Estoy en Madrid

I wrote what is below some time ago, but haven't been settled enough to publish it to my blog. Hopefully over the next few days I'll be adding posts about my adventures in Spain over the last two and a half weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to put some pictures up, but my internet right now is very unreliable. Enjoy for now!

I'm in Madrid. I arrived Wednesday (September 19th) morning after two long flights and a horrible layover). Orquid and Louie were there to pick me up and it felt like we were on a trip with honors even though the three of us have never gone on a trip together before. It was very comforting to be meeting my friends and not have to figure out everything on my own. The first day was a blur and I even forgot to bring my camera when we went for a walk through many of Madrid's beautiful streets.

The next morning Orquid and I had a traditional breakfast of chocolate caliente y churros. Orquid wanted hot chocolate, but apparently in Spain chocolate caliente is more like a hot chocolate pudding, but it was delicious to dip churros into it. We started talking about the differences between Spain Spanish and Mexican Spanish. Orquid is from Mexico and I learned most of my Spanish while in Mexico. I didn't realize the extent of the difference in vocabulary. Here they say melocoton instead of duraznos and billetes instead of boletos. Also, much of the way that they address one another is much more direct and would be considered very rude in Mexico. This is a big change for Orquid.

I'm already worried enough about how horrible my Spanish is. But already my brain is starting to flip the switch and go into Spanish mode. I know what I have forgotten over the past year will quickly return to me when I am on my own without the support of Orquid and Louie.

The parts of Madrid we've been to are beautiful. I love the architecture of old cities. Louie's apartment is in a great location. Just a few blocks away is el Museo de la Reina Sofia (a modern art museum). From there we can also wander over to el Jardin Real Botanico and the train station or we can take the metro a few stops to la puerta de sol. From there La Plaza Mayor or along the street Gran Via, looking at the shops and people passing by. When we got hungry around 2 or 3 or sometimes later, depending on what and if we ate breakfast, we often went to Louie’s favorite Kebab shop, el Turkito or into tiny, narrow restaurants where the bar takes up a third of the space. I was surprised at how easily I adapted to the eating schedule in Spain. I think I can blame jet lag for that. They don’t eat lunch till around 2 or later, and dinner usually isn’t until 9 or 10pm.

One night we had tapas, traditional Spanish appetizers. We had bacalao (cod), a variety of different cured hams, and something else that I think was fried balls of ham and cream. Ham is very important here; there is even a chain of stores called el museo de jamon. In all of the small restaurants they have a whole cured leg of ham displayed right on the counter.