Life's too short to stand next to smelly people on the Metro...

While the title of this post doesn't actually have anything to do with its content, I thought I'd share a little pearl of wisdom we've picked up while in Spain... :)

In any case, we wanted to take this opportunity for a little 'show and tell' of some of the neat spots we've explored so far during our time here in Madrid:

Let me begin with Parque del Buen Retiro, a place we've spent so many wonderful sunny afternoons. Packed with gravel trails (which have been a great way to get back into running!), soft grassy sections perfect for laying out a blanket under the shade of a tree, statues and arches as old as the city, and plenty of people to watch!

On the weekends this place is swarming with Madrilan@s relaxing after the work week while street performers and vendors try to take advantage of them by earning a few euros.

Here was a very talented Spanish swing band we enjoyed in the park.

The huge pond in the center of the park where you can rent little row boats.

Here are a couple shots of the park at night, still filled with people.

On to El Rastro. Every Sunday morning people pack the streets in La Latina (a famous neighborhood near the city center) for an enormous flee market. You can find just about anything here. Hats, scarves, ratchet sets, dinnerware, antique muskets, original (or unoriginal) artwork, and pretty much anything else you could think of.

YUM! Candy!

Where's Waldo?...

While this isn't a specific location its more of a spectacle to be witnessed throughout Madrid (and Spain): The Food.

Here we have some octopus just waiting to be chopped up and made into something delicious. I've only had it once so far at my school for a celebration but it was much tastier than I would have guessed. A Spanish woman told me that to achieve the right amount of tenderness the chef has to beat the octopus a certain number of times against a stone or wooden block...

Spain is also know for their ham. Specifically for a type of cured ham called jamon iberico, which is delicious and everywhere. This past summer I started eating meat again after a three year hiatus in anticipation for traveling and having new culinary adventures. All I have to say is I've rediscovered my love of ham, so pigs everywhere...beware. :)

A very Spanish way to enjoy an afternoon is to relax on the patio of one of the numerous bars in every neighborhood with a cana (small glass of beer) and tapas (small plate of yummy Spanish food). The best part is, you pay for the beer and the food is complimentary! Now, some bars are stingy but the key has been to find the bars with the smallest glass of beer and the biggest plate of food!

Living in Spain: A Day in the Life

Before painting pictures of many of the unusual experiences we’ve had, it will be helpful to share the daily backdrop. I give my own day as an example, and Andrea, whose day is quite similar, will be sending some different stories soon…

………

Chapter 2: A Day in the Life

7:15: Wake up before the kids, who gather outside our window waiting for school to start, begin making a clamor, like the sound of a flock of Spanish birds, above which sleeping becomes difficult. The schoolyard is literally a small brick plaza between our apartment building and the school, and the voices echo round and round!

7:20: Get into the shower. We have a very odd polygonal bathroom. It is about 8 ft long, but only 2 ft wide at its entrance and 5 ft wide at the other, pseudo-shower, end. I say pseudo-shower because we only have a few minutes of hot water, no fixed nozzle (but a movable spray head), and a door, which doesn’t quite close (and likes to swing open as you shower) that only covers 4 of the 5 feet of the “enclosure.” And if that weren’t enough, when you sit on the toilet, your knees are only a few inches from the wall. It’s fun to play drums on the wall, or rest your head if you’ve had a long day.

Showers themselves are interesting. You have to get yourself wet, turn off the water, lather up, and quickly rinse. I haven’t had a typical shower since I was in the US. Don’t take them for granted! J

7:30-8:15: Dress, dry my hair, and pack things for the day. The highlight is finding two or three minutes to have tea and a muffin with Andrea. Of course, I should just get up earlier, but…I can’t seem to.

