Caitlin and Blake in Spain: The first few weeks...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Day 1:

Like all adventures that are being embarked, there is bound to be excitement. First round was at the airport when Dad dropped us off. We pull in our bags, get to the ticket counter, swipe our passport to check in and get the “please see attendant” response. The attendant comes over and without listening to a word I say about Visas or our situation (this is UNITED AIRLINES by the way) he tells us we shouldn’t have bought this ticket for the length of time we did and that United won’t allow you to fly, deeming our tickets worthless. What? After a good amount of questioning he goes to speak his supervisor and comes back 15 minutes later with thumbs up and tells us what we were trying to tell him the first time. Don’t fly United Airlines. To make things worse, Caitlin’s and I’s fears about the baggage policy came true. Only one checked bag each for international flights. So, we gave the crappy United Airlines !00 more dollars to our already regretful purchase.

Flew to Spain and it was a nice time. Nothing too noteworthy. I forgot my fedora after one flight but was able to retrieve it. The flight from Washington DC to Spain was hardly full and Caitlin and I were able to sprawl out over 5 seats in the middle of the Boeing 767, Aer Lingus was the carrier for that flight. We got a kick out of the attendants selling duty free items on the plane and it felt a bit like the wild wild west of flights. I’ve not seen any other airline with such antics.

Arriving in Spain, going through customs was no problem. Took very little time and we decided a Taxi would be the best route to our Hostel. The taxi ride was pleasant. Finding more and more differences between the Spanish spoken here and from the Spanish in Central America. The hostel was located in walking distance to a lot in Madrid. Madrid really isn’t a very large city. When looking at many of the different zones on the map, I was surprised to stumble upon them so quickly on foot.

So as we are getting to the hostel, we want to mention that the time our bodies are feeling is 12:30am, but the local time is 7:30am. The rest of the day was spent in Zombie form. Caitlin and I dropped our bags off at the Hostel and went to get phones since our room wouldn’t be ready for another few hours. We wondered around and found a Movistar(large phone company) shop, then another and then found the granddaddy of Movistar shops where we bought our inexpensive prepaid phones. It’s funny that the phones we got were the same Nokia as we had in Guatemala/Costa Rica. They get the job done.

We made some calls and emails at a Starbucks with WIFI and got some leads on places to live. Tomorrow we will go to our schools. Right now it is 8:30 pm back home and 3:30 am in Spain. We can’t sleep at all, partyly because of the time difference and the other part being that it has been a solid continuation of nightlife in the street for the last 7 hours. The streets are full of people yelling, dogs barking, accordions exhaling and scooters zooming. As the night progressed it changed more to chants and yells and calamity. Needless to say, it is going to be a process to get accustomed to Spanish life again. Except for the food. With the first taste of tortilla and croquetas, we were quickly flooded with reminiscence of days past in Oviedo. We’re excited to get back into it all.

One last thought before trying to sleep again. The smell of Spain is so distinct and memorable to us. It is unbelievable the amount of memories that return with one inhale through the nose. It is good to be back in Spain.

Blake

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Expenses are expensive...and so is the Euro

At this point in time, don’t send the dollar to do the Euro’s job. What is it with our luck? The Euro was low below we left, almost $1.20. Now it is on an upward race as each day passes it goes up a couple of cents. Today it is $1.40! This is a little rough on the bank accounts, especially when we have out first month’s rent to pay. Not to mention a deposit of two months…ugh. Too bad we are not getting paid in Euros until the end of the months. We are thinking (and praying) however, that after we get paid, the Euro will continue to skyrocket and we will have Euros to exchange for dollars when we come home. If that is the case, we might just come back with as much as we left with.

So the last few days have been, in a word, Spanish. Directions are always wrong, nothing is open, ever, and the streets are alive with the sound of Madrilenos partying until the crack of dawn EVERY night. We have found earplugs more valuable to us than ever. I must say that the Spanish lifestyle has far more perks than downfalls. And, maybe none of those are downfalls, just parts of life we have yet to get accustomed to.

Since day one, we have been trying to find our way to our schools, meeting our fellow teachers and kids, surviving on little to no sleep, testing out all of the great food, and taking in all of the absolutely gorgeous setting we live in. On Wednesday we parted ways at a train/metro station and set off to find our schools in opposite directions on the outskirts of the city. I will start with my trip, then I will let Blake tell you about his. I needed to find my bus that would take me to VIllaviciosa de Odon, where my elementary school resides. I asked where the bus stops were and I was told to go down, underground. I was very confused because signs were very unfrequent and I did not understand how the buses could be down there. I went outside searched about the area and was very lost. I finally came back in, asked the same woman at the metro ticket counter, and she explained to me vaguely how to get to the buses. She was right, they were at an underground station. I found my bus by as I got on I noticed everyone had this little pass they were using to get on the bus. I saw one person pay so I figured that I would be fine. Well, all I had was a 20 euro bill. I tried to hand it to the driver and he just refused. I was very unsure about what to do. I got off the bus and ran up to the nearest place I could find to break my bill and ran back to the station. I caught the bus just in time and the driver was obviously annoyed. The trip took about a half hour and I ended up getting dropped off in the town, but the driver did not know where the school was. It took me another hour walking around and asking for directions or find it. When I got there my coordinator was gone, but there was another assistant English teacher there who took me around with her that day to show me what she did. That day I was bombarded with children. That was a new experience for me. I learned a lot about how they have attention spans of 10-20 seconds, their eagerness to learn, their naughty behavior, and their sweet sides. I will have more to say about them later.

