Barcelona!

We had a full 8 days in Barcelona this past week! It was so nice for me to get back to familiar territory and a second home. We were lucky enough to not pay for lodging at all and stay with my two previous roommates Eva and Reyes. They moved out of the out of this world 16th floor apartment into a more modest apartment in my favorite neighborhood, Gracia. They live off of the street Verdi which has lots of shopping, indie movies, international restaurantes, best gelato, and a bohemian atmosphere.
Barcelona also gave us familiar feelings because we saw Paul´s cousin Annie again and my Aunt Amparo who lives in Barca!
I left a message for my aunt the night before to let her know that we were going to be in Barcelona and we arranged to meet that day. Keep in mind that I have not seen this aunt for 13 years (ever since I went to Ecuador with my family) so I was nervous that maybe I would not recognize her or that things may have changed and other things. But there was no way I could have missed her from the crowd, she still stunningly looks like a younger version of my mom! It was very nice catching up with her and feeling the security of having family in Spain.

We gave Annie and her friend Corrine an all day walking tour of the city and of Gaudi´s masterpieces. It was nice to have an excuse to run around all of my favorite spots of the city and to be able to share it with family.

View from Sagrada Familia

Us with my aunt Amparo in Parque Guell

View from Parque Guell.
The night before Annie and Corrine left my Aunt invited us to come to the restaurant that she works at which specializes in Spanish cuisine "a la brasa" or grilled which means meat meat meat. We got a full deliscious meal and then Amparo told us it was all on the house! So we went upstairs to thank the manager and left the waiters a generous tip.
The weekend we were there we spent in Eva and Reyes´home town so that we were able to see my 3rd ex-roommate, Pili who got married last year and now owns a home out there. In Tamarite we were treated very well! We did nothing but sleep, eat, and drink with an occasional walk around the tiny pueblo. Here are pictures of the over the top paella we ate.





It was excellent. After this gluttonous weekend we were ready to be useful to society, start working and form a routine.
When we got back we stayed with Amparo. We were able to spend a day with her on her day off and walked around the center of Barcelona and on the next day we ventured off to Tibidabo. Tibidabo is on the mountain range surrounding Barcelona. We ended up taking the "highway route" which is really just for people with motors but it ended up being a very pretty route but it just took a very long time because of the constant winding. But we got there!




The top had some impressive views of Barcelona and the parts over the mountain.





Today we went back to Alcalá de Henares to sign the contract for our apartment. We found out that we will be living with a Czech male student and a German female student. They aren´t the spanairds we were wishing for but we are excited to get to know them and get moved in tomorrow.

Lunch with Annie and her companion/Retiro Again

We were able to meet up with Anne and her friend for lunch today. They told us that they were out until 5am the night before dancing with Austrailians and getting to know a Peruvian who spoke some english. I was happy to hear that they had a full night and that they were able to take advantage of all that Madrid has to offer. You haven´t really seen Madrid until you have seen it a 5am. We meet them outside of the Reina Sofia (home of Guernica) and we had a long lazy lunch outside on this sunny day. They went back into the museum and we went to Parque Retiro again. The park is massive and right in the middle of the center of the city. You would have to walk through it for days to experience it all. This time we walked through a rose garden. We were thinking about how lucky we are right now because the only big decision we have to make now is whether to go the beach town Sitges or San Sebastian. I am voting for San Sebastian we just need to get the timing right. We are feeling more and more at home and will feel even more so once we are living in our new apartment and start working. We are nervious about what it will be like working with the children and teachers especially since we are not depending on the program to tell us much more in the orientation since they have barely told us anything up until now!

Mountain High

Yesterday we took of to the sierra.
Paul found this great path for us to take that was 18km total and we went with it. We got to the pueblo Cercedilla which is at the base of the mountains and started walking up a path that was actually part of the Camino de Santiago from Madrid. We followed that path to various other paths and started our journey. It was so nice to breathe fresh air as opposed to the city air with all those smokers. Well, we took a wrong turn and started heading up and up and up. IMG_4934.jpg">
It was tiring but it was beatiful.IMG_4939.jpg">
But our hike got cut short when a we saw what we thought were bulls on the path! We heard cow bells while we were walking but figured that the animals would be in a controlled farm somewhere off the path, we were wrong. So we climbed up out of the path into the blackberry bushes and ferns to wait see if the bulls would move out of the way. We were very scared and one of the bulls kept looking at us and eating up our fear. Finally we realized that this guy was going nowhere and we started our descent way out of his way and went to the information that was at the bottom of the path. We asked the helpful woman about our scary bull experience and she told us that they were cows! The farmer farmed them for their meat and that they usually do not harm anyone and that you can go around them. Either way they had horns and Paul and I were not in the mood to risk it. Especially since here in Spain you get around the clock news about the latest bullfighter injuries.

