Mad in Madrid

This is a story about drunken nights, lasting friendships and literally the most annoying plane delay ever. Welcome to my life as a telenovela.

Episode 4: Party like you’ll never see him again

The Recap

If you’ve gotten this far into my travel telenovela story, then you might be wondering how some of drama ends. We can call this the season finale for this first part of the story. I am unashamed to tell you that this is a love story, but not just about how I fell in love with someone from a different country but with the country itself.

It is important for you to know at this point that I had been planning a lot of trips during my exchange semester in Spain. I had this insane perception that I had to see everything I wanted in Europe during this six-month stint or I never would. Here’s a big spoiler alert for the future: I definitely come back to Europe. But anyways, I was an exchange student from Canada, which is the second largest country in the world and an entire ocean away, so I felt like everything in Europe was close. I made it my mission to plan something for every free weekend I had. Plus, flights in Europe were so much cheaper than they are in North America. I mean, I flew to Paris for something like approximately $80 (€70) round trip for my birthday, but that's another story.

This planning was in fact very important a few months into my exchange. I had planned many of the trips beforehand, but planned quite a few after I arrived in Spain. I had left the first and last month of my exchange free in order to focus on adjusting to my new home and then for exams and reorganizing myself at the end. A few of the friends I made abroad quickly noticed my travel bug and wanted to join me on some of my trips, which encouraged even more trip planning. So the girl that became one of my closest friends during my exchange insisted that we take a trip together to Madrid, the capital of Spain.

More plot twists

It was done almost the moment we thought about it. I was on the computer booking flights and she was helping look into hostels and soon enough, we had a trip planned! I hadn’t really thought about it much until a few weeks later when I was face to face with the guy I met in Santander (if you don't know what I mean, go to episode 1). I innocently asked when he was planning to go home to the United States and I received a thorough response about his plans to spend a few days in Madrid before leaving from the Madrid airport on this specific date.

That date sounded familiar. I reached for my phone and checked the date, which indeed was the date I would also be in Madrid. I was going crazy. Meeting in Santander was one thing, then seeing each other in Barcelona felt like a second chance, but this third opportunity to see each other felt very much like fate. But there was no planning, no discussing if we would see each other. Just the acknowledgement that we would both be there at the same time. I don’t think either of us wanted to face the fact that we felt very strongly for each other but did not foresee how this relationship would work out after he went home to the USA and I, to Canada. So we didn’t face it.

A few weeks later, I boarded a plane headed to Madrid with my best exchange friend (BEF). Do yourself a favour and make friends while you’re abroad because things can be scary and really boring if you don’t have someone you can laugh with and lean on when times are tough. My BEF was a wild Belgian girl who was also on her Erasmus/Exchange at my university. We had one class together with a lot of other exchange students (because the class was in English LOL). Another one of my BEFs was her roommate at the time, but she didn’t go with us on this trip.

The plane drama

After boarding the plane, we sat for something like an hour before we actually left. Apparently we had not been cleared to take off right away, but once we finally got taxiing to take off, we had to turn the plane around because of a sick passenger. I think that a person’s health is always priority, so I was not too annoyed at this point, but I could tell that a lot of other people were.

The crew managed to get the sick passenger off the plane and it seemed like everything was back on track, but after sitting again for a little while, it really did not seem like we were going anywhere. Finally, an announcement from the pilot informed us that the plane was not safe for takeoff because of a mechanical issue so we all had to get off the plane and move to another one. Through all this, I was translating to my BEF who didn’t speak too much Spanish just yet, but we laughed it off while video-calling with her family and making plans for what we wanted to do the next day.

After getting off the plane, onto a bus to transfer us to another plane, and then back on a new plane, we were really on our way. The delay was already two and a half hours and I heard some other passengers mumble that if it was delayed by just that extra half hour more, we would all be eligible to get compensation. You know, they say to be careful what you wish for because just as we finished pulling into the gate in Madrid, the lights turned off and an announcement said that the plane needed to be recharged before they could attach the jet bridge so we could get off. Well let me tell you, we definitely did get our compensation a few weeks after the trip.

Making it out in Madrid

But first, the trip. So we finally get to the hostel in downtown Madrid, but it’s already a little late to do anything and we were pretty exhausted. So we opted to sleep and start with an early day the next day. As I was sleeping that first night, I couldn’t help but think about the American guy and how this could be the last time I saw him before he went home. So I went with my gut and sent him a message saying that if he wanted to meet me the next day, I’d be happy to do so at some point, but I would be with my friend and it would be his call.

The next day was hectic, to say the least. Madrid is a big city. Our hostel was close to the infamous Plaza Mayor, so we passed through it first thing in the morning to check it out without too many people yet. My BEF and I then started the day with a wonderful breakfast in a café near Retiro Park. We decided that we would hit up the park for the morning in order to get a breath of fresh air before hitting up the busy parts of the city. It was a lovely choice. The park was not only stunning with the amount of grass and trees providing ample shade to literally chill, but we walked by some fantastic street performers and pretty sites including the Palacio de Cristal and Palacio de Velázquez which are both situated inside the park. We then opted to go row-boating in the Estanque grande del Retiro, which is a giant pond inside the park with a scenic view and the backdrop of the beautiful Monument of Alfonso XII. We joked that we were like Noah and Allie from the Notebook in that iconic boat scene before they profess their love to each other. Maybe it was a foreshadow for what would happen to me not less than 24 hours in the future. But we’re not there yet.