Caitlin

My first day. I did find the school, but unfortunately school was over when arrived. Let me tell you why. As I was checking out times/routes to get to my school I found that the train I needed also left from the stop Caitlin needed. Unfortunately, after an hour of chugging along the outside of the city and making a painfully long circle back to where I should have got on the train I was off to my school. It took me about 3 hours to finally get to my school. Combined with the wrong train stop, horrendous directions to the bus stop and not knowing what stop to get off on I arrived to my school just as it was letting out. I did happen to meet my coordinators and 2 other participants who helped me on routes and times to get to the school on time. The next day I was almost on time but got on lost on the way to the metro in the dark and missed my train. Getting to the school only 30 minutes late, I was quickly thrown into the job heading upstairs to help out in the classroom. I introduced myself and had 20 pairs of eyes on me the entire class period. Definitely a new experience! I did enjoy the day though. I think it will be a lot of fun getting to know these kids and teachers alike. We start again on Wednesday after a long weekend. Hopefully I’ll get there on time!

Blake

Friday, October 8, 2010

Meeting Keith

Before coming to Spain, I asked around in my church to find out whether or not it had a presence in Spain. After receiving a name, Apostil Richard James, I emailed him to see if the Church was in Spain. To my surprise, I received a response quickly afterwards and found that there was not a big presence in Spain but there were some things stirring. From there we found out that another member of the church, Seventy Keith McMilan, was also going to be arriving in Spain shortly after we were to arrive. A few email exchanges later, Caitlin and I found ourselves meeting at the Barajas Hotel with Keith McMilan. Our plans were to meet for dinner and since Keith had never been to Madrid or Spain for that matter, he left it up to Caitlin and me to find a restaurant to eat at. We decided to take him down to the city center at Plaza Mayor. We checked out a lot (actually Caitlin checked them out, we left it up to her to choose!) of restaurants until we found the perfect one that would show Keith a fantastic first dinner in Spain. We tried many different tapas and found ourselves delighted with fantastic croquetas, patatas bravas, ensaladas de la casa, calamaries and some complementary olives. We enjoyed talking about traveling, culture, and ideas for bringing some people together in Madrid for a group bible study possibility. We think it will be a great way to network with people and to have a support system. We hope to meet with him in London during our stay.

Blake

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Our own place to call home!

We are sitting in our very own little piso right now! It is an incredible feeling to not be worrying any longer where we are going to stay and what we are going to do with all of our bags! The first few nights we were stranded in a very small hostel room, completely surrounded by all of our belongings that moved with us to Spain. We frantically looked at apartments on all the websites that we heard about to find a place to live in all of our free time. We called and made some appointments in neighborhoods we knew were safe and at places we knew were in our price range. After our first day coming back from our schools we meet with the first landlord. The lady seemed very nice, and she immediately gave us her keys while she went to find a place to park. She said the door was open and we could go up. When we got to what we thought was the place, we went inside and it looked like it was all being remodeled. Everything was very new, but not finished and it was a studio, so very small. But she finally came up, and we were in the wrong room, that was one she was going to rent out (like a hostel). So she took us to the room, that was rather different. The place certainly had character but there were random cords everywhere, there was a strange smell, it was about the same size as the hostel and just about as I wondered where the bed was I noticed, it was lofted about 3 feet under the ceiling, and the worst part is, we actually considered living there. Thank the Lord however, we looked at another place the next day. We soon realized that we would have been making a very big mistake renting the other place. The new piso was amazing! Maybe I should say it is. It ended up being the place we got. Everything is new! The building is new, it is fully furnished with new furniture and working new appliances and it already has everything that we now don’t have to buy. The cupboards are full of dishes, bowls, utensils, towels, supplies, everything. I am not sure how we got so lucky, but we are very thankful. We are in a very cute and quiet working neighborhood, so it is also very safe. It is just a 5 metro ride to the city center or we could walk there in a half hour. It is also close to Retiro park, which if you are familiar with Madrid, you may know what I am talking about. If not, it is a huge park! There is a small lake with paddle boats, and the park is so big that it takes a couple of hours to walk around. We went there today to spend the day having a picnic with 2.5 liter bottle of coke and sangria. It is a holiday that is like our independence day. It was nice not to have classes yesterday or today! Tomorrow might be a tough day getting in the swing of things. We have been watching Spanish TV passing our time as we do not have internet yet. Well, now we need to make some food, which we also have to figure out how to cook. We bought some food at the market, but were not brave enough to get any meat from the fresh markets. Not that we are scared to eat it, we just are not sure how to order it, what it is, or how to cook it.

Caitlin