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

Hiking in the Sierra de Guadarramas

November 7, 2010

City air isn’t very good air. That reason and also the enjoyment of hiking led us out to the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains for an incredibly pleasant day. Saturday morning we made sandwiches, packed the hiking bag, and dressed for any kind of weather (as what is recommended for the unpredictable weather in the mts) then headed to the train station to catch the hourly train. Again, of course, we were cutting it close to catch the train and had to rush to find tickets and the train. We made the train without too much more excitement (only later to find we spent too much for the tickets since we have a discounted fare with our monthly pass). On the train there were a lot of others heading for a day in the mountains with their bikes, hiking packs, and hiking attire. After an hour or so, we arrived to a fantastically quaint train station and checked the map to the hiking center while also making friends with some youngsters from California. They said they were planning the same 3 hour hike that we were, but didn’t see much more of them after leaving the station. From the train station, we check our vague directions and decided rather than waiting a half hour for a bus we would just make the 3Km trek up to the nature center. Walking turned out to be a great choice as we (especially Caitlin) enjoyed snapping many photos of the small town and the other wonders along the trail to the starting point of the real hike. We arrived at the center just as the bus we would have taken also arrived. We picked up a map, found our route then began the trek in the beautiful mountains. I don’t think I mentioned up to this point that while we worried about the weather, the day turned out to be absolutely perfect. With the temp about 60 degrees, clear skies and a warm sun we couldn’t have asked for a better day for a hike in the mountains full of autumn colors and aromas.

The hike was very pleasant, a little tiresome after while but we couldn’t complain because of how alive we felt! The fresh air, beautiful scenery and delicious fruit and bocadillos (sandwiches) made every moment fantastic. We soaked in every picturesque vista and mirador (lookout) and probably snapped hundreds of photos. By doing so, we also took longer than the quoted 3 hours, which wasn’t a problem although it began to get dark on us and we also had a train to catch (which we thought was the last) at 6:50pm. With a quickened pace and aching bodies, we trekked down the mountain (still snapping photos, which were still worth potentially missing the train for) to get back to the station. As every time was getting tight and we were nearing the end of the trail, we checked the map to find that a potential shortcut could be taken, although with the risk of completely getting lost. We decided to go for the shortcut and found ourselves, not completely lost, but on the wrong side of the creek that we needed to be. We also found ourselves on the outskirts of the small farmhouse’s properties. We slyly trekked behind a horse farm and then a large stone wall before finding a bridge and escape to the other side. Deciding the bridge was our only way across without having to back track and miss our train, we climbed the large stone wall and threw ourselves over (well I threw myself over, the helped Caitlin) tumbling on the other side, then briskly walking across the bridge to freedom (luckily the gates were open). Finding ourselves on the other side, only slightly bruised and bleeding, we were on the fast track to the train station. Walking back was beautiful as well, complete with a sunset over the mountains, although we were tired and cramping. We got to the train station with our train in the queue, and then hit the bathrooms. I quickly went, bought a pop and waited for Caitlin. As I waited and waited, the warning beeps of the doors closing went off and then the doors were closed. During this time, I paced and hopefully wished for Caitlin to come out but no such luck. The train left without us. We were confused because we should have had 10 more minutes. But upon further examination of the schedule, we found that train not to be the last one but unfortunately had to wait another hour until the next took off. Once on the train, we were on our way home from a fantastic day in the mountains. A hike recommendable to anyone interested in a day trip from Madrid.

Blake

The End of October

We´d like to apologize for the delay on our next post. Apparently, school children carry many germs and make the teachers sick. We found that first hand and had quite the time figuring out Spanish healthcare and doctor´s offices. Nonetheless, we are back on our feet and feeling well.

