la vie parisienne

The first weekend of December we had a double holiday (!)- Constitution Day and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception- which meant we had a four day weekend! Maureen, Deirdre and I took advantage of the opportunity to have a lovely cousins weekend in Paris. (I know I am very late in posting about this- I've been very lazy lately- last post was actually written by Maureen after a few glasses of wine but I have finally expanded it and added a few more pics!)

We stayed in a lovely two-star hotel in Montmartre, right near the Moulin Rouge- which is, you may know, basically like the red light district. I had stayed in this area last time I was in Paris, and it is really cute, so I assured Mo and Dre that the hotel was in a really nice neighborhood- they were a little skeptical when we emerged from the metro in front of a giant sign that said Sexodrome. They came around though.

It was just our luck that all the museums in Paris decided to have a giant strike so none of them were open. This didn't bother Mo and I too much because we had already been, but we felt bad for Deirdre as it was her first time in Paris. (The Eiffel Tower was open but once we saw the line to get to the top, Mo and I assured Dre that it wasn't really all that great). It was kind of nice though in that we got to spend a lot more time walking around. It was colder than Madrid, but besides one day of rain we had good weather. Given her love of history, Mo was really excited to walk to the Bastille when she saw it on the map. Imagine her disappointment when we arrived and remembered that the Bastille had been destroyed way back in, like, the 18th century and all that remained was a memorial sculpture and a modern opera house. (Incidentally, if you ever wanted to know where punk ass Parisian teenagers gather to smoke pot and drink boxed wine it's under the electronics store next to what was once the Bastille). After that disappointment, we spent the afternoon wandering around the Marais, which is a very cute neighborhood.

In addition to strolling Paris's beautiful streets and taking in the sights, we ate lots of delicious food. On Friday night, Maureen took us to a fondue place she'd gone to before where they serve wine in baby bottles- tres chic. On Saturday and Sunday we met up with Van, Mo's friend from high school who is working as an au pair in a town an hour outside of Paris, and his sister, Brie, who was visiting him. Both of them are major foodies so they had looked up all of the best places to go. Two nights in a row we had very delicious and very French food at very cute and very French bistros- tres tres chic.

Though Paris is of course amazing, it was admittedly a bit of a relief to come back to Madrid, where we at least have a basic grasp of the language. In Paris, we tried our best to get around with "oui," "merci," and "trois" with little success- though luckily most Parisians were pretty nice about speaking English to us, despite their reputation (I think the key is to attempt to speak in French that is so hopelessly bad that it's kind of cute, or at least pitiful.) I was hoping that the few weeks of Rosetta Stone French I'd done a few summers ago might come in handy but sadly nothing about a young girl on a horse ever came up.

Unfortunately, my camera batteries were dying so I don't have a ton of pics, but here they are:

Paris, je t'aime

Takeoffs & Landings

Okay, so what did Mo and I do last Saturday? We flew planes!

Maria Carmen, the teacher from Maureen's school who is inexplicably nice to us, took us to La Mancha, where her brother flies small planes. We stopped first in Tembleque, a small little manchegan town, which was very cute.

Mo's teacher asked her to come watch her brother fly a plane (and after a subsequent translational blunder) we were flying planes in the sky!

After a brief explanation of the plane's machinations in Spanish, we were off!

Maureen took off into the sunny sky in a two enginer, whilst I took off in an engineless "glider." The only question they asked me was my name and my weight and that was the extent of my training. Fortunately, there was a parachute in the case of catastrophe. Unfortunately, I didn't actually ask how to use it, thus making it only extra weight that would propel me to the ground even faster. Luckily, I didn't need it. The small planes are actually incredibly safe, much safer than a commercial flight, and Maria Carmen's brother's job is to do safety inspections on airplanes at the Barcelona airport, so we were in good hands.

