So last Monday, I started my internship at Hello! online in Madrid, and my main concern (like most women) for my first day was: ‘Am I wearing the right thing?‘. I was so worried about making a good first impression that I spent at least 3 hours trying on different combinations of outfits in the mirror to ensure that, although I was adhering to the office’s formal clothes dress code, I also didn’t look like I’d tried too hard (a difficult look to master because in reality I had tried VERY hard!)
My first day began with my alarm going off at 7am, which seemed a bit pointless as I hadn’t slept a wink and in fact was just lying awake in the darkness waiting for it to go off. I jumped out of bed quickly and hopped in the shower only to be met by freezing droplets crashing down on my head (annoyingly at the time I didn’t know that because it’s an old fashioned flat you have to press several buttons and twist several knobs in a hope of getting any hot water) so a cold shower it was! Cursing to the high heavens I quickly shoved my head under the sub-zero waters in an attempt to try and wash my hair.
[pagebreak]
Having worked out the timings perfectly (everything was set up to military precision in my head), I left the house at exactly 8:30am knowing that this gave me ample time to walk to the metro station, get the metro to work and turn up 5 minutes early to demonstrate my eagerness without being too keen. However, because I had moved into my flat the night before, I didn’t have time to go to the supermarket and pick up food to take to work for my lunch. Not a problem I thought, I’ll swing by a supermarket on my way in. WRONG. Spanish supermarkets don’t open until 9am. Oooops. Oh well I know a tienda chino (small shops run by the Chinese that have anything you could possibly ever want: lavalamps, air fresheners in the shape of the little mermaid, a hat in the shape of a flamingo etc and food) round the corner which I’m sure will be open. Wrong again. They also don’t open until 9am and now I was at least a ten minutes walk further away from the metro station. Now sheer panic was setting in, I scurried my feet a little faster and pointed them towards Gran Via, Madrid’s main street that runs throughout the centre and is host to many chain food stores…
By this point I am practically running and run straight towards a Pan and Company that has it’s lights on. Conscious that I’m running out of time I hurriedly order the first thing I see which is a tuna baguette for 7 euros (I will never make this mistake again; 7 euros is an absolute rip-off). I also decide because of my current sweaty and distressed state that a good cup of tea couldn’t do any harm. Wrong again (again!). Of course I forgot that the Spanish don’t serve tea with milk so I manage to burn my mouth so badly that I am unable to taste anything for the rest of the day (including my ridiculously expensive sandwich).
Throwing the tea away, for fear that knowing my luck the metro will jerk and the tea will go all down my new white blouse, I hop on the nearest metro praying that it would take me to the right stop, it did (yay) however, the only problem was, it was one of the old metro carts that doesn’t have air con. This wouldn’t have been a problem apart from the heat caused my bag to smell very pungently of tuna.
So in the end I turned up for my first day sweaty, with frizzy hair (from the heat) and smelling of tuna; not exactly the first impression I had hoped for but luckily my new colleagues were lovely and we all laughed about it later!
image credits: www.transitionsabroad.com, www.russ-photojournal.blogspot…