Journal from Spain #0 - Preflight

Like an embassy, or UN offices, airplane bridges enjoy a certain degree of extraterritoriality. While firmly entrenched on the soil of one's birth, each of these spaces hold a fragile but complete bubble of foreign; a tiny little kingdom where the tongue is strange, the employees don fancy titles, and where half the guests revel in the specialness of their visit, while the other half simply seek asylum. These are permanent enclaves fashioned out of domesticating carpet and stubborn steel, yet everyone is coming and going; coming and going. (The effect is enchances in an airplane jetway, which itself wanders about in an endless cycle of transience, stretching in full to greet its latest patrons, before retracting itself into foldable non-existence.)

It was in one such airport bridge that the suddenness and strangeness of my travels finally palmed me across the forehead: in a few hours I would land in Madrid, for four weeks of Spanish classes and a fifth of up-in-the-air travel. Previously, these facts were entrenched in my brain with the same sense of reality I reserve for quantum particles, or the existence of magic elves. "No," I would giggle out, interrupting whomever it was and breaking my cover of faux paying-attention, "I still don't think I'm going to Spain." When friends enquired about the details of my trip, they seemed so understanding, so confident this was actually happening.

--Cooooool! Who are you going with?
Myself.
--Wooow! You know any Spanish?
Anaranjada.
--Great! Like really, have an awesome time!

I know what caused my change in perspective. The sound of a language changes in a land not its own. Against the stares of onlookers, words are spoken without a complete smile, in the employ of semi-humbled tones. A language of the street, not an ethnic heritage. How quickly, how naturally, the Spanish matured in that new political reality of the airplane Jetway, and with such force that my English became an embarrassing burden, an inferior - but pitiable, cute - means of communication. Suddenly, I was aware of the messy magnificence before me.

I am a stranger now, a truth that will inspire, (mar?), and define my experience. In my own country (which, in this context, includes the US and Israel), adventures are accompanied by a sense of ownership: its my history, or my beach, or my culture which I explore; hell, I helped create this thing and, at the least, its a personal inheritance. Not so in distant lands, where absorbing the sites is a mere privilege extended by the natives - its their culture and you, after disabling the flash function on your camera, may hand us five euros and gape at the ceiling. Try as you might to hide the signs of your origin - remove the fanny pack, dress in native labels, rent a freakin' apartment - you can't fool yourself, you still peer through the eyes of a tourist.

Don't get me wrong, it has its totally awesome advantages! Its why visiting Italy is that much cooler than vacationing in Seattle. The sense of Otherness creates an otherworldly aura, where cathedrals may just be foam sets and the crowds could, who knows, disappear when I turn my head. Its a lightheaded magical world out here: while Seattle is a city, familiar and necessary, Madrid is a happy escape land, whose sole role is to provide delight to its visitors. (No wonder people "lose themselves" abroad, shooting past the barriers of self-respect, self-restraint, and self-inertia so powerful at home. No wonder, indeed, Las Vegas bills itself as an assortment of foreign mini-states.) Thus, even everyday "bla" like buying groceries and fretting over laundry become authentic adventures, because hey, who thought they'd have bananas in magic-made-up-land. It's all one big game.

That's what struck me in my steps toward the airplane. As a stranger, the seats and carpet and flight attendants and half-frozen kosher meals will be like none I'd experienced before. Likewise, the palaces, museums, hours of homework, awkward socializing, and occasional loneliness will be of equal magnificence. Nothing - absolutely nothing - will be real.

Spain is a little embassy in the nation of my life. There it is, right next to the disappointments of YU, the bad New York weather, the summer passing by too quickly, and the family that loves me enough to let me leave - but its completely apart, completely strange, completely extraterritorial.