After we had made our way back home at around 6 we saw an email from Annie Cella! Her friend´s flight was delayed for 24 hours and Annie was wondering Madrid on her own! We got in contact with her and met for a light dinner. She was happy to be with people who spoke her language. She learned quickely that Spaniards do not speak english and that her four years of Latin in highschool were not helping either, especially with the menus. We had a really nice visit with Annie, who was doing a good job of staying awake. We have plans to visit with her again on Monday.

Today is Sunday and we are going to do as the Spaniards do which is not leave the home.

Truckin

Today we relaxed with a super long walk all around Madrid from José´s house to Parque Retiro.
It was nice to have our minds at ease after a stressful and tiring day of apartment searching yesterday. We found out quickly that apartment searching comes with a lot of heartache. Here in Spain they have caught on that girls are better than boys and about 60-70% of the adds placed for apartments are aimed at girl tenants only. The other 20% are for people living alone so our options were pretty slim. Paul and I have always relied on our gut feeling and after seeing 3 apartments yesterday and calling at least 15 places, we decided on the first place. Not only in desperation but also because it truely was the best. The place is rather big and we will have 2 other roommates but the downside is that we still do not know who they will be. We hope with all our heart that they are native spanish speakers and that we will be able to practice everyday but only time will tell. Our room in the place has its own terraza that over looks the large garden in the middle of the complex. There is also a supermarket at the end of the street, a fruit market below us, and all of lifes necessities in our reach. The apartment is about a 20 min walk from the city center and a 30 min walk to my school. Paul would have had to catch the bus wherever we had gone since his school is so far away. We found out from the guy at the tourist information place that Paul is going to be working with the upperclass of Alcalá. Tomorrow we sign the contract with Edwardo our landlord and we move in at the end of the month. Now that we have a place we can concentrate on more important things like the beach. After our trip to Barcelona with Annie (Paul´s cousin), we hope to go straight to the beach Sitges to do some more relaxing and I especially want to catch up with all these tan Spainards I see all over the place.

Alcala de Henares

Today we went to the town we will be teaching in. It is very simular to Madrid just smaller with less Starbucks and McDonalds. We did some apartment searching but we got there at 3 so it was a ghost town until 5pm until the tourist center reopened and everyone woke up from their nap. We got really good vibs from the town and we are excited to move there eventually. I was able to take some pictures too.

Tengo mas fotos

This is the bridge we cross to get to the metro


This is the outside of our new home


Here is our messy little room


This is the view from José´s house. Look at that sky. I haven´t seen a cloud since I got here.

I am so glad that we are doing this blog because it is helping.

Pictures!

We got a response from two girls about an apartment and we can go and see the apartment next week. We are still feeling the jetlag but Paul was able to sleep 9 full hours last night and I was only able to sleep from 2am to 5am and again from 9am to 12pm. We bought our MacBook today and i am using right now. It has a camara installed and everything. It even has the ichat so I imagine that I will be able to chat with all you mac users for free. We are also going to set up a skype account. I took some pictures on our trip to downtown madrid today. We have been walking a ton. Today we walked 3 hours straight and mom, I did not wear flip flops.

Hemos llegao (We have arrived)

I kept telling myself that we would be here any minute and reminding Paul that we had to take advantage of every Evanston moment because we would be here so soon but i am still having a hard time settling with the fact that we are here and we will not be returning anytime soon.

We had two flight delays and two disgusting Continental meals but we got in safely and Josè was still waiting patiently for us in Barajas ready to take us to our new temporary home. As soon as we entered the home he whipped out the best chorizo and cheese from Galicia! I had to pace myself and remember those 15 pounds that I packed on the last time I was in Spain in order to control myself. It already feels like Spain. José is always so good to us.

It will still be a couple days until this jetlag hang over wears off. Until then our lives will consist of sleep, cheese, sleep, chorizo, sleep, walks around the centro. The apartment searching can wait.