December happenings...

December 4, 2010

The beginning of Puente

During our week long break, called Puente, we decided that instead of traveling out of the country or camping down south where we would be extremely cold because our lack of gear, we thought it would be fun to try to discover and start digging the cool parts of Madrid. While we were walking around the Malasana area (the hip area) we found a bunch of posters advertising the upcoming shows around the area. On one poster we found a band that we really liked called Fool’s Gold that were opening for some Spanish band called The Pinker Tones. The Pinker Tones looked like an intense electronic band, so we were curious if this could be the same Fool’s Gold band that we knew back in the states (since they have been playing at large festivals and def do not sound electronic). We found on the internet that it was the same band and were then extremely excited that we would get the chance to see them play here. We also found a band called Anni B Sweet that was playing the same night that we were going to try to make. So come Thursday night, we had mostly googled the bars where they were playing and somewhat knew how to get to each one. Along our journey to find the bars, we came across all kinds of wild events going on for the Christmas season --- ice skating rinks outside, the largest “churro and chocolate” stand you’ll ever see, and all kinds of lights – but we had to keep moving in order to make it to the show. We really felt like we were in the movies as we weaved in between all the streets trying to find the “big show” for the night. We finally came across the street for the later show (Anni B Sweet) and tried to buy tickets before hand but couldn’t because they hadn’t started selling them yet. We kept on and were having no luck finding our mystery street and location. I finally stopped in a café to ask if anyone knew of this place. One of the workers gave me a typical Spanish answer, “go down a street, turn right, then ask there.” The other work took pity on me or thought I was cute…I couldn’t tell. But either way, he drew me a map on a napkin of how to get there and we were on our way! After asking around and wondering a little more, we happened upon the place we wanted to be.

When we finally walked up to the venue, we stopped up and asked if it had started. The show hadn’t started so we walked around a bit then came back. When we came back the show was going on but were informed that the show cost 18 Euro. Ouch. We stepped aside (not out of any line, there was none) to contemplate if it was worth 36 Euro for the both of us for one band because we didn’t care to see the headlining band. So a women came out and asked the ticket taker what was going on and then looked at us. She came up to us and asked if we were going to go in. We said, well, we would but we don’t want to pay that much because we only want to see the first band. She said, “ok, just pay for one then.” We agreed and went in to find Fool’s Gold performing to a pretty much empty floor. TRAGIC! It made no sense to me. This band is fantastic and has a sound like no other. We took it upon ourselves to make the dance floor look as a live as we possibly could with two people. And let me tell you something. We did. The dance floor was exploding with energy from the two of us dancing away. At one point Caitlin said I looked like a monkey. I thought it was a compliment. The band actually does use African beats and instruments. That was my inspiration I said. Song after incredible song we danced away and cheered for our American band. They of course took notice to us and frankly didn’t understand. At one point they asked, “Ok, who paid you off to be here?” Jokingly, of course, but nonetheless surprised by our presence (it wouldn’t have been so strange if it hadn’t just been the two of us). We shouted back that we were from Iowa and that made them even more amazed saying they found a new respect for Iowa . Nonetheless they loved us and played the show directly to us. It was fantastic. At one point, the hat I wore received a compliment by the lead singer, so I threw it up to him to wear for a song. The guitarist would come down and solo for us. Everything was surreal and energetic. When the set finished, Caitlin and I were exhausted. I talked to the guitarist briefly and he said after he gets packed up he wanted to talk more with us. I said cool then went off to the bar to get Caitlin and I some waters. I asked the bartender (in Spanish) could I have two waters please. He said “si” and brought up two bottles of water, which you usually have to pay for. I said (in Spanish), “oh, do you just have tap water (free water)?” He responded in English, “These is free.” I looked confused and then he said, “You are in the band, no?” Ahh, of course they are free for band members! I thought for no more than a millisecond and said with all kinds of newfound coolness, “Yea of course, thanks.” Nice. The bartender thought I was in the band. That’s awesome. I headed back to Caitlin and gave her the water and told her the story and she found it amusing. At that time the band members started coming up to us and we thanked them for the show and they thanked us for being at it. The bongo and exotic drum specialist was especially pleased to see us there and kept repeating, “You guys get it, like really get the music!” and it pleased me that he knew that we knew what it was they were doing. He then asked If we wanted to come down to the room downstairs where the band was hanging out. We said, “yes.” Then we were off to hang out with the band. While we were in the room hanging out, eating food and feeling like a part of the band the guitarist kept asking us questions about us and why we were here in Madrid and was genuinely interested. I then bombarded them with questions about their band, how they got started, how the music came to them and about their tour. It was unfortunate to hear that the tour through Spain was a pretty big flop and how excited they were to head home. They said it was humbling for them to come to a place where they weren’t on top of the world. They’ve had a lot of success in other parts of Europe but for some reason Spain didn’t “get it.” I think Spain is still caught up in the electronic, techno music fad. Needless to say, we had an excellent time telling the band about Madrid, what to see, what not to see and more importantly not to fret too much about Spain. At least they have two Iowans that support them in Spain.

