More pics of our day!!!

I hope that these prove the distance covered today, and also the very camera shy mother.

A Day of Walking

Well, we left this morning on a mission to find the lamp that mom broke and replace my futon cover for the living room. Instead, we ended up walking all over Madrid for about six hours and enjoying the city life. We walked from Delicias up to Embajadores, then on to La Latina, Tirso de Molina, across to Retiro where I managed to get us lost for about fifteen minutes, then back up Gran Via to Sol, Plaza Mayor, and the Palacio Real. So, she basically got to see most of the important Madrid sites in one day. We were going to also try to hit the Reina Sofia for a bit (a museum) but we got too tired and had to come home to walk Zoe. I think we walked about ten miles in all. It was a long trip.

Mom refused to perform for the camera, but I managed to get some shots of her when she wasn't looking. I'll post those also. She seemed to really enjoy herself, except for telling me I was going too fast and that she needed to sit down more often. Who would have known? She swears to me she walks all the time, but I think she's lying. You guys in Waynesville have to tell me the truth! But in all seriousness, she really did have a great time seeing all the sights. She kept asking me to take pictures of the most random things, so she's coming home with pics of painted buildings and police officers. Moms! Right now she's napping. =)

We're up to Thursday!

Ok, only today and tomorrow and I'm officially on break. Thank God. It's time!!!

As I type right now, mom is lying in bed with Zoe talking to her and telling her that "grandma is better than mom." And, "your mom doesn't love you as much as I do." Fantastic. I can just imagine what it's going to be like if I ever have kids. Last night we took a long walk in Madrid and I showed her the three main museums and Retiro, the huge park. Tonight we're going to IKEA after work because I received an email at work from her yesterday telling me that my lamp next to my bed was broken. Hmm, it wasn't before I left for work! Then I got another email telling me she had locked herself out of the house for an hour and that it was quite cold outside. Age??? She's scared to really go anywhere on her own, so my drawers are reorganized and things are very clean all the time. I must admit that this has been very nice.

She's starting to notice the aspects of Madrid I told her about before. Trash all over the street, dog poop on your shoes if you don't pay close attention, and the fact that no one smiles at you when you smile at them. However, she seems to have made friends with a dog and its owner in the park next to my house, so at least that's nice. Every day I'm caught up to speed on the tricks this dog does in the park. I've never met him (or her) but it sounds like a pretty cool dog. Apparently, Zoe doesn't care much for it though.

Tomorrow she's coming to school with me, so she'll get to check out the psychotic kids here on their last day before vacation. Fun! Saturday is our museum day, so I'll repost about all the pretty artwork we see then!

Until the next time, Happy Holidays from me and my mother!

Tumultuous Tuesday

So it was an interesting day already, and it's not even 10:30 yet. Mom and I got up this morning to the sound of a text message from Iberia saying that her bags were coming to the house. However, it's now four hours later and they haven't arrived. We rushed around the house making sure that one of us was always next to the phone just in case they called to say they were there. I quickly jumped in the shower while she waited to walk Zoe, just to be met with a psychotic shower that had apparently gone crazy after mom used it. (She swears she did nothing to it, yet it worked yesterday before she took a shower =) I had to hold it in my hand to take the shower, which was not a pleasant experience. However, I finally finished and got ready for school and was out the door in about fifteen minutes. Record time since I was running late. However, I managed to get to the train station right as the train was coming, so I was thinking that my morning was turning around and it was going to be a really nice day. The train was almost empty, which is a rarity in Spain in the mornings, and I got my own seat and was able to read the entire ride without being interrupted. Things were definitely looking up. Then I got off the train and it was pouring in the town where I work. I put my scarf over my head and took off running, hoping I wouldn't be soaked for my first class. On the way to school I ran into one of my students and she and I ended up running together. During this period she somehow caught her sweater on a pole and ripped the arm of it open. I laughed at her, thinking it was quite funny. However, karma is a powerful thing and five seconds later we were trying to get up the muddy hill to get to school and I slipped and fell and took her out with me. My whole outfit is now covered in mud and I have to teach today in muddy jeans. I won't even go into what my coat looks like, but I will say that I'm going to the dry cleaner immediately after school. Fun times. Then I tried to make copies of a test for my next period class and the copy machine went crazy and started eating my originals. I had to convince a secretary to take me to the other machine and make the copies, since I'm giving the quiz next period! Oh, and I almost forgot. This morning the school had a Christmas breakfast for teachers and I ran quickly down there to grab a cup of coffee, and on my way back to class managed to spill it all over myself also. So my coat smells like a mixture of mud and coffee. It's really quite pleasant.