8:20 Leave for work. This requires navigating the

Metro tunnels: miles and miles of subterranean train tracks that serve as the veins and arteries of Madrid. Literally. Last year the Metro drivers went on strike for a few days (until they, themselves, ran out of money) and the whole city quite simply shut down. The Metro system is an amazing affair: dozens of 6 passenger-car trains concurrently and continuously shipping people about the metropolis…each with upwards of hundreds of passengers at any given moment.At rush hours, the Metro cars are packed to discomfort, such that you have to actually cram yourself in.

Faces are all 1 foot apart. Most people listen to music, doze, try to read, or, especially in the morning, simply stare forward with a glazed look. You become anonymous. All these other human beings within touching distance…and they couldn’t be further away. It is a remarkable experience. On any given day, I pass within a few feet of hundreds of human faces I’ve never seen before and I’ll never see again. It’s humbling how few stick out from the crowd. We are all so lucky to be loved.

9:00: Start work at Colegio de Alameda de Osuna, one of the largest, and richest, schools in Madrid. A for-profit school for about 1400 students (pre-school through high school), Alameda de Osuna is geared towards standardized tests and impressing money-leaking parents. And they do that well: a huge campus, excellent staff, an on-campus bar/store, an on-campus Spa and Exercise facility (to which unrelated community members can join), and an impressive theater all catch the eye. Thankfully, I was lucky to work with my first choice: grades 4 through 6. At this age, the kids are cognitively competent and still innocent. When they aren’t too hard to wrangle, it’s delightful. The teachers are also very impressive. They have a command of language syntax far beyond what we are used to the in the States, probably owing to the complexity of Spanish grammar and verb tenses. I’ve also enjoyed learning from them how to approach class management more effectively. It’s a strange thing being a middle-aged philosopher/artist going back to teach kids. It requires such patience and energy!

11:15-11:45: The whole elementary section of the school gets a break. Most teachers grab a café at the bar and a smoke on the sly (from the students). It’s hard to find people in Spain who don’t smoke.

11:45-1:15: Back to classes. My work consists chiefly in taking half of each class to my own classroom and providing English instruction. We focus on conversational abilities foremost, supporting that with writing and reading exercises. I’ve learned a bunch of great interactive games thus far. The work is one of extremes. When it is hard, it drains the soul, but when it is good, it uplifts. The burdens are offset by the enthusiasm I feel being with the kids. They are fresh and they make me laugh. They can be painfully sweet, too. Spain is very physical. It’s like a big family. Some kids just give you hugs out of blue. That’s the best.

1:15-2:45. The most un-American thing of all. Spaniards take 90 minutes for lunch. 90 minutes every day. Luckily, the school food is rather a treat, for me, at least. Today, for instance, I had a tuna and vegetables salad with roasted chicken and peas. My co-workers are very kind and embracing. They have made every effort to make me feel welcome, including speaking English as they can, inviting me to their after lunch (off campus) coffee excursions, and translating stories for me when we’re gathered in a group.

2:45-5:00: The rest of the school day.

5:00-8:00: Depending on the day, return home or, more likely, go to start tutoring classes. There are many Spanish families who, aware of the global value of English fluency, desire their children to have capacities unobtainable through general classroom instruction. There have been many tutoring opportunities that we have taken. Tutoring is fun and lucrative. And one aspect reveals a major difference between US and Spanish culture. Spanish culture is familiar in a way that is more tribal than we tend to see in the impersonal States. For example, 10 minutes after meeting a family to begin tutoring, the parents sent me in to their adolescent girl’s bedroom, closing the door behind me as I entered, for the next hour. Then, after I tutored their 11 year-old son, I found that the parents had simply left the house at some point to make a meeting, letting the boy pay me after we finished. The beautiful trust they have shown me is how society should be.

8:30-9:30: Andrea and I make and have dinner. We usually eat at home to save money, and use the laptop to watch part of a DVD we brought. Andrea’s becoming quite a cook, and it’s awesome!!! I set the table, light a candle, turn the lights low, and we sit by the window, with the city humming beside us, eating our well-won meal, talking of our day, and hoping the morning doesn’t come too quickly. Sometimes we go back to work after dinner – me with philosophy and Andrea with sorting out how we can survive here – but sometimes we just cuddle up and veg out, watching a favorite old movie, Planet Earth, Frasier, or a Sherlock Holmes episode. We cherish the hours between 9 PM and 7 AM! J

……..