Blake

December 13, 2010

The rest of the break

Well not a lot more has happened since the show that quite lives up to the excitement but we have been making some good use of our time off. On Friday and Saturday we decided to decorate our apartment with some colorful paper and glue we were able to gather from our schools. I brought home a roll of big green paper and began cutting out trees. Lots of big trees. We made a small forest across our wall in the living room. Then with some other scraps and various things from our recycling pile we made a Santa with all of his reindeer flying across a night sky that also extends the length of the wall. We made our tall cupboard into a huge snowman and glued lots of silver paper circles together along a piece of string about 20 feet across that looks like falling snow from the ceiling. We wrapped a picture to look like a present, made candy canes for the kitchen cupboards, and cut out lots of pretty snowflakes. We finally made a nativity (yes out of paper) with the three kings, camels, and all. We were pretty decorated out after that and there were paper scraps EVERYWHERE. When we got the place all cleaned up again it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

On Sunday, we invited some of the interested people in the Community of Christ church to come to our apartment so we could meet them. A recap, if you do not recall, or are new to the blog; we are involved in the Community of Christ church, although I am not a member, I attend with Blake and his family when I am around Cedar Falls. We inquired about activity in Spain before we left since it is a world church. We found that although there is no established church at the moment, there are many people interested in the ideas. During our meeting with our new friends, a Pilipino man in his 60’s and his daughter in her 30’s we discussed how we came to find each other, possibilities for the church growing in Spain, things Blake and I could do to help while we are here, and about similar churches that are already here. It was very interesting talking with them, and getting to know all about them. We still have a few more people to meet and we are not sure what we can do other than be part of this network of people, but it is nice to be a part of it.

We’ve been staying in the apartment a lot the last two days because it has been raining all the time, but we did manage to venture out a few times and I finally got a coat (I did not know it would get this cold here; its snowing and all…). We also found some really cool vintage shops in the same area the shows were playing and got Blake an entire new outfit…I did not have such luck. But it was all very awesomely inexpensive so we could afford it. We are being pretty stingy with our money here, as we really only have enough to live on, but we really do not want to cut into our accounts at home, for when we return, we have lots of student loans to pay. We have a lot of fun cooking and cleaning together here, maybe because it is not too terrible with only the two of us but it really is the first time we have both done all of this on our own…and, we really like it. As for home we do miss seeing everyone, including the animals. We get a lot of joy seeing you all on skype J. We also miss ranch dressing, peanut butter, maple syrup, and reeses. (Incase anyone wants to send a care package). Really though, I don’t think it will be a problem living a few more months without every single luxury in the world that we seem to have at home. It has been nice to start living more simply, and realizing the things we really need and really do not need at all.

December 21, 2010

Lately we have been all over the place in Madrid, taking as much of it in as we can before we leave for the long Christmas Vacation. We've met some new people, even some Spaniards, been practicing lots of Spanish (that has been hard to do since we are only allowed to Speak English at work), playing the Uke, watching every single Harry Potter intently, and we even caught an old Woody Allen movie called Radio Days.

I will go into a little detail about the film because it was a very cool experience. We discovered this little old theatre place called Cine Dore, hidden away on a quaint side street. We checked out the movie times and found that each month there are sort of themes. This month some recognizable names were Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, and Alfred Hitchcock. We waited in line to see a late show, but it sold out before we got to the door, so we bought a ticket for tonight and just finished watching it actually. There was an old man sitting next to us who was really enjoying the movie and getting such a kick out of it. It made our time more enjoyable just listening to him.

