Dos Dia - Landing in Spain (Madrid)

​Well you know what they say about hoping for the best... That you should prepare for the worst. ( <----- Future Jin is laughing maniacally at this statement while posting it. Just wait for it..)

Don't worry, I didn't piss myself. At least, not ComPLETEly .. It's only been about nine hours since I left the U.S. but I've arrived in another country, on another continent!, and it's officially 9.30am here in Madrid so it's time to start my day!

Ironically, this makes it just past midnight back home, which is right about when I start feeling awake normally. I'm really hoping I'm going to discover that the secret to being a productive night owl is to simply move to a place where their clocks say nighttime is actually daytime. I'll keep you updated on that experiment. (<--- Future Jin here again - this did not work out. I am apparently a night owl no matter what part of the world I'm in. I just live by the light of the moon..)

In the meantime I'm a wee bit loopy as I am apparently impervious to half an ambien, so after an hour I took the other half and almost instantly got a solid six hours of sitting-up sleep. Mouth open the whole time. Super cute. Super dehydrating.

I'm also feeling a bit out of sorts as I haven't actually SEEN any of this country yet. I'm currently on my final flight, a quick fifty minute sardine can trip through the air, where I'll land in Malaga on the southern coast of Spain and once again I find myself in an aisle seat. Methinks a couple things did not get relayed to the airline from my reservation, as I would certainly never reserve an aisle on a short flight over a new country, and no I most certainly didn't reserve the beef dinner option, por favor y gracias. So looking back and forth at the half open windows on either side of the plane, all I see is patches of blue and some lazy, thin clouds. They do look pretty Spanish though.

From the Madrid airport itself the view was no better, just a sea of humid, early morning haze, not at all helped by the fact that I spent my entire hour and a half layover making my way through the 90% glass maze they call an airport. I lost count of how many times I had to either go up or down a level - something that drives me completely bonkers. They even had LED signs up along the way, informing me that it's 20 minutes from here until my gate. No 18 minutes. From here it's 11 minutes. Etc.

​What happens when I land in Malaga in less than an hour is still an Unknown - A scary but inspiring moment that pulls myself and other "flighty" crazies like me back into traveling alone again and again; the Unknown and the Freedom to explore it.

Will I be hungry? I'll hafta find food. Does uber work? I'll get one. If not, which cab driver is least aggressive/looks the least kidnap-y? Where to go first! Should I head straight to my hostel, or stop somewhere along the way? Often times, like when I was packing for this trip, the endless, open-ended questions like this sincerely overwhelm me. When all things are possible, how the fuck is it possible to get even one thing done???

So this trip will be about following what makes me Happy (it got me here!), quieting The Anxiety, taking a deep breath, and letting my Tao (our universal "path") show me the way. That said, I have no doubt that there will be at least one occasion that indecision leaves me trapped in my hotel room, watching Bobs Burgers and wishing I could order Thai food in my underwear and never be seen or heard from again. But then again, maybe not!! My GoFundMe goal was 95% funded (thank you!!!), I'm here, I'm excited and just a little loopy, hablo un piquito espanal, and I'm going to do my best!! In the words of my zen guro Mr. Deadpool, "MAXIMUM. EFFORT."

XoXo
jin

"When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. "
-Pema Chodron

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From "When Things Fall Apart" - a gift from my amazing acupuncturist Emily Broderick that I started reading on the flight.