Holiday weekend (post #3)

Friday, October 12, was national day. A day when the military parades in Madrid. Amy and Michelle (one of the girls Amy stayed with in Madrid) had planned a rock climbing outing. Amy and I took the bus to Madrid Thursday night and Friday morning 6 of us took the bus to Patones to rock climb. We had a good time (next time we will stay longer). It was just good to be outside near the mountains.

trying to get a ride from where the bus dropped us off to the climbing spot

Saturday Amy and I explored Madrid a little. We walked around the center and then rode the Teleférica cable cars to a big park called Casa del Campo. Looks like it would be a great place to mountain bike, lots of smooth single track. We came back on the cable cars and then went out for lunch. It is very common here for restaurants to have a menú del dia which includes two courses, a drink, and desert, all for a very reasonable price. After a wonderful and filling lunch we headed to the Reina Sofia art museum which has Picasso´s Guernica and a lot of Salvador Dali too. The museum´s glass elevators on the outside of the building are distinctive.

That night we were quite tired once again. We ended up playing mafia and watching a movie. The girls we stayed with are really a great group of Christian girls. We took the train back Sunday morning (as the bus drivers were on strike) so we would be back in time for the evening service at church.

Getting settled in Valdepeñas

(view from our window)

Sunday, Amy and I attended an Evangelical church. The people there were very friendly and helpful and suggested we try some real estate agents to find an apartment. We were thankful to have found a solid church right away.

Monday we met with a couple of real estate agents and looked at half a dozen apartments. Fortunately most apartments in Spain are rented furnished. We finally decided on a very nice apartment near the center with a view of the church clock tower. Our agent was able to negotiate the price a little as we do not need the garage. We were able to move in Tuesday morning.

(Phil relaxing in our living room/dining room)

(Amy unpacking in her room)

We were very excited to get out of the hostel which was kind of pricey and start cooking for ourselves. Our first meal in our apartment was French toast.

(ummmm, french toast)

I also made an appearance at my school on Monday. I am not a teacher. I don´t have to grade, teach grammar, correct any papers, or give exams. Rather I will help with conversation and culture. I´m only working 12 hrs a week and it looks like I´ll have every Friday off. The school is an official government run language school. They offer English, German, and French. Students must be at least 16 years old to enroll. Classes are at night. Next week another professor is coming to teach a class for teachers in Spanish schools. Apparently they want to have bilingual schools so the teachers must learn English. I am going to be primarily helping with these classes so I have not actually done anything yet. I did talk for a few minutes in one class just as a listening exercise for the students, but other than that I have just been hanging out with the other teachers and taking advantage of free internet access.

The school is about a half hour walk from our apartment if you take it leisurely. I need a bike...

Arrival in Spain

Welcome to our blog. After a fun summer of many travels we are now in Spain for eight months (at least). Here are the details:

Amy flew standby to Paris the last week of September, hauled her heavy bags around Paris for a day and then took the train to Madrid. I was still at home waiting for my visa. I was supposed to start my 8 month position as a Language Assistant in Valdepeñas October 1st. My visa was finally approved the 2nd so I ended up flying out the 4th.

Amy had been staying with a group of girls who live in Madrid. Two of whom are Trinity grads. Amy and Jody found me at the airport in Madrid, I was having a coffee (breaking change so I could use the pay phone to call Amy). The café con leche was amazing.

The next day (Saturday) Amy and I caught a bus to Valdepeñas. It is about a two and a half hour ride from Madrid. (The train takes about two hours and doesn´t cost much more.) Saturday we hit the tourism office and found the hostels. We then walked all over looking at the town and finding for rent signs. We actually looked at two apartments that day and found a church to attend.

Valdepeñas is a town of about 28,000, in the province of Ciudad Real in the autonomous region of Castilla La Mancha. It is surrounded by vineyards and fields. The main industry is wine. They were harvesting grapes when we arrived so it was very common to see tractors on the streets with a trailer full of grapes. Certain streets have that pungent smell of fermenting grapes. The town is small enough that you recognize people on your street and run into people from church around town, but it still feels like a city because it is old and compact and they tend to build up here rather than sprawling out. We do have a windmill in town and a Don Quixote de la Mancha statue.