Today I started packing for our vacation. I may have forgotten to mention earlier that we are going to Greece... pretty excited! We are doing a help exchange (www.helpx.net) and we are going to stay with a family on the very southern most point of the Peloponnese (and the little house is right on the sea!). They only want us to practice English with their two boys, ages 10 and 7, for a few hours each day. In exchange, we will have our own room, three meals a day, and a lovely family to spend Christmas and New Years with so we won't be lonely. We leave Thursday the 23rd and will return to Madrid on January 9.

Ooh say can you see by the dawn’s early light…Playball!

Wait…I mean Merry Christmas to all, and to all, goodnight J

Caitlin

Fool's Gold




















I'm getting pretty good at crapes...we need to remember to refridgerate the liquid chocolate next time though :s









Some Lee dolls I found randomly














Christmas at the Argotsinger/Leinen Piso













a handmade postcard for mom












well, handmade everything was the way to go this year



























yeah. these are the cupboards.



I was wondering if I should put Jesus in the manger... It doesn't make sense to me why we even put the nativity up if we leave Jesus out. I was just following tradition. I think next time I will put him in right away so we know what were celebrating all this time these decorations are up.

Photos from Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2010

(November 25 – Thanksgiving 2010)

I’ve not been in such a “giving thanks” mood in quite a few Thanksgivings. I’ll attribute this feeling to the opportunity to travel and living in a different culture. I think you appreciate your holidays and customs more when you are of a tiny minority that celebrates where you live. This feeling of being thankful might also come from the numerous retellings of the Thanksgiving story to the kids at school. Whatever the case, this was a Thanksgiving full of thankfulness.

Now, as you might have gathered, Spain does not celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact, if you didn’t know (in which you should review the Thanksgiving history), it is solely an American holiday. Well, Canada actually does celebrate a type of Thanksgiving but it takes place in October. Nonetheless, the holiday is American. The pilgrims came to America. Had their hardships in America. American Presidents declared it an American holiday. You get the point. With that said, I also want to make it clear that much of the food we enjoy on Thanksgiving is not readily available at the super markets here in Spain. In fact, it is quite difficult to find much of the food we traditionally eat on Thanksgiving. Given that, we had a heck of a time putting together a Thanksgiving meal in Spain. But isn’t that what made the first Thanksgiving so great? I think so.

We ended up having a fantastic Thanksgiving that we won’t forget for a long time. The first challenge of our Turkey Day was well, finding a turkey. Fortunately, our friend, Ian (we met him the last time we were in Spain at school, he is back living here in Madrid now too), knew a guy that said he could get us a turkey. This seemed questionable to me when Ian described the situation to me on the phone. He “knew a guy” that could find us a turkey. Like I said, turkeys are not common to Spain but I went with it. As we made more plans for the day, we agreed that Caitlin and I would bring things that didn’t require an oven (we don’t have an oven). We made some delicious applesauce, a salad with apples, pomegranate, cranberries, sweet onion, brie and blue cheese, walnuts, a homemade vinaigrette (which we forgot at home), a cheesecake (not homemade unfortunately), and some fantastic cheese and crackers for an appetizer. We knew our portion was going to be fantastic but still were questioning the turkey and mashed potatoes that Ian and his roommates were making. So Thanksgiving Day arrives and I call Ian on my way home from school and find out there have been a few complications. Complication #1: In the “new” apartment Ian moved into which had an oven was actually a super old, rundown apartment which had an oven that might work. He informed me that while he was working on cleaning out the oven that morning one of the panes of glass in the oven fell out and shattered. So the already questionable oven became that much more questionable. At this point I wasn’t entirely sure if we were going to have turkey. Neither was Ian. Complication #2: The turkey was very fresh (this isn’t the complication but is rather just entertaining), so fresh that Ian was pretty sure that the guy he knew had killed the turkey that morning. The turkey still had quite a few feathers left on it. Not a big deal, just a little extra work plucking off the feathers before putting it in the oven to cook. Oh yes, putting it in the oven to cook. That leads to the complication. This bird was huge. Or perhaps the oven was very small. Maybe both. Either way, there was going to be some serious finagling to get that bird in that mostly broken oven.