The plane that I flew had to be towed into the air by a plane with an engine, which then cut loose from us once we were at a safe height. Though I was in the front and theoretically in control of the plane, I'm pretty sure the instructor in the back had some kind of master control panel in case anything happened. Controlling the plane simple consisted of manuevering a clutch and pushing two pedals up and down. Once I got the handle of turning left and right, we did a few tricks, including letting the plane hang still in the air until it quivers and drops, which is pretty cool. (Again, I'm pretty sure the pilot guy was actually in control this whole time). Landing was a bit of a harrowing experience as the engineless plane cannot land on the paved landing strip so you have to cruise as low above the ground as possible without actually touching it before scraping down on the rough earth.

Maureen went up with Maria Carmen's brother in a plane that did have an engine, so she got to go much higher and farther. Both of us got an amazing view of the manchegan countryside, which, though very flat and relatively barren, is also quite beautiful with its olive trees and rich green and brown coloring. Though by the end of the day we still found ourselves wondering how we'd ended up on an airstrip in the middle of Spain, it was definitely a pretty unforgettable experience!

En un lugar de La Mancha...

Holiday Cheer

As you might imagine (or know from experience), Thanksgiving away from home can be kind of sad. Especially since virtually no other culture acknowledges this sacred American ritual (or even has anything more than a vague awareness of it). Lucky for me, though I was thousands of miles from home, I still got to spend Thanksgiving with two of my cousins, as well as several of the great American friends I've met here in Madrid. And despite this country's general ignorance of the awesomeness of Thanksgiving (or "Dia de Accion de Gracias" as the Spanish ever so succinctly translate it), I was still able to get in the spirit by teaching my kids all about the holiday. This included showing them pictures of all the traditional Thanksgiving foods- which they generally interpreted as American versions of foods they were familiar with, calling the stuffing "migas," the potatoes "puree," the cranberries cherries, and the pie cake- the yams they were pretty stumped on though, hah! (Maureen's kids interpreted the picture of pilgrims as "brujas.") It also included indoctrinating them with an overly simplified and largely disproven version of the story of the first Thanksgiving. Only one of my more advanced classes finally thought to ask, "If they were so thankful to the Indians, why did they kill them all?"

Holidays in Spain

On Thanksgiving night (which in Spain was just Thursday night), Maureen, Deirdre, Emily, Justin and I went to an Italian cafe that serves Thanksgiving dinner. Though an Italian cafe in Madrid might not sound like the ideal place to find an authentic Thanksgiving dinner, they actually have an American chef so it was very authentic and delicious. (I had gone there for Thanksgiving when I was abroad so I knew it was good). Of course, no matter how delicious and authentic it was, a restaurant meal could never compare to a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast. But not to worry, we were not to be deprived of this crucial aspect of Thanksgiving: Our wonderful and ambitious friend Justin organized a full-on feast at our friends Mateo and Ashley's apartment. Among the four of them, Justin, Emily, Mateo and Ashley prepared an amazing roast turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole and biscuits, all of which were delicious. Maureen and I together were given only the responsibility of making the yams and bringing lots of wine- you can tell where they think our strengths lie. To be honest, I was a little skeptical of how authentic the meal would be, not because I doubted my friends' cooking abilities but because so many key ingredients are very hard to come by in Spain (the whole idea being that Thanksgiving foods are native to America), but much to my surprise, our meal was very delicious and not lacking a single thing!

Though it's always sad when Thanksgiving's over, it also means that you get to start celebrating Christmas! Maureen and I celebrated on Sunday by spending the whole day watching Christmas movies then taking an evening stroll to view all the beautiful Christmas lights-the center of Madrid is all dressed up for Christmas with lights and giant trees everywhere. We also got in the spirit by getting seasonal Christmas drinks at Starbucks and going to an advent mass at a beautiful old church near Sol (the first time we had seen the inside of a Starbucks or a church since arriving.)