Estanque del Retiro, row boating!

Palacio de Cristal in Retiro Park

It was a gorgeous summer day and with that comes the heat of the Spanish sun. After all that time outdoors, my BEF and I decided that it was time to head somewhere indoors. A museum perhaps! We headed over to the Museo Nacional del Prado, one of the world’s most renown art museums which houses many works of art from famous Spanish artists, namely Velázquez. He painted Las Meninas, which I really wanted to see in real life, so I was excited for this part. We learned that you could actually get into the museum for free in the evenings, but you had to wait in a long line from at least an hour beforehand. With our student budgets, we thought we could come back for it later, so instead we headed over to the Real Jardín Botánico where the rows of flowers were perfect for picture taking.

At the point, I had not heard back from the American guy and I was starting to get antsy, but I decided not to let it bother me. After the Botanical Garden, we tried for another museum. This time, we made our way to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which wasn’t too far away but in the process of walking over, we walked into a protest. Protests seem to be very normal for big Spanish cities, or at least in both Madrid and Barcelona. After walking that way, we didn’t even end up going into the museum and instead decided to head back towards the hostel to get some rest. On the way, we passed by Puerta del Sol, a big square in the centre of the city. It was packed and we barely got a picture of the famous statue of a bear and a tree. It’s called El Oso y el Madroño and I can’t remember exactly, but there is definitely a weird fascination with taking a picture with it. We did get a picture with the Kilometro Zero which is the starting point for counting kilometres in Spain.

El Oso y el Madroño in Puerta del Sol

Party

Once we were back at the hostel, we took our little siesta and planned out our night. The hostel was hosting a pub crawl and my BEF definitely wanted to go. I am also usually not one for bar hopping or even drinking out that late, but I admittedly was kind of sad that I didn’t think I would see my American guy again, so I agreed to go to help distract myself from it. We made our dinner that night in the hostel kitchen and drank a little wine to go with it. Then we got dressed up and joined everyone downstairs for the night out. Of course, only then did I finally receive a message from Mr. America who recounted the tale of his day without data since he was getting on a plane the next day and had already cancelled his phone plan.

I was in disarray. He was already back home with old friends who had offered him a place to stay and leaving to see me wasn’t quite an option since those friends lived in the suburbs. I told myself it was meant to be this way and that seeing each other just wasn’t going to happen. I went on the pub crawl and had a great time. I can’t tell you where we went because frankly, I didn’t pay attention much at all to where we were going and I was having way too much fun. I'm not sure if it's always a good idea to party with heartache, but it was definitely fun!

We met some people from another hostel and ours who were from all over: the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and various parts of the United States. That night, it seemed like everyone was my friend. At some point, a guy from the States gave me water before I could get too out of myself and at another point, I headed to McDonald's with a group of people and one of them paid for my food. In the midst of this, I split ways with my BEF who wanted to spend some more time with a French guy that she had met. I was happy that at least she could enjoy meeting a guy in Madrid, and I knew she was going to be fine, so I let her be. It was a crazy night. I was back at the hostel with the McDonald's group around 3 or 4 a. m. and we ended up just having deep life talks where I spilled my heart out to these people that I hardly knew. They listened to me so intently and gave me the advice to just tell this American guy how I felt.

So I did. Against any better judgement, I just did it. I sat in the staircase of the hostel and said everything I could say. Surprisingly, I got a pretty quick response. He was laying awake because he didn’t know how to feel about going home and apparently because he had missed the chance to see me that day. To this day, I’m not sure what made me do it but I asked where he would be at the airport the next morning. His flight was at 11:30 a. m., which didn’t leave me much time, but I knew what I was going to do.

The Mad Dash

I fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later to an alarm. I jumped out of my bed and got ready as quietly and quickly as I possibly could in that hostel room. Then, seeing that my BEF had gotten safely to her bed, I ran over and whispered “I’m going to the airport. I’ll be back in a few hours” and she nodded something and mumbled out an “okay”. Not a moment too soon, I was on my way. I hit up the metro and I already knew the way since we took the metro to get to our hostel from the airport just a day and half earlier. I sent the American guy a message that was more like an order, quite honestly: “Do not pass through those security gates until you see me” it read.

I got out of the metro and into the very modern looking Madrid airport. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. I stood in front of the check in desks for his airline, but I didn’t see him. It was 9:30 a. m. and I was getting desperate because I did not know if he had seen my message yet. I decided that my best bet was to wait outside the security gates. It felt like forever, but I finally got a message back that read “okay”. It was only a matter of time. I scanned the crowd and he messaged asking me where I was and my heart started to pound. “In front of security” I sent back.