So this was our situation at 3pm and we were planning on eating around 9:30pm. I was apprehensive and optimistic. Ian is the type of guy that will get things figured out in the face of adversity. So when he called us about 9 after he finished with work and told us to head over we were confident that we would have turkey on Thanksgiving. So at that point Caitlin and I packed up our grocery carrito (small cart) with our food and headed to the metro. When we arrived and met Ian at the stop, he led us up to his older apartment and introduced us to his roommates. He lived with a girl from Korea, whose good friend from Korea was visiting, a guy from southern England, and a guy from Germany. The guy from Germany was on vacation so the dinner party included the others I mentioned, Ian, Caitlin and me. What an interesting mix. The girls from Korea spoke Spanish, but with a Korean accent making it difficult to understand at times. They were very pleasant and really funny. The guy from England didn’t speak any Spanish and was in Spain trying to learn. Watching him and the girls from Korea communicate was hilarious. I asked Ian if he would help out and translate back and forth so they could communicate better or just to clarify big confusions. Ian said, “no, I really just like to watch.” I could see why. It was hilarious watching them find ways to talk to each other. Between James’ (from UK) limited Spanish and Ju’s (Korea) limited English and good personalities on both sides, it made for an entertaining ordeal.

Once we had introductions and got to begin knowing each other a bit better, we began preparing the rest of the food while laughing about our dire, feathery turkey situation. After we had everything set out on small tables in the Spanish Civil War era living room, we realized that our dinner was not dire at all, but on the contrary, incredibly delicious! The turkey turned out well, a bit dry but along with our apple sauce it was delicious. Everything was good. We enjoyed the food. We enjoyed the company and had probably the best cross-cultural Thanksgiving dinners that has gone down in the books. I hope everyone back home had an equally enjoyable, delicious Thanksgiving meal.

Granada

We have definitely been putting off the blog lately because our time has been constantly used up by making plans for the holidays. But we’ll get to that later. First I should tell you about Granada.

Granada was a magical as the name itself sounds. We recently discovered that the word granada means pomegranate in Spanish. It is a very old tourist town paved with cobblestone through winding narrow streets. The tiny cars can just squeeze through so if you are on foot or on bike, you must find a place to step off the street if one is passing. We felt like we were in a fairy tale that took place in the 1600´s. Everything was basically the same. We took a big bus to Granada then had to navigate around with our heavy backpacks until we found our bus. The bus that our directions said to stay on until it starts going uphill around a corner… When we asked the bus driver about the street we were supposed to find, he said it wasn’t there, but we followed our directions and jumped off. Luckily we chose just the right spot at our cross streets that were in our directions (bear in mind we did not have a map). We headed uphill for 30 seconds (as the directions again stated) and found the flamenco bar that we were supposed to turn left at head up the stairs until we see cacti, then take a right where there would be cacti on our left again, and finally another left. Well it was quite a treck up many stairs, and I am not going to lie, Blake assisted me in getting me and my bag up all of those stairs. We walked by a little place that had some hippie looking folk, and thought maybe that is our hostel…but there was no name and no number. So we just walked up a little farther to find a completely naked mad just standing outside his door talking on his phone… If that wasn´t strange enough we walked a little further and saw about 10 cats in one spot. Then we realized we had gone in a circle and we were back a the place we thought was our hostel. Someone stopped us this time and said, you´ve been here before. We were confused, and he said he just had seen us walk by. Well that ended up being the place. It was situated up on the mountain below the caves that the gypsies live in.

The view was stunning. If you look up the Alhambra online, you will most likely see the view that we had. It is the only place where you can see the entire place, and a little farther up, the entire city all the way till the snow capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. This place was incredible. The people that stay at this place are extremely chill. A great example of living simply...with few things in mean. The decor was not simple however. There is a local street art artist that paints incredible murals all over Granada and he had obviously been inside this place with his work. The walls were covered in all sorts of artsy things, including the murals. Our room was not any less decked out as the photos show. They had a dog named Pokie because he had a lazy ear and the other stood straight up, and a cat named Bob. We became quick friends with everyone staying there as we all shared our stories of traveling the world...besides us, every single person staying there was done with school, took a break from jobs, and were literally just traveling all over, scrimping a few Euros for food and places to stay.