One unrelated but (to us) very exciting incident: Maureen and I went to one of the bars in our neighborhood on Friday night. After having ordered several rounds of food and drinks, Maureen went to the bar to pay. As she did not have the right change, she called "Genny" across the room to get me to come over. The bartender looked at her in surprise. "Where are you from?" he asked; "the US," Maureen responded; his response? "OH, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SPANISH." (caps not meant to convey yelling but just the utter amazingness of his response). That's right, somebody thought we were Spanish! This one single event - perhaps the crowning acheivement of our entire time in Spain- made up for all the language gaffes we've made over the past few months, all the times people have responded to our accented Spanish with disdain and condescension. As we walked home we were literally jumping for joy, provoking stares from passersby and encouragement from the nearby construction workers. The only sad part is we actually like that bar and now we can never go back there lest we accidentally shatter our image as perfect Spanish-speakers.

Well, that covers a lot of what's been going on here lately, except what we did on Saturday. That adventure merits its own post. Stay tuned...

it's been forever...

Ok, so it is time to write more about life in Madrid, not because anything particularly interesting has happened, or because it has just been way too long, or because some of my fellow bloggers are putting me to shame, but because the Captain says so.

I do feel bad that it has been so long since my last update. My silence is due partly to the fact that my computer broke awhile ago and I have only just recently gotten a new one (thanks Mom!). But it's also because I have become pretty settled into my life here, which, though it doesn't make for interesting blog posts, is a good thing (I think). To make matters worse, I've been really bad about taking pictures lately, and I suspect the pictures are the most (if not the only) interesting part of this blog. That being said, I'll try to entertain you with a few anecdotes from the past month or so.

One interesting thing we did was take a really fun trip to Avila. A few weeks ago we had a long weekend, so Maureen, Emily, Justin and I decided to do a day trip there on Sunday. We'd read that you could take the Cercanias- which is the equivalent of the commuter rail- so we decided to meet Justin at the Atocha train station- which is sort of the equivalent of Grand Central/South Station and is only about a 15 minute walk from our apartment-naively assuming that the train would leave from there. After asking around at several ticket windows, we were finally told that the train to Avila actually leaves from the Chamartin station, way up in the northern part of the city. Not to worry though, if we took the Cercanias we could get there pretty quickly and still make the 11:00 train. Well, we were not about to be fooled by this advice. The Cercanias costs several euros more than the metro, and we were only about 47 stops away from Chamartin...

Needless to say, about an hour and a half later four proudly frugal but ticketless travelers shuffled out of the Chamartin station into some God-forsaken part of northern Madrid. Thankfully, the day was not ruined, as Justin knew of a cool- and free- photography exhibit taking place nearby, featuring the work of Rodchenko, a Russian revolutionary/ revolutionary Russian photographer. It was sweet.

So yeah, Avila was awesome- maybe we'll go again sometime.

The past two weekends have been fun but also somewhat lonely because Maureen and Deirdre keep ditching me. Last weekend was especially sad because I had to miss my cousin Aileen's wedding. M & D- being bridesmaids and all- of course flew home for it but sadly for me it was just not in the cards. Despite feeling sad about this all weekend, I did have fun hanging out with Emily, Justin and their friends Mateo and Ashley. This weekend, mis primas are in London, a trip I opted out of because London is mad expensive and I have already been there. Although I again wish I could be there with them, they are also missing out on a good time here: Last night Emily and I went to a Finnish Christmas party! Molly, Emily's friend from Tufts who is also an auxiliar, lives with a Finnish girl whose husband was visiting this weekend, so they decided to throw a party. It included Finnish pastries, which are delicious, and Finnish vodka, which is strong. There was also a traditional Finnish gift exchange. I guess those were really the only Finnish elements to it, but it was very fun. Also, Finnish is a really interesting language to listen to.

And with that, this post is finnished! (sorry) I am going to start taking lots of pictures and I will put them up very soon!

toros y mas

La vida madrilena continues to go well. Maureen, Emily and I have all begun to settle in to the routine of teaching and are tired a lot of the time but also really enjoying it. Our Spanish is very slowly but (we think) surely getting better. Here are some pics from last weekend's adventures (narrated below).

mas madrid

On Friday my school did not have classes because we were celebrating the feast day of some saint. Each class went on a field trip to somewhere in Madrid; I went with the 4th level kids (sophomores) to the Retiro (it's a big park). I wasn't looking forward to it too much because I thought we'd have to do activities with the kids in the park all day, but as it turned out we teachers just gave the kids some instructions for a scavenger hunt (not as exciting as it sounds- it involved finding religious statues and writing about how they related to the saint) and ditched the kids. It was fun hanging out with some of the teachers outside of school. After the kids left we went to Plaza Mayor and had a picnic of calamari bocadillos and clara (beer with lemon).