Then I saw his face. A face that I had first seen merely six weeks before in Santander. Then once again during a night walk in Barcelona. And now, across a crowd in the Madrid airport. This next part was as dramatic as any telenovela scene you have ever watched and thought “that’s super cheesy, but so sweet”. I ran to him through the crowd. I don’t know why, but I was on a mission. He ran to meet me. And when we did meet, our embrace felt like it lasted forever. He picked me up and I only clung on tighter. All the wonder and worry from the last several weeks of talking to each other just spilled out in the way he looked at me. I was locked into his arms and I felt I could stay there for a very long time. In that moment, I did not care what happened after he got on that plane and back to America. I was not sure if we would ever see each other again, but in that moment, nothing else mattered except him.

Goodbye

We did not have too much time before he had to go through the gates, so we sat outside of them and just talked. I teased him about how he packed his bag, he teased me for wanting to take a polaroid picture of him. And at the end, he picked up his stuff and we embraced one more time. We looked into each other’s eyes and said our goodbyes. That’s when I knew I would be okay. I could have peace with this moment.

He went through the security gates without looking back and an hour later, I was back at the hostel with my BEF who was now fully awake but still in bed. She asked me why I went to the airport and I just said that I had something important to do, but even she knew that I had just said goodbye to someone I loved for an indefinite amount of time. I held onto the polaroid that I took of him for the next several weeks. Eventually, I hid it away in a safe place until I arrived back in Canada.

Later that day, my BEF and I were both nursing a headache from lack of sleep and a good amount of alcohol in our system. So we decided we could spoil ourselves for lunch. We reviewed how the night went for both of us after we split ways and I learned that nothing happened with the French guy, except that he seemed insistent on messaging her now. We both sat and contemplated the beauty of love and life and she toyed with the idea “You know, maybe that guy is your soulmate. I mean, he’s obviously not just a crush or you wouldn’t be feeling like this when you tried so hard to get over him from the start” and I thought that maybe she was right. If it was meant to be, we would see each other again.

But friendships never end...

This same day, we decided to check some of Madrid’s crown jewels because if you weren’t aware, Spain does in fact still have a monarchy, so the Royal Palace still gets a little bit of use. The Palace itself is gorgeous from the outside and regrettably, we did not go inside to see the rooms, but I have heard they are beautiful. The area surrounding the palace was just lovely and the gardens in front of them were very pretty. We even sat in one of the gardens to look out at the river and get a nice view of the Cathedral de la Almudena which is right beside the palace. We then walked over to probably the most picturesque and well known streets in Madrid and in Spain. Calle de Gran Vía did not disappoint at all. It was full of high end shops and even big department stores, including huge Primark in the middle. It was like the Spanish Champs Elysées or more Spanish Passeig de Gràcia (in Barcelona, which many argue is not Spain). Also, for any Canadians out there, I was very happy to find multiple Tim Horton’s restaurants in Madrid. It seems that the Spanish really enjoy Canadian donuts and coffee! I took my Belgian BEF there to check out Timbits and an Iced Capp!

Royal Palace and surrounding gardens

Tim Horton's in Madrid!

Then finally, we made our way over to the Museo Nacional del Prado again so we could wait in the line to get in for free. During our wait in that line, I got a message from the guy that "could be my soulmate". And even though we had said our goodbye at the airport, I had this feeling that we just weren’t quite done with each other yet. He was starting up our conversation again. Walking into the Prado, I was enthralled by the paintings on the wall. There was something about a moment captured in time that grabbed at my heart. Or maybe it was also that I knew this particular day was one I would remember for a long time, but I felt the timelessness of the paintings and the surroundings. Oh, and I did get to fangirl over Las Meninas.

On our way back to the hostel, we passed by Puerta del Sol again and were able to capture the night energy. We saw a group of B-boys dancing on the street to entertain the adoring crowd who were all gathered to bask in the night lights coming from all the vibrant signs. It was something that made me feel alive and excited for what lay ahead for the rest of our adventure. We again decided to treat ourselves to a dinner in Plaza Mayor that night because it was also buzzing with people eating wonderful Spanish dishes.

I realized that night the girl sitting across from me would be a friend for a long time. It felt like I had found a sister in her. This trip had taken both of us through some highs and lows and we both sat there a little tired, but so full of joy because we had no clue what the future looked like, but we were so excited to take advantage of our present.

The next day, we took the few hours we had left to explore more of the parks and little corners of Madrid. We found a small, but cute bookstore called Desperate Literature that sells books in Spanish, English, French and a small selection of other languages. We both picked out a couple books and then walked over to a park to take some time to read them. We found ourselves back at Gran Vía to take one more stroll down the busy street and grab some more Timbits to take back to Barcelona* for my roommates.

Then, we were back at the airport and soon enough, back in Barcelona. And after this crazy weekend, I had some time for reflection and wondering what I wanted for myself. I felt like I had gone a little more out of my comfort zone and faced some of the things I feared. I liked that version of myself. The one that was fearless and loved strongly and lived life to the fullest. I got home that night and told myself that I would like to stay that way.

And so far, it’s been working out.

*Barcelona opened up a Tim Horton’s sometime after I left my exchange, the world can be unfair.

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