We walked around for a while enjoying the warm air, went to some shops and checked out all of the intricately detailed beautiful Arabian décor and trinkets. When we were walking along the main cobblestone road which run along a small river, we noticed cats roaming around all over along the river bed. It was like a little colony. And they were beautiful, we saw one Siamese, and a Persian down there. We stopped at a Moroccan tea shop and had the best tea I have ever had and some crepes. As soon as the sun started to go down we realized how cold it was getting. We went back to the hostel to get bundled up and some of the people hanging out there were going to a flamenco show, so we decided to tag along. We went to one place and it was completely full, so we tried another…it was 20 euro per person! We walked on. We found another but it was not starting for another 2 hours and it was free! We said we would come back, and in the mean time we all went to get some free tapas. Granada is known for them. When you go into most restaurants or bars they give you a free tapa for every drink you have. We ended not even going to a Spanish place, but instead an Asian food place that gave out awesome noodle tapas. When we were full and feeling great, we hiked up the hill for the 5^th time that day to do to the show. It was very interesting. There were no flamenco dancers as you might imagine, just the musicians. It was very loud and energetic, and Blake and I could only take it for about a half hour before we stared dozing off. We decided it was time for us to go to bed because we had been up for a little over 20 hours. It was tough staying warm in our open air room, but we felt pretty lucky to have a bed that night. Some people stopped by the hostel to find that it was full, and the hosts sent them up the hill to see if there was room in a cave with a gypsy friend of hers.

The next day we got up, made some breakfast, got some of the free bikes the hostel lends out, and were off for the day. We had to carry our bikes quite a bit down the endless stair pathways and once we were riding for a while realized that this city was not very bike friendly, car friendly, or foot friendly. It was just hard to get around period. But, I guess that is what made it so beautiful and incredible. We wanted to start off for the Alhambra, because we found out that you have to buy tickets online at least a day ahead, or you could get lucky and get tickets for that day or night if you went up there.It is a very, very, large and steep climb to get there and we ended up walking our bikes up the entire way. We got there only to find out that the Alhambra is no building like we imagined (having done no research at this point), but an entire little village with palaces and gardens built by the Moorish rulers in the 14^th century. It was incredible. Every inch of many of the palaces were completely decorated with molded designs and mosaics. The Alhambra has gone through many changes, and many rulers through the re-conquering of Spain. If you would like to read about it check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra.

After the Alhambra we were extremely tired since we were so unprepared at the amount of time it would take to go through it all. Luckily the ride down on our bikes was super easy. We flew down the huge hill that took us 45 min to walk up. We headed back to the hostel carried our bikes back up all of those stairs and took a nap. Later that night we heard about an art festival that was going on and thought we had to check it out. When we finally found our way there, we found that it was a bit of a wilder crowd than we had imagined. We thought there would be food and art there, but found only the most extreme hippies from all over the land having their own little festival. We decided to split and find some food. Not that they didn’t look like a fun crowd, we literally had no energy left and just wanted to sit down, eat, and listen to relaxing music. We walked around the town and found an incredible spot to view the entire city, then found some food, and called it a night.

On Sunday we had some time to kill before our bus headed back to Madrid, so we set off to find some guitar shops. We did find one. We went inside to find a man widdling away on his beautiful instruments. He had three of the most amazing guitars we have seen that he had fabricated hanging on the wall. He also had a collection of antique guitars sitting around. Blake was interested in his story and the guitars and he tried to make light conversation, but the man did not want anything to do with us. All he said after we stood there for a while was, “There is nothing under 2,000 euro here.” We clearly could see that but we were still interested. We finally got out of him that he was a VERY well known fabricator and only the best of the best of professional flamenco players go to him. We were about to leave and we asked if he had a card…that was a mistake. He looked pretty upset and said in Spanish, “I have my name.” We decided to leave then; no guitar. We then went to check out the street art that was all over one street, and found a really cool restaurant. It was 5 floors high and had a terrace at the top and the entire place was covered in colorful pottery that was screwed into the walls all over the inside and out. We of course went all the way up to the terrace in the empty restaurant and made the waiter go up and down all of those stairs just to serve us. I think he was quite used to it. We had a huge bowl of tomato soup and a margarita pizza that we shared. It was the perfect end to our day and we were quite satisfied with our trip to Granada.

Caitlin

This was our view from the hostel!

At the Alhambra

Checkin out some street art

Outdoor public workout park Artsy Pizza place we ate at on the terrace


Pokie the dog Blake in front of Rambutan Hostel