On Friday night we went to a sweet concert in a small club with a few of Emily's friends. One of them knew the manager of the band- a Cuban group called Havana Abierta (download them! they're really good!)

On Saturday, Maureen's principal Maria Carmen took Mo and me to a performance of Footloose at a high school near their school. Although high school musicals aren't as common here, this school is known for having really good ones. Indeed, the performance-acting, singing, dancing, everything- was really impressive! Though they kept the English title of the play, everything was translated into Spanish- so instead of "gonna cut loose, footloose," you have "yo quiero bailar, bailar" - it was kind of comical.

Finally, on Sunday, we went to a bullfight. It was one of the last ones of the season, so it featured younger and less experienced toreros fighting younger and smaller bulls and was sparsely attended. Since bullfighting is not too popular among the current generation of Spaniards, the crowd that does turn up is mostly old Spanish men who heckle the whole time and tourists. Luckily we bought the cheapest tickets and were up at the very top, so we were sitting with the heckling men who seemed to actually know what was going on (unfortunately, this also means my pictures are not very good).

This was my second time at a bullfight but Maureen and Emily's first. It is definitely kind of jarring at first but you get over it pretty quickly. On the one hand, you are basically watching an innocent animal being tortured and killed. They give the bull a good stab in the back before he even gets into the ring so that he is already weakened and the torero has lots of helpers who distract the bull and men on horses with long spears who come out to help stab him- so the torero is really given a big advantage. And despite the stereotypes of bulls as angry, aggressive animals, they are really only like this when provoked. When he first comes out, the bull just stands placidly in the middle of the ring looking like he wouldn't hurt a fly. It is only when they taunt him with bright red and pink capes and stab him multiple times that he becomes aggressive. It also does take a long time and many stabs for the bull to actually die (they're incredibly resilient/strong) and when his legs do finally collapse underneath him it's a little heartbreaking. Then horses drag the corpse of the once majestic animal out of the ring, leaving a trail of blood in the dust.

So why would anyone take pleasure in this sadistic show of torture? Well, in addition to these unnerving aspects, there's also a lot of tradition and ritual involved- in fact, many consider bullfighting a form of art. (I could try to describe this tradition and ritual and art but I think you'd be better off just reading some Hemingway). Although the torero's goal is to kill the bull, he also has to respect the bull. If he doesn't stab in just the right place, thus prolonging the bull's death, everyone boos- we witnessed this with one of the toreros we saw, who really stuggled to kill the thing. People also cheer whenever the bull has any kind of victory- one of the ones we saw was really smart and managed to jump over the wall of the ring and run around the outer ring separating the crowd from the bull ring for a good 30 seconds before he was caught. Later he actually knocked over one of the horses with the stabber guy on it and headbutted him several times. (You do have to feel pretty bad for the horses- they are blindfolded and heavily armored- and likely sedated- so they won't scare, but they often are attacked by the bull and of course have no idea what's going on). Anyway, ultimately I think bullfighting is not as inhumane as it seems. The bull meat is sold at a pretty high price, and if you think about it, most of the other meat we eat is not slaughtered with nearly as much reverence. Also, the sparkly costumes are pretty great.

Ramblings on bullfights aside, the weekend was a good one, despite the fact that Deirdre ditched us for Barcelona! I would give you updates on the week so far, but nothing interesting has happened. I'll let you know if it does.

Long Weekend!

Time for another update from Madrid! Although today is Monday, I am writing not after a long day of work but after a day of relaxation, shopping and chocolate con churros. That's right, today was a national holiday in Spain- it's called Puente de Pilar and is some kind of nationalist holiday that involves a huge military parade. Maureen and Deirdre learned of this when they heard low-flying planes practicing on Friday and were on the verge of fleeing to the nearest Metro station, convinced that we were being attacked. Those of us who actually have to work on Fridays were unaware of this, but I really can't complain because we just had a 3 day weekend! We got to relax, go out, and hang out with Deirdre, our roomate Emily, and our friend Caitlin, who is also an auxiliar in our program.