Well, that’s a quick tour of a typical day.

We hope everyone in the States is thriving. We miss you all very much, and more than you might guess. Although we are rather preoccupied with trying to survive in, and adapt to, a new culture, the continual novelty, confusion and challenge of life here keeps us freshly cognizant of how irreplaceable our life-long friends are!

Love from us!

Living in Spain: Starting from Scratch

Chapter 1: Starting from Scratch

It has been an amazing experience thus far. We have seen strange and wonderful places and met many good-hearted people. But for the first few weeks after leaving the US, Andrea and I found ourselves living not in one of the bacchanalian capitals of the world, but in sPain. Daily costs were quickly draining our resources – one US dollar is only worth about 60 cents here – and we were having little to no luck finding a habitable habitation. We had done (well, Andrea had done) some advance research, but it was of only marginal use, as it turned out…it’s hard to plan what 60 meters² you’ll call home when you’re 6000 miles away.

But eventually we saw a place Andrea really liked. I think it was the lime green en-mirrored foyer dresser and the IKEA furnishings. That and the neighborhood. This particular apartment was in a neighborhood whose quality sounded with the voices of children playing in the nearby park and content Spaniards living with spirit.

But there’s always a catch. Although we had immediately let the landlord – a zesty Argentinean woman named Liliana, prone to both smiles and cigarettes – know of our interest, we were informed that a couple who could outstay us was also interested, and, hence, by the dictates of the $ bottom line, would get the apartment. Andrea, especially, was saddened. After seeing a bunch of places every day for a grueling week, we took a breather and braced ourselves for square one. All the other apartments had been insufficient in one way or another.

A number of them were little more than the size of very large US closets (not an exaggeration). One of them required a security deposit of almost $4000 (US). A bunch of them received little or no sunlight; one place in particular was, quite literally, a dungeon. Not only were there bars on the windows, the windows looked out to the dim interior of the building. Trying to find an apartment we could afford was certainly demoralizing.

And then we had our break. We were down and out, our money dwindling, and we were told that the couple that was going to take the apartment might back out. We held our breath.I thought Andrea was going to pass out more than once those days. We got a call. It was available!

But, sometimes, there’s another catch, like at the beginning of the third act of a film when, just at the point when the major hurdle has been (somehow) overcome, a new challenge - unexpected, and as bad as the previous – invites itself to dinner. Liliana needed three months rent (which included two months as a security deposit) the next day. The money wasn’t the problem. I transferred the money from my US account to our Spanish account that day. But when we went to take out the money, the bankers told us that not only had they not received our money, they had no trace of it, and, even if the transfer were working, they wouldn’t know about it, or be able to give us the funds, for 5 to 10 working days.

Andrea, who had bravely translated through all these crises, reached her limit during this catastrophe – with our appointment for the apartment looming in an hour – and began crying.

I asked, in very broken Spanish, if the bank couldn’t call my bank to ascertain the transfer, and then loan us the amount we needed until the transfer cleared. A few bankers discussed things while we sat there, feeling profoundly helpless. I wondered how so many people manage to change countries with so little money. Life is just resilient, I guess.

And then we got a second break. After numerous conversations to which we were not privy, the bank director – a handsome man in his mid 40s who had taken an immediate shine to Andrea when we opened our account – emerged and informed us he was going to give us the money. Just give it to us in good faith. We were dumbstruck with relief and joy. It actually felt funny letting smiles spread across our faces; after feeling so much frustration, it had begun to have an inertia of its own. They were just going to give us almost $3000 (US) and let us walk out of the bank. And they did. Wow. Redemption. Humanity redeemed.

We got our apartment. J