Long story short, my Tuesday seems to hate me.

Mom Comes to Spain

So after the most hectic morning on the planet for me, I finally got to the airport and hour late to pick my mother up. She called last night to tell me that her flight was delayed a half an hour, so I reset my alarm for fifteen minutes later. When it went off this morning, I immediately checked her flight status online and realized that even though she had flown out late, she was coming in 40 minutes early. Fantastic. I could just see her sitting at the airport swearing at me that I wasn't there. So I quickly ran around and got ready and was out the door in fifteen minutes. THEN, I went to the cercanias to take the train because I thought it would be quicker, but once I got inside the train station I realized the train wasn't working. So I ran out to the metro and jumped on the first one that came. Then the train broke down, and I ended up having to maneuver all over Madrid on four different metros to finally make it to the airport. Then I realized I was at the wrong terminal, so I had to re-hop on the metro two more stops to get to her terminal to find her. I need to add here also that I was on the metro right after it started running again; it closes at 1 and doesn't reopen until 6. So, I was surrounded by every drunk person in Madrid who had been out partying all night. The train reeked of alcohol and people were making out all over the place. To make matters worse, all of a sudden there were security guards all over the metro. One of them had a dog who I thought was there to sniff out drugs, but I don't think he was very well trained since he came up to me and started sniffing all around me. By the way, this dog was an enormous german shepherd who had a metal muzzle on him and didn't look friendly. Because he had come up to me, the security guards checked me for drugs (twice I might add), and I kept trying to explain in Spanish that I thought the dog had come up to me because I had a dog and he must have smelled her. It was not a pleasant experience. But I made it to the airport none the less.

SO, I finally found her sitting on a bench in the airport. Surprisingly, she had no baggage with her. I was ready to tell her about my horrendous experience when she started talking about her flight. Because of the snow storm in Missouri, she had to leave for the airport at midnight instead of five in the morning. She made it to Springfield and was the only one in the airport for hours. That was, until an entire slew of dog breeders came in with nice little puppies and she got to play with them for a little bit. Then they sent her off on an earlier flight to Dallas, then an earlier flight from Dallas to D.C. because they were worried about the storm coming into D.C. and wanted to make sure she got there. Then she went up to the counter for Iberia airlines and they told her they couldn't find her reservation. Somehow she managed to get that sorted out and then was in the air to come here to visit me. Then she got to Madrid and realized all her bags were gone.

However, with all this said, we've managed to go buy a couple of new things for her to wear for the day, have a fantastic lunch, and go to the store for coffee, which I was harshly critiqued for not having in my house. So we're here, about to watch some movies (I'm finally able to rent movies because I'm legal here!!!), and fall asleep for hours and hours. Aww, Spain . . .

Four day weekend in Madrid

A friend randomly showed up from high school in Madrid this weekend, so even though I was bogged down with grading, we managed to keep ourselves busy doing different things around Madrid. At first we tried to go to the Madrid "space needle," but it's closed for construction and no one has any idea when it's opening again. We then went on the Gandala, although I can't remember it's name in Spanish, and ended in Casa de Campo. After a long jaunt across Casa de Campo, we managed to make it to the zoo, but it was closing so we didn't get to go. This might sound negative, but we had a great time walking and talking and catching up on old times. The next day we walked around some other different parks in Madrid, making sure to spend quite some time in Retiro. Saturday I took the day off and graded papers for nine hours, and then today we went to the amazingly crowded rastro before I came home to finish grading.

It's amazing how a four day weekend can fly by so quickly. But I wanted to share some nice pics and thoughts on the weekend! Miss you all!!!