Emily and Maureen

Maureen and Caitlin

Yesterday, Maria Carmen, the principal of Maureen's school, took Maureen, Deirdre and me on a day trip to two little towns outside Madrid: Aranjuez, where the king and queen's summer palace is (though the current monarchs don't use it), and Chinchon (it's fun to say), which is a very cute, very old little town with lots of pretty, well-worn architecture and rustic little taverns. Check out the pics:

Aranjuez y Chinchon

Maria Carmen is really nice and generous and has sort of taken Maureen- and consequently me and Deirdre- under her wing and decided to show us lots of different places while we're here. Next weekend, she is taking us to a musical and she has also offered to take us to Salamanca and other places in the future. We're not sure why she's so nice to us but we're not complaining!

We also went to the Reina Sofia museum this weekend- home to Picasso's Guernica among other masterpieces.

Teaching continues to go well. The lesson plan I am using now involves using songs and lyrics to help with listening and teach new vocab and cultural concepts- who knew Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" could be such a useful ESL tool? The songs "Hey There Delilah" and "Viva la Vida" have also been successful, but I've definitely gotten the most mileage out of Sk8er Boi- it brings up lots of vocab and idiomatic phrases such as "punk" and "stuck up their nose," while also teaching valuable lessons about life, love and acceptance. Maureen's teaching is also going well, although she has one troublemaker named Arron, who asks her if she's ever been to the "house of the boys who play" (Playboy Mansion) and according to the other teachers is part gypsy (always a sign of trouble to Spainards).

Anyway, that's pretty much all that's new here. Unfortunately, the news from home is not as good. I am definitely grieving the Red Sox ALDS loss though I am many miles away. I was so excitd that yesterday's game was on at noon EST (6 pm our time) because that meant I might be able to watch it. By the time we got back from our trip, though, it was already the 7th inning, so I had to watch victory slipping away in the form of mlb.com updates. And on top of that the Pats lost last night! Sad times. Oh well, I guess I should start getting into Real Madrid instead.

we have an apartment!!! (and other news from Madrid)

Hola! I am very happy to report that I am writing this post not from a tiny hostel room, struggling to hear my own thoughts over the tuneless cacophony of drunken Germans singing on the damn Gran Via, but from the quiet comfort of my own living room. That's right, we finally moved into an apartment on Thursday! And no, it is not the really awesome one I told you about before (the so-called "light at the end of the tunnel"- I think I jinxed it). That one didn't work out. And by didn't work out I mean we got totally screwed over, but whatever, we're not dwelling on it. We ended up finding a nice, big place in the same neighborhood. Mo and I are now living with Emily, another girl from our program, who is really nice, and it's going really well so far. Check out pics of the apartment in my Picasa album:

Our apartment!

