I have spent a few days in Madrid, capital of Spain where my cross-cultural ‘eye/I’ was once again in deep reflexive mode…First of all, the whole purpose of the trip was to meet up with a few friends that we used to hang around together in the UK but as ‘existential migrants’ themselves, they have moved to different countries now.  A Spaniard/German, an Irish, an African and myself, a Greek (or la Griega as it is in Spanish!) got together in Madrid and spent time reflecting on our cross-cultural transitions, the processes we go through due to our migrations, the ways our relationships are affected, the ways we develop personally and professionaly due to the experience or living and working in host countries/cultures and so much more. We also had such a multilingual interaction, mixing the languages we speak, switching into different vocabularies and so on.

I found the whole experience very enriching. I noticed myself being very attentive to everying as i was observing the people, the architecture, the different cultural characteristics. Through that, i was also reflecting on my views around my original (Greece) and host (UK) cultures as contrasted to a third one, the spanish one 0n this occasion. For example, i was very much attuned with a ‘dramatic tone or manner’ that spaniards seem to carry, through their history. I mixture of passion and drama in their way of being which felt familiar, in terms of mediterranean flavour, but also quite different than the Greek one…it is really hard to explain cause it is something experienced again at a gut level, in an embodied way

During a day trip outsied Madrid, to Toledo, i also encountered a different side of Spain, very much historically charged one. I went to the house of El Greco, the Greek painter that resided there most of his life, the art exhibition took me on an inner journey. I know that i am at a stage in my PhD writing that resembles to a strive towards a homecoming, not a literal one but more of a psychological one, as if i am experimenting with resolving my cross-cultural conflicts and splittings, as if i am exploring the healing process in relation to my own roots…again, this is a process without many words and it is still happening…i can’t share the subtleties of it all in here, it is something that is taking place inside, in this breathing moment and as am writing, it will take time

I feel grateful to my travels… and my cross-cultural experiences and the cross-cultural encounters. There was a moment with my friends that we shared deep emotional intimacy, we spoke about how close we feel to each other, as if we are family, although we are all strangers, foreigners, so different and yet so alike…Gracias por la Vida!