The Beginning of My Temporary Expatriacy

After a month in a new country, I’ve finally decided to get my act together. For anyone who cares, which as of now refers only to a professor and a few boastful relatives, I’m ready to stop hogging my journals and convert them into reasonably organized and cohesive thoughts. I have been living and studying in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, in the Community of Madrid. My initial impression was and still largely is that it’s hard to believe this is a real place and I actually live here. I walk through cobblestone-lined alleyways, passing the heavy, ten-foot wooden doors and worn-yet-in-tact walls serving as a breathtaking reminder of the city’s medieval past. After a month here, I still marvel as I walk and wonder how Alcalá’s permanent residents can go about their daily business so matter-of-factly in such a beautiful and historic setting. As an American with the entirety of his family history located over 2,000 miles away and across an ocean, I struggle to wrap my head around the idea that ethnic Europeans still living in Europe need only to step outside to see thousands of years of their bloodlines’ time-honored culture. How can walking from work to the corner store on your break be business as usual when that trip takes you through the spot where your great-great-great-great grandfather might have defended his medieval honor in a swordsmen’s duel? How is it that Alcalá teenagers can graffiti meaningless tags on gorgeous architecture representing a style not seen since the sixteenth century? Growing up in an immigrant country in its comparative infancy has given me a much greater respect for the extensive history evident in almost every building and sidewalk in this city.