Kathryn and Taryn

Kathryn's amazing sister has come to Madrid, and it has been such a pleasant experience. Kathryn has been wonderful here for me, walking Zoe every day while I'm at school and making sure that the little things are always taken care of. On top of that, she's been there whenever I needed to shout about the stupid kids at school or the people on the metro who shove you every which way when you're trying to both enter and exit. I didn't think that Taryn would be as kind as she is, but apparently it runs in the family. After amazing conversations about the Torah and conflicts with the historical accuracies, I've decided she's a keeper. And I wanted to dedicate at least one blog to both of them. Thanks you two! You kept me up late, but I was fascinated =)

Dryer and Scaffolding

Ok, so I finally got my dryer and I feel like my life's journey is complete. The first night I did three loads and stayed up all night listening to the tumbling of the dryer. It was music to my ears. It's amazing how much hair comes out in the lint trap! And my jeans finally fit after they're washed because they shrink! Woo hoo! So I thought I'd show you all pictures of why exactly I couldn't hang clothes outside, and then a picture of my amazing new dryer! Tumble, tumble, tumble!

Mornings with Zoe

This isn't going to be a long post, but this morning I got up to go to the bathroom really quickly and this is what I came back to. I thought it was so cute that I needed to post it.

Happy Puente to all!

Random pictures

So I just bought this new camera as previously mentioned, and I've been trying out photos. Here are a few I kind of like. Let me know what you guys think!!

Christmas in my apartment!

It's tradition in my family to put up a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. However, I quickly realized that this is not Portland, or the United States, where you can go buy a live tree at almost any street corner. After the initial disappointment set in, I decided to go buy a fake one. I searched all over, only to be discouraged by how much they cost. But I finally found one for semi-cheap, and I decided to wait until the next day to go buy it so I could put it up after Thanksgiving. To my great surprise, when I got home there were my two neighbors waiting for me with two big boxes. One held a Christmas tree that Javi's family never uses, and the other was all their ornaments. So we spent the evening putting up the tree and now I have a tree in my apartment, which reminds me at least a little bit of home. Spanish people still look at me like I'm insane, but hey, it's worth it. I bought a new camera for myself after dropping my other one, and I'm including some photos of the new tree. Yeah Christmas!!!

Ok ok, I'm finally posting!!

I keep getting nasty emails from my friends telling me I'm not blogging enough, so I'm going to make up for it today. So, blog number one is just going to kind of outline what it's been like in the last couple of weeks.

Number one, it's freezing here. I'm cold all of the time, and I'm waiting for mom to come to bring my what might be the ugliest hat on the planet, but one that will surely keep me warm in the mornings when I walk Zoe. My fingers freeze even in gloves, and where I work is in the North of Madrid, so it's even colder on my walk to school. Therefore, I can officially say I'm experiencing Winter in Madrid.

Number two, they've been doing construction on my roof, which begins at about five in the morning (surprising for Spain) and are completely redoing the entire roof of my building. This means that outside my door is a seven story high scaffolding unit. There are five or six workers consistently pounding away, which is quite distracting in the mornings. In addition, they've attached the scaffolding unit to my railing, which means they took down my clothesline. This does not help when you don't own a dryer.

Which brings me to three: clothing. My neighbors have looked at me like I was crazy every time I have complained that I don't have a dryer, since they are extremely rare in Spain. However, they don't have a dog. When I have to wash clothes and then hang them on this little doodad that is six feet long and three feet wide (and 20 euros) and takes up my entire apartment, they don't realize that the hair from Zoe does not come out of my clothing. So I wash, but I'm still stuck with hair all over and an overwhelming gadget that does little to help my clothes dry. And to drag your clothes to a not so common laundromat costs about 15 dollars per load, so that's not really an option. So, as of today, I am the proud owner of a dryer. It doesn't come until tomorrow, and I have no clue where in the hell I'm going to put it, but it is needed. This emergency purchase comes after my second doodad to hang clothes on collapsed last night, sending both Zoe and me into a state of terror as we both thought someone was breaking in. But no, just clothes all over the floor. So tomorrow I get to rewash two loads of wet laundry and actually dry them in an hour rather than two days, which I'm thinking will come in handy. And they deliver. Whew.

Warning to all: Spain doesn't have dryers. Very bad if you have a dog or actually need your clothes dry in less than two days.