On the job front, we also started teaching on Thursday (it was a big day). My job is going great so far- I really like the school, the teachers and the students. It's a Catholic school but it gets public funding (which is true of all of the schools that work with the program- it's a common thing here). It is a little weird how much Catholic stuff they have everywhere (it's kind of intense), but the school is really nice and big and has lots of resources- according to the teachers from Maureen's school, mine is the "posh" school, while theirs is kind of ghetto- aka poor and has lots of immigrants. [Side note: They really HATE immigrants here- the anti-immigrant sentiment is even stronger and definitely more unaninimous than it is in the US. When looking for apartments we were repeatedly told not to look in Lavapies- a predominantly immigrant neighborhood- and were also assured by many landlords that the neighborhood we were in "no es Lavapies"- aka there are no immigrants- well, except us I guess.] But anyway, my job: I am an "auxiliar de conversacion" for the 3rd and 4th level English classes in the secondary school (meaning 14-16 year olds). I work with 4 different classes of 30 kids but I only take 10 at a time. Since they do grammar, reading, writing, etc. in their regular English class, I get to focus just on speaking and listening, meaning I get to be the "fun teacher" who does interesting things with them. I've only worked 2 days so far so I haven't even met all my kids yet, but so far I really like them. Their English skill level varies but generally it's pretty good. They seem pretty interested in talking to an actual native English speaker from the USA. Hopefully that interest won't wane as the year goes on (though I suspect it will). I asked them about what music, movies and TV shows they like and they're all really into American stuff and think Spanish stuff sucks. For some reason Green Day, Sum 41 and Blink "one hundred and eighty two" seem to be the most popular bands. They also watch a lot of American shows dubbed in Spanish (when someone said they loved One Tree Hill I refrained from exclaiming "Oh my God, me too!" lest I sacrifice any small amount of authority and respectability I might have). At Maureen's school, the "theme of the year" is "All the people moving," which is apparently some song that is popular here that they think is popular in America. Her schools has a big banner with this slogan and pictures of people on surfboards, bikes, etc. She didn't have the heart to tell them that it doesn't really make sense in English.

Anyway, it feels really good to finally start to settle into our lives here. Before we just kind of felt like tourists on a vacation that was dragging on a little too long, but now it feels like we really live here. Though the thought of spending a whole nine months here at first seemed daunting, now I'm really looking forward to it (though I still miss everyone back home lots and lots and lots).

Unrelatedly, there has been a general air of sadness here since the announcement yesterday that Madrid didn't get the Olympics. There has been a big campaign here that features a hand with all the Olympic Rings colors on it and the slogan "Tengo una corazonada," meaning "I have a hunch." The president, the king and queen, the mayor of Madrid and the president of the Community of Madrid all went to Copenhagen to campaign. I think everyone knew it was a longshot but they were still really disappointed (though it was surprising that Madrid beat out Tokyo and Chicago in the first round). Personally, I'm glad it went to Rio since it's never been in South America, but I do feel kind of sad for the madrilenos since they wanted it so badly.

That's all for now. I'll update next week on the trials and travails of my first full week of teaching.

La Real Vida Madrilena

Though Maureen and I have been here less than a week, it feels like much much longer. Being in Madrid is of course amazing, but the experience has definitely had its ups and downs, marked by moments both comic and tragic.

When last we talked Mo and I were just beginning our apartment search- what an ordeal that has been! As I mentioned, talking to people on the phone in Spanish and asking about things like utilities and security deposits is not easy when you're not fluent. This sometimes culminated in the person switching to English or, in one case, in Maureen frustratedly throwing the phone at me. Since most Spanish people cannot comprehend Gen or Genny and since they insist upon hispanisizing every name, I usually just referred to myself as Genoveva, the Spanish version of Genevieve. (My program director always called me this when I was abroad). While I realized that this was a little weird, I figured it was just easier. I didn't realize that this bothered Maureen until later when she was skyping with her best friend Courtney- a conversation I heard all of since we have been sharing a hostel room and spending 24/7 together this week- and she loudly complained "If I hear her say 'soy Genoveva' one more time I'm gonna go crazy." Well, nice to know how you really feel Mo.

In all serious though, it has been great to be here with Maureen and I don't really know how I would have survived this without her. We have both had to support each other in moments when one of us is "crashing." For example, when I can barely see straight because I'm exhausted from apartment searching and going out and starving because I've only eaten one piece of toast the whole day because we are poor and can't afford food, Maureen leads me around and makes up for my lack of social skills with her energy and wit. When we get kicked out of our hostel because we still haven't found an apartment and are only booked for three nights and we have to be out by noon and we wake up at 11:55 and have to lug our million pounds of luggage through Puerta del Sol and up to Gran Via- aka THE most crowded, touristy, pick-pocketed area of Madrid and perhaps all of Spain, where it is hard to walk even without suitcases- and I am charging up the hill as fast as I can to get it over with and I look back and Maureen is collapsed alongside the prostitutes that line the avenue, well then I help her along. You get the idea.