October 29, 2010

Halloween in Spain

While Halloween is not a traditional celebration in Spain, it has been adopted in many places from the American culture. At our schools, the professors asked us to plan a day to celebration this tradition. The other assistants and I planned and decided to do activities that included a reading of an interactive poem called the The Small Ghostie, a scavenger hunt, mask painting, and a mummy wrapping game. The older kids enjoyed the scavenger hunt and following clues around the library. All of the kids thoroughly enjoyed the mummy wrapping game which consisted of over-excited kids wrapping their classmates in toilet paper. It was quite the hit with the kids. The teachers on the other hand were questioning their judgment on allowing us to put this on. One teacher kept coming in and saying the classroom didn’t look like Spanish or American classroom (because it was such a mess scattered with TP) but rather an ITALIAN classroom. Apparently the Spanish don’t hold the Italians in the best light…
Blake

At my school, where the kids call me Cat because the sounds in my name don’t exist in Spanish and they can’t even begin to try to say it, we had a bit of a different Halloween experience. There are two other English assistants at my school. One is from London and the other is from Omaha, Nebraska! Her dad is from Carroll so she knows just where I am from… small world. Anyway we were supposed to break up so two of us could tell stories to the older kids (2nd grade – 5th) and one of us to the young ones (age 3 – 1st year.) I decided to find something for them since I do not get to work with them usually, and I really like them better because even though they need a lot of attention, they are not quite as bratty as the older ones, which really makes me frustrated when I am teaching. I am getting off track… back to Halloween. I chose a story that was about an old lady who was not afraid of anything. I was given a stack of neon paper to make whatever I wanted for my set because there was a black light in the room that was completely dark besides it. Blake said he would come to my school and help since I had to go on Friday and he was done on Thursday. So I was the old lady and he stood behind the set and stuck things out that were trying to scare the old lady (scary shoes, wiggly pants, gloves, and a big pumpkin head) on her path home. At the end all of the things came to her door and she still wasn’t scared so they were sad. She had a great idea however, it was for them all to get together and make a scarecrow in her garden so they could scare the crows, and they were all happy in the end. Blake made a grat scarecrow and the kids loved it. We also did a little poem called the Small Ghostie and I made a ghost that really looked like it was flying around the room while we told it. Some kids started cyring then… but besides the scared ones, the oher had a lot of fun. I don’t think they understood A WORD because we did the whole thing in English, but they understood the visuals.
After we performed our set 5 times throughout the morning, we got dressed up in our costumes. I was a witch and Blake was Frankenstein. We watched all of the grade levels perform songs and dances (one was to Thriller…pretty cool) and we handed out treats. When it was finally time to go home we thought about washing the green off of our faces but we were tired and decided to ride home on the bus…then the train…then the metro, and walk back to our flat in our costumes. If I didn’t say this already, Halloween is NOT celebrated in Europe. Our kids just did it because we are in bilingual schools and it was a cultural activity. So, people were a little freaked out by us the whole way home.

