Integration Issue

This is sooooo long overdue. Although my Yankee assimilation into Castillian culture may never actually be complete, I think I've reached what could be considered integration!

I remember a couple of months into my stay here, just after the 19th nervous breakdown, I was watching the sunset at Casa de Campo park near my house. The park is huge and the setting, with the forest of green trees and the dusty mountains in the distance, is a beautiful place to watch the sunset. The buildings of the city center can be seen off in the distance in the other direction. So, I'm sitting there, watching and reflecting, and suddenly I realize, I'm watching the sunset by MY house in MADRID, SPAIN!!! Wow, for the first time, it felt like home. I have suffered much more alienation since that point, but it was a beginning.

The Mountains in the Background
The City in the Distance
The Revelatory Sunset

Another turning point was when I returned from my trip to San Sebastian and Bilbao in August. After almost a week in Basque Country, I returned to Madrid's Avenida de America bus and metro station, which is always bursting with people. As soon as I entered the metro, I let out a sigh of relief to finally be HOME.

Then, I really knew that I had reached a milestone when I recently had a moment of clarity during a weekly two-hour organizational meeting for my volunteer group. As the coordinator spoke about a pressing issue, there were at least three side conversations going on while another person sat at the window in the back smoking a cigarette. Suddenly, the coordinator's phone rang with the latest-latin-pop-song ring tone. He answered it, and proceeded to talk to the person for two minutes. "Hi, I'm in the meeting, what are you doing..." The clarity for me was that this was often how the meeting went, and I never really think twice about it anymore. For just a moment, I remembered how absurd this would seem at a meeting in the states.

I love Madrid, and after the first couple of months of hell, I think I finally reached Stage III of culture shock. At this moment, I might even be at Stage IV, which is crazy, and perhaps a bit frightening. It's pretty amazing, though, considering how it all began. (Can you say "emotional disaster, kids?") I'm so pleased, because one of my primary regrets about my six months in Costa Rica was that I spent the majority of my time with Americans, and I never really felt like I had become integrated into Costa Rican culture.

One of the guys who recently came to look at an open room in our flat was from Berkeley, and we were discussing our thoughts on Madrid. He said, "There are tons of Americans here." I'm like, "Really, I haven't noticed." Aside from my friend Jerry, I spend all of my time with Spaniards. OK, let's not deceive ourselves... I spend a lot of time alone, so it's not like I have this eternal Spanish fiesta going on with ALL of my myriad friends, but I do hang out with Spaniards at least a couple of times a week, and I finally have a few pretty close friends.

The down side to all of this is that, just as my integration is feeling really authentic, I've decided that I need to return to the states to kind of get the ball rolling in the next direction. I'll be back in the Midwest in January and then back to San Francisco at the beginning of February. I am so very sad that I'll be leaving all these amazing people that I've met, but I'll definitely be back, and at least I have some cool friends with whom to share more fun moments before I go.