Searching for apartments has consumed much of our time and energy here and has been difficult and frustrating. We have looked at a lot of crappy places since those are the only things we can afford- a low point was standing in a windowless basement apartment with a man with one hand who assured us we would only have to pay one month of financing since we were such pretty ladies. But at last there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. We eventually realized that it is much easier to find a nice apartment within our price range with 3 people instead of 2, so we found a girl from our program, Patricia, who was also looking for a place to live. We found a really nice 3 bedroom apartment in the Delicias neighborhood- it's right near Deirdre and is a quiet, safe neighborhood not far from the heart of the city- that is much bigger than all the other places we looked at. We hung out with Patricia for a while today and she seems really nice and really chill. So we are hoping we will be able to sign the contract tomorrow and move in on Tuesday, but we still have not finalized all the details so we are really crossing our fingers that it will work out (as Farrells we cannot help but be a little pessimistic that something will go wrong at the last minute). We really just can't handle living in a hostel anymore.

Aside from dealing with the trying process of apartment searching,we have also been able to go out and have some fun. Last week we went out with Deirdre and a few of her friends, and this weekend we hung out with some kids from our program. We also spent a lot of time with Mary, who is Maureen's friend Courtney's cousin visiting from Granada, and Walther, a Peruvian who has been living in Madrid for 7 years and was Mary's boyfriend when she studied abroad here. They took us to a lot of cool insider places and showed us la real vida madrilena. On Saturday night we went to a jazz bar with Walther's artist friends, got the best croquetas in town at a little hole in the wall tapas place, got the best mojitos in town at a little hole in the wall Brazilian place, and then went back to Walther's apartment and watched some of his documentary films. We are so bohemian. Tonight we got a picnic dinner from the Museo del Jamon (not actually a museum) and ate by the Museo del Prado (actually a museum). We are so madrileno. Of course, Mary's expertise led Maureen to question why I am not as good a guide since I also studied abroad here. I reminded her that I have a horrible sense of direction and a bad memory, and am a follower not a leader. Oh well.

Anyway, I hope next time I write it will be from our fabulous new apartment (though it might be difficult since we might not have internet connection for a little while). This week will be crazy since we will be moving, starting our jobs, and finally settling in to our new life here in Madrid. I'll let you know how it goes.

(Happy, Ali?)

Hola Madrid!

Maureen and I have arrived safely in Madrid, and so far it is great! Our hostel is very nice and is right in the downtown area, near Puerta del Sol (the geographic center of Spain). Yesterday we met up with Deirdre for lunch and then later for tapas y sangria. We also took several naps, so we feel like we've been here a long time already. We are about to go look at apartments, which is very exciting. Calling people about apartments was stressful since we realized our Spanish is a little rusty (as is the tap water incidentally- but we've still been too cheap to spring for bottled); hopefully one of the apartments we look at this afternoon will work out so we don't have to go through that again!

But altogether so far so good- it is really weird/awesome to be back in Madrid after studying abroad here- it feels so familiar but also exciting and new. I can't believe we are going to spend a whole year here- we are hoping by the end we will be fluent in Spanish and very sophisticated and Euro (not that we're not already).

I'll send more updates soon. Thanks for reading!

the adventure begins

Hello,
This is my blog. It's about my experience as an assistant English teacher ("auxiliar") in Madrid, Spain from October, 2009 through June, 2010. I will be living with my cousin Maureen, also an auxiliar, and, in the fall semester, hanging out with my cousin Deirdre as well. Mo and I depart from JFK airport in New York tomorrow. I am very excited and only a little nervous.

While it does not promise to be particularly well-written or witty, this blog does promise to recount on a (fairly) regular basis my adventures and misadventures in Madrid. I will try my best to make these as interesting as possible. (I'm sure Mo and Dre will facilitate this goal).

I need to finish packing now. Next time you hear from me I will be in Madrid, hopefully reporting on how Maureen and I have found a fabulous but dirt cheap apartment in an awesome neighborhood and all my Spanish suddenly came back to me as soon as I stepped foot on Spanish soil.

Hasta luego!