Retiro Park

So there are two huge parks in Madrid, one named Retiro and one named Casa de Campo. Casa de Campo is bigger--kind of like Forest Park in Portland. Retiro is kind of like Central Park, but quieter and cleaner =) Sorry to my NYC buddies!

Anyway, Zoe and I walk there every weekend, and sometimes during the week (it's a good thirty minute walk to the park itself). I wanted to post some pictures of it so you all get a feel of the beauty that Madrid has, instead of just its problems. Enjoy! And just a quick note, the huge building that looks sort of angelic is the post office!!!! It's right outside of the park entrance.

Fire!!!

Today I took the day off because apparently we get a contractual day for moving. I have a friend who is loaning me their car to pack everything into and just drive to the new apartment (the guy is letting me leave all my stuff there until I can move in on Friday), so I was just packing away when I heard a loud explosion. I looked out my window and there were huge flames shooting out of two windows a couple of floors above me. Within seconds, I heard screaming and there was pounding on the door with people making everyone leave the building. I grabbed my passport and my bank information and Zoe, and was out the door in about ten seconds.

The fire department contained the fire, so it didn't get into our apartment, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I hadn't been home, no one would have answered the door, and if Zoe had been here, then she could have died in the fire. It was a scary incident, and it made me quite thankful for the things that I do have. I feel very sorry for the people who live there, although I don't know them and can't get into their building to offer them anything. I'm posting a picture of the post-fire, although I wish I would have gotten one while it was happening. I didn't think quite fast enough!

Apartment Hunting

So, I feel like I should also start from the beginning on how it's been apartment hunting in Madrid. First off, I began looking on the Madrid Craigslist about three weeks before I moved here. I found an apartment that was shared, which is what I thought I wanted because it would help me learn Spanish at a quicker pace. So, I began emailing back and forth with a guy here who had a room and accepted dogs (big ones, not the mini ones that weigh three pounds here). I thought it was perfect, and went to meet him and see the apartment the second day I was in Spain (this was before my purse was stolen later that night). I took the apartment on sight, as I had already seen three or four and thought this was, by far, the best for the price.

The omen of getting my purse stolen should have warned me of the days to come. My roommate is a psycho crack addict who randomly knocks on my door and demands that I clean the kitchen. It is important to add here that I don't use the kitchen. I can't take a shower for longer than 5 minutes or he turns on the water so it freezes me out of the shower. This is especially nice when I've just put shampoo in my hair. In addition, I am, of course, not allowed to take a bath because it's against his house policy. And God forbid that I use his salt, because that would just be too much to ask. Oh, and to call my mom after I've been robbed to have SOMEONE to comfort me? Forget it.

SO, of course I immediately began looking for another apartment. After weeks of searching--apparently all the students were searching for apartments at the same time as I was--I finally found a nice apartment, by myself, in Delicias. I move in on Friday, and I'm counting down the days until I can finally be out of this house. Wait for pictures! They'll be coming this weekend of the new place!!! And pray for me that I will not experience any more nights of cracked out druggies yelling strange things in Spanish when I need to get up for work at five. Go Madrid!

Katie (Scott's sister) gets married!

It's not everyday that one flies home from Madrid and manages to get to San Francisco from Portland, apply for a visa, and go to her boyfriend's sister's wedding, all in a mere three days. But I feel like I've only posted negative things, and I wanted to make sure that there was at least one good blog in the beginning. Here are some pictures of the big event! It was in the gorge and absolutely beautiful. Katie looked gorgeous, Scott wore pants that fit (and his hiking boots, but that's also a different story), and Lee gave a beautiful toast that brought me to tears. All in all, it was a fantastic event. Especially the scene where Scott and Jesse danced, if you can call it that, and brought everyone to tears from laughter. I suppose it's the Aronson family genes =)

Rescued!

Considering that I had just been robbed, the first thing one usually does is go to the police station. However, when one doesn't speak the language, have any clue where the police station is, or is in a complete and utter state of panic, logic doesn't always arrive quickly. Luckily, a girl upstairs heard me crying and spoke English, grabbed me, and walked my hysterical self to the police station to file a report. And in the end, I made a friend and met a wonderful person in Spain who reaffirmed my belief in humanity.

Madrid from the beginning

Ok, so it hasn't been an extremely long time that I've been here (about a month), but that does not mean that it hasn't been very eventful. I'll start from the beginning.

First off, my plane ride here should have been my first clue that things might not work out as smoothly as I hoped. I arrived at the Portland airport a good three hours early with the knowledge that trying to take your dog to a foreign country might cause some issues. However, Zoe was not the problem. Instead, it was the two-manned United team that were trying to help about a hundred people check in. Somewhere about thirty minutes before my flight took off they finally checked me in and then rushed me around the airport so that I could get on my flight. They wouldn't let me say goodbye to Scott, and I was in an utter state of panic. Then they informed me that once I arrived in D.C. I would have to go to baggage claim, get Zoe, and recheck her in with Iberia airlines. What's another 300 dollars anyway, right? I had exactly two hours to do this all, and somehow, miraculously, it worked out. So Zoe and I were off to Madrid.

Once I got here, I figured things would go smoother as the days went on. That was until day two, when I was sitting outside my hotel on a bench and some guys came up and started talking to me. I began using my incredible puppeteering skills and waving my hands while trying to explain that I didn't speak Spanish. This is where I learned my true lesson of Spain. NEVER take your hands off your purse. I'm sure they were quite happy to get the four hundred euros and all of my credit cards, ids, and everything else I was carrying around (Thank the lord it was not my passport).

Then I moved into an apartment with a guy who is a drug-addicted dictator. I will be moving out to my own place in a week. But that's another story.

So, after a week and half here, I have to go back to the US to apply for my visa on a whirlwind tour of Portland and San Francisco. Of course it's Labor Day weekend, and all of the banks are closed. This is when brilliant me decides to just empty out her bank account and change the money into euros since I can't do a wire transfer and just carry my 2400 euros back to Spain with me. Lesson number 2. Never carry more than 20 euros on you.

It's all seemingly working out and I find a taxi at the Madrid airport. He drives me home and once I get here, he begins to tell me that I owe him 50 euros for my cab ride. Considering this is the third trip I've done to the airport and it's never been more than 25, I use my very limited Spanish to inform him that there's no way in hell that he's going to get 50 euros out of me. He didn't seem to like this and decided instead that he wanted my messenger bag I was carrying. I tried to fight him off, but then he slugged me in my left eye, I went down, and he gracefully grabbed my bag with the money, my passport, my new credit cards and ids, and also my new computer that, of course, had not yet been backed up. Thus, my lesson plans disappeared along with photos from about the last five years, and I was left with nothing.

However, with all of this said, I've definitely learned to guard myself much better in this country! Anyone want to come visit?

La noche en blanco

So last night was this insane night in Madrid. At nine o'clock the events started, and the whole city center was crammed with more people than I've seen yet. There were weird displays on buildings, people walking down the street with microphones singing weird songs, and poetry readings accompanied by modern dance. It went all night long, with people proceeding to get drunker and drunker as the evening went on. This meant the songs got louder and the streets even more crowded. Apparently the metro was horribly backed up (I walked), but I was told that there were waits for more than an hour for even just one stop. It was an entertaining night, although I must admit it was a bit strange to look at the schedule and see something didn't start until five in the morning. Strange, but very Madrid in its own way. I guess they put them on all over Europe in the biggest cities, but it gave me a new sense to the city. Especially since this was my first time of being out all night long and watching the sun rise as I walked into my apartment. But I used my horribly accented "excuse me" and "oh, I'm sorry" more than any other time so far!