugural post for my “I’m in Spain!” blog, which I will continue to publish here. To contact me, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and email are all golden.

Having settled in, and completed our two-week orientation, I am steadily becoming aware of the subtleties of Madrid life. But I’ll start with the immediate observations.

Spaniards talk fast. Really fast. Faster than Latin Americans, and definitely faster than English speakers. Having learned only from Latin American professors for the past five years (and therefore never having heard a Spanish accent), as well as having harbored an overinflated sense of ability, here I am the space cadet American. My deer-in-headlights look outshines Blue Steele and even Magnum. It’s Oscar-worthy.

My Spanish has rapidly picked up the slack. Out of necessity.

Which is good, considering how often I get lost.

I live in Romeo. Which is small. Even Ann Arbor pales in comparison to Madrid. In fact, a Complutense professor visited orientation to discuss university culture and said, of his graduate studies at Michigan, that American schools are “in the middle of nowhere” and that Ann Arbor failed to entertain him for more than four nights.

Madrid is massive, and my feet hurt. Where am I? Yet every time I’ve gotten lost, I’ve apparently made it back home. So good, so far! I am sure my parents find that reassuring.

Another reason my feet hurt: Spaniards party until six o’clock in the morning, every Thursday, every Friday, and every Saturday. My host mother calls it juevedomingos —Thursundays, in English —like one long party. Spaniards have an insatiable appetite for (responsibly consumed) alcohol, dancing, and fiestas, and yet they never take siestas. The Spanish siesta is apparently a myth, much to my feet’s disappointment. And as an American, where the clubs turn down at two, this is exhausting. This lifestyle is unsustainable. How do they do it?!

Despite my constantly ragged, overwhelmed, confused American appearance, the Spaniards are wonderfully accommodating. Aside from one late-night street flasher, an experience that will haunt me until my grave, dear God, these people have cultivated a culture of wholesomeness, love, and raunchy public displays of affection. They opt not to partake in Midwestern-esque small talk, or insincere well-wishes to anyone, instead truly caring about a select few. You feel it. In professors, in host families, in friends. They rarely smile. They stare unashamedly at anyone for any reason. Yet the love, albeit less obvious, may be more concentrated than in American culture.

Right now, it is one o’clock in the morning here, and I start class tomorrow, so this will close my first post. But one final note: I wrote the first paragraph above on the flight here. (Well, that particular flight was delayed twice and cancelled, so technically wasn’t the flight here. But no matter.) In my naivety, I wrote, “And I'll be four months removed from Donald Trump. I can't wait.” However, in the first newspaper that I bought, wouldn’t you know it: An entire page dedicated to the oracle himself. He is inescapable. Delicious.