Days Forty-nine through Fifty-three

Monday

There is a second group of interns in Commercial Services, another branch of the government with an office outside the embassy. One of the interns there, Kevin, invited us to an event on Monday night (halloween) at a place called The Gin Room. I met up with Kevin early and we spent twenty minutes or so trying to find the place, but eventually Zahra, Abbey and Carolyn showed up as well. The bar was a high-end, classy place which specialized in Gin and Tonics, and the first one that night was free: fancy gin, fancy tonic, and a slice of apple made for a light but delicious and finely flavored drink that I would have paid several dollars for, but it being free made it even better.

After leaving, Carolyn peeled off back home and the four of us left went to look for some bar or club having a Halloween party. We eventually found one, and it was dark and creepy in a very smooth sort of way that's hard to describe. We got free drinks then headed home way too late as usual.

Tuesday

Tuesday was Día de todos los Santos: All Saints' Day, or as you may know it, All Hallow's Day, (As in "All Hallows' Eve", the origin of the condensed phrase Halloween. (Hallows' Evening -> Hallow E'n -> Halloween); for some reason Catholics celebrate the day itself whereas in America we came to celebrate the evening before.

Also, All Saints' Day being a Spanish holiday, we got off work. I used it (wisely, I think) to lay around and rest up.)

Wednesday

On Wednesday arose a very unique opportunity, and one which I need to provide some background for.

One of the things I do at the embassy is help my officemate/supervisor with something called Blue Lantern, which is a US program for monitoring the end use of US weapons technology. What do I mean by that? I mean that when a foreign weapons dealer (like at a gun shop or anything like that) wants to import US-made weapons or equipment, Blue Lantern officers have to go out from the embassy to verify that the business is legitimate and not a front for drug criminals or terrorists or what-have-you.

I won't reveal the details, but on this particular day, my supervisor and I had to go to a tiny suburb of Madrid, go to the house where a man and his wife operated an online ammo and equipment business, and my supervisor asked them all sorts of questions about the business, who was going to be buying the items in question, etc. It seems intimidating and he knew that; the first thing he said on walking in was "qué miedo, hay hombres en trajes que entran a vuestra casa," "how scary, there are men in suits entering your home" at which everyone had a good laugh, and he proceeded to tell them how everything was standard procedure and not to be nervous or anything.

The meeting lasted for about an hour, and we headed back, I with a very odd experience under my belt.

Thursday

The next day brought another strange meeting, this time with PNsD: Programa Nacional sobre Drogas: National Program on Drugs. We went to their office, which happened to be in the same building as CICO, and sat down at a table with three representatives: a middle-aged man who spoke very clearly and intelligibly, a similarly-aged woman who spoke with a very prominent lisp, and a 70ish-year-old man who mumbled completely unintelligibly. The meeting took way too long (I think we budgeted about an hour and a half and it took about two and a half) but afterwards we went to eat at a local cafe place, where at one point I fumbled with my wallet while attempting to pay. I thought nothing of it at the time.

To my horror, I discovered later that evening as I was about to board the metro that I did not have my monthly metro pass that I had just bought the previous day. Assuming it to be forever lost but coming to the realization that I had probably dropped it when fumbling my wallet at lunch, I headed back to the cafe, flagged down the first waiter I could find and asked them if someone had dropped a metro pass. She looked in the lost-and-found cabinet for a torturously long 15 seconds and finally popped out; "aquí está!" she said, "here it is!" My fears of having to spend another month buying the 10x passes dissolved away and my month was salvaged.

Friday

On Friday, Zahra and I went to a meeting with Zahra's Spanish teacher at the Embassy, Ana, along with Ana's brother and his coworker. The event was a so-called language exchange: Ana was the "queen", as she is the actual language instructor; Zahra and I were the English Speakers there to learn Spanish, and the other two, Alberto and another Ana, were the Spanish speakers there to learn English. We talked for three hours about all sorts of things: language and culture, jobs, history, etc. - but it was all unique because we did it all with a distinct intention of conversing bilingually and learning each others' language.

After the language exchange Zahra and I went with Zahra to go meet Abbey's boyfriend Alex who was in town for the week. We spent the evening playing Risk which was an awesomely fun little detour back to American culture for evening.