Making the Move, part 8

After lunch we found our way by Metro to the Madrid branch of Marks & Spencer, the British department store. We went to the food department, and I got some English muffins for us, and some for my neighbor Lisa Mazzilli, who prized American-type foods that were difficult to find in Spain. And then we went to Turner’s, a bookstore that carried books in French, German and English as well as Spanish.

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Finally the first day of school arrived. Julie and Lisa headed up the block to the bus stop early in the morning—Mike had already left, because the traffic into Madrid was awful if you didn’t start early—and I was alone, and nervous. Would the kids have an awkward and miserable first day? “This is a very welcoming school,” Mary Franco, the lower school principal, had told me. “Everyone is used to having kids come in for a year or two and then leaving. I think you’ll find it goes very easily for your girls.” I tried to put my faith in her judgment.

But how was I going to fill the hours till they came back? School ended at 4 p.m., and if they chose to do any after-school activities they’d be home even later. I watched the news on TV, trying to understand the Spanish. I already loved the weather lady, who methodically covered the high and low temperatures of each region of the country as she gave her forecast, pointing to sun and cloud symbols. Huddled in the shadows of my narrow TV room, I watched the music videos that came on afterward, at the strange hour of 9 a.m. I made some calls and found out that the International Newcomers Club’s opening event would be on Thursday—a huge potluck picnic at a big house in a distant suburb. I signed up for that and said I’d bring potato salad. I called the number I had for my 12-step program and found out that everyone was still on vacation, so there would be no meetings for a couple more weeks. Fortunately, my friend had told me that there was a hospitable open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I could attend, and she’d given me the day and time for that.

Then I started to work on another job: finding a gym. I was a big aerobics fan, and I wanted to join a place with good classes at convenient midday times. Christine Lotto had told me about an American woman, Lauren Williams, who gave an aerobics class in a small gym she’d fixed up in her basement, and I figured I could go there till I found a place. I called her and got her schedule, then I looked through the phone book and wrote down the addresses of gyms in Pozuelo and Aravaca. I decided to go visit them, since I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to communicate well over the phone.

It was a frustrating search. I had to study my maps to get from one place to the other, and parking was often difficult. Narrow one-way streets popped up unexpectedly, and I continually got lost. Even when I found the place I was looking for, I had to work up my courage to actually go inside, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to understand what the desk person told me about membership. I knew how to ask people not to speak so fast, but they weren’t always able to slow themselves down. I collected a lot of schedules and papers, though, and when I got home and was able to review them at leisure, I found out that suburban gyms in Spain were pretty much like suburban gyms at home. Rats, I thought. All the morning classes sounded too easy. They saved the challenging classes for the evenings, for the working people. I wanted a good, demanding class in the daytime, and I realized I’d have to go into the city to get it. So I put that on my agenda for further investigation.