Caitlin

A Rainy Day in Segovia

October 31, 2010

After an entire month of scrimping and saving our money, we finally got paid and decided it was high time to take a short trip somewhere outside of Madrid. Upon reviewing our travel books, we decided that a day trip to the small, old Roman town of Segovia. If you are history buff on Spain, you might know Segovia for its centuries old Aqueduct or perhaps for its castle that has been said to be the inspiration for the Disneyland castle.
We started the day about 9:00 when we woke up and were not sure exactly what time it was because apparently there is a time change here. It was actually 8 which we found later, so that was a nice perk. We read online while we were at Starbucks the other day, that there was a high speed Ave train to Segovia that took only a half hour and cost just 10 Euro. We thought that was a great plan. We did not however remember where that train station was, and when we read about a train that left from the station close to us in our Madrid book, we thought it was that one. We got that station 3 minutes before the train left for Segovia (mind, there is only a train every 2 hours). We also did not have any tickets yet. I am not going to get into this too much but we ended up getting on without really getting tickets (Blake’s quick thinking), about 20 seconds before the doors of the train shut! We were luckily able to buy our tickets from the man that came by to make sure we had tickets…we thought we were going to get in big trouble for a little while. Anyway, an hour goes by and we start wondering why we are not there yet, and we noticed that we had now seen the city sky line 4 times, each time out of opposite windows. We then realized that we were definitely not on the high speed train, just one that zigzagged north up over the mountains for 2 hours and 15 minutes until we reached Segovia.
On the way the sun had peaked out a couple of times so we thought, maybe it would burn off the clouds and give us a nice day. But, no such luck. It was very cold, very rainy, and unusually windy. We were prepared though, with many layers looking very much like tourists since we don’t have our stylish coats and boots yet like all the Spaniards. I was wearing 2 pair of socks with my Keens and 4 layers under a fleece with a headband ear warmer and people were looking at me like I was the strangest thing around. I was warm though, and would have looked 100% normal back at home. People are very judgmental here about dress, and do not go out in public unless they look the way they think they should… if you have been to Spain, you know this I am sure.
Side note, I really do not understand the fashion here. People follow trends, but the quality of things is really bad. It is impossible to find anything that is halfway decent quality under 100 Euro. And, people always have to be wearing NEW things, things that are ALL the same color…seems like black and purple are the hot colors now. And the newest trend is jeans that look like you have a diaper on under them! They look absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop every teenager to wear them… and a few of those older women who try to look young and hip but look very foolish doing it in these hot pants. Note to those at Lee (I think this is one those fads that will be gone by Christmas!) There are really cool and interesting things here too, but it is only good news to you if you have a fat wallet.
Back to Segovia. When we arrived, we took a bus to the old part of town with the Aqueducts and the city surrounded giant walls. No one really knows when the aqueduct was built, but it is thought to date back to the 1st century AD. The structure is enormous and at one time brought water from the Rio Frio (Cold River) to the town. It does not function today but still stands in awesome condition. It was constructed only from giant blocks carved from the mountains. There is not a drop of mortar or cement holding is together! It is quite amazing to think about how it was built with all of those blocks in the arches just holding themselves together.
We walked up and over the city wall of the old town to check it out. The old building were incredible! The outside walls were completely adorned with stamped designs and the stones used to build the structures were a gold color. When we looked at the map of the town, it looked like it may take us all day to get around, but we soon found that it was very, very small. We got to the center in about 2 minutes, where the huge cathedral stands. We went inside to find ceilings that looked about 3 stories high. There are pinnacles and flying buttresses at every conceivable point with a great choir in the middle made from marble that was a mix of bright green, yellow, and red. All around the outside of the choir were about 12 inlets (each looked like its own museum) with gold treasures and huge statues in each one and beautifully carved and painted ceilings that were all different. We watched a choir from Bristol sing like angels while we were inside.
When we went back into the bitter cold to head to the Alcazar (castle), we pulled out some chorizo sandwiches that we made and ate them on the way. We were still hungry after those so we had our next sandwiches with chicken and ceasar, and decided to hold our sacred pb and jelly ones until the ride home (this is peanut butter that I brought to Spain, it is not sold here). When we got to the Alcazar, it was breathtaking. It was the first castle we had ever seen. It looked like it came straight from a fantasy land. We went inside and the rooms that date back to the 14th century were extraordinary. The walls, ceilings, and floors, have ornately decorated tiles, tapestries, and moldings, gold leafing, and murals, everywhere that you can possibly look. There are huge windows cut out with spectacular views of the entire city. We went down to see the cellars and then up 250 winding stairs to the tower.
While we were at the top of the tower we could see one of the famous churches of Segovia, Vera Cruz, that is a remarkable 12 sided building in the vally that faces the Alcazar. The church was built by the Knights Templar in the early 13th century on the pattern of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and once housed part of the supposed “true cross” hence its name.
After the Alcazar we headed back to the aqueducts and on the way we stopped in some cute shops. We didn’t have much money to spare but we did decide to buy a little pet owl. We named him Govi (after Segovia). We then went to a quaint little café to have a drink to warm up before we headed back though the mountains and countryside outside of Madrid.

A long train ride through the mountains...

The Alcazar

View from the tower

The Cathedral

The Aqueduct

The beautiful stamped walls

Our new pet Govi

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

Glass house at Retiro Park

Enjoying our 2.5 liter bottle of Coke at Retiro Park




















Sir Columbus















Beautiful day for a walk...


































Botanical Gardens






























Playing some uke















Our new place!

We are the 1st floor on the left (with the balcony)