Here comes the Sol...

I think that this entry may be more pictures than writing-there's a lot of imagery I want to share.

For the last few days, Anthony and I have been trying to assimilate into the Spanish culture. This has proven to be more difficult for me than my partner. For instance, yesterday, we went to the police station to acquire information on how I can receive a residency card and get free healthcare (this is easy for Anthony to attain since he has dual citizenship in Italy). Our inquiries led us to a couple more buildings-mostly Italian government offices where we needed to request our marriage license. To make a long story short, the morning consisted of Anthony speaking fluent Italian to the tellers while I nodded like an ignorant American. In addition, Anthony's knowledge of Italian has helped him to pick up more Spanish words.

We went to open a bank account today and had to converse in Spanish the entire time. The information states that my home city and state is Maryland, South Dakota. I really don't understand how that happened. In addition, Anthony told them my name was "Anita Maria" instead of "Anita Marie." Our new bank account has my location and name wrong and apparently, this is ok. I decided not to protest.

The heat raged on and I forced Anthony to stop at a local restaurant. Since it has been so hot, I was hoping for some kind of slurpee (of course, NOW I desire 7-Eleven). I realized that the Spaniards have a drink that I have only had before in Italy called "granazado." In Italy, it's called the "granita." It's usually a slushy fruit drink. It was the perfect beverage for the scalding weather.

Later in the day, we were finally able to visit Sol, which is the more touristy part of the city. The last thing I expected in this famous place was to find the plaza completely demolished and overrun by construction! It looks like the plaza will not be finished for a long time. We are not sure if we will ever see Sol without the drills.

On a positive note, we saw a lot of beautiful buildings on our way to the Prado. Here is one that I thought looked like a castle. Most of the castle-like buildings were business buildings. Makes total sense.


The Prado is free every evening from 6-7:30, so Anthony wanted to stop by to check it out before he moves in. Afterwards, we stopped at a small bar for some tapas and little beers. The tapas were basically potatoes with an orange sauce. It hit the spot. As we ate, some swimming meets were on the television and we watched Michael Phelps lead the American team to first place (I have no idea what kind of competition it was). Take that, Russia!

As we walked back, I noticed an incredible amount of hostels in the area. Plus, I found that there is a Scientology church in the area. Weird.




Finally, here's a poster that's all over town for a big music festival. I don't know if it's supposed to be cool or what, but it makes me laugh. You can write that on posters, here?

Jet Lag and Random Profiling

We’ve been in Madrid for a few days now. Both of us have overcome our fatigue, but now we must confront the time difference. My body did not respond too well to the time difference and I ended up awake until 4 in the morning. When I was finally able to sleep, I woke up to the sun beaming in through the window. I was sure that I had woken up in the morning and that it was around 10am. When I checked Anthony’s watch, it said 1:30pm.

So the time change is taking its toll. We arranged to meet with a man Anthony’s been working with to figure out all of our documents in Spain. We noticed that the meeting place was a 40 minute walk. Anthony and I, still thinking of ourselves as the pompous New Yorkers of ages past, decided to embark to the meeting place on foot. The heat was harsh and the morale was low-especially when Anthony said he “thought” we were going the right way. Fortunately, we came across the meeting place without much of a hitch.


Here's a picture of a beautiful fountain decorated with dolphin statues. I was ready to ignore the threat of bacteria in the water and jump in.

We arranged to meet at the bus station. This proved to be difficult to find, since we were at a metro station that had several levels. As Anthony and I descended into the hot stations, we were stopped by a policeman. He began to speak quick Spanish to Anthony. All I heard was that he wanted to see our passports. Anthony and I had decided earlier that we would not carry our passports with us because we didn’t want them to get stolen. Besides, where do we need to show our passport other than in the airport? So, Anthony decided not to attempt to speak Spanish and explained that we didn’t have our passports, but we did have our US driver’s licenses. He took both of our licenses and began to inspect them. I was a bit worried that he was going to steal them, or maybe this was some kind of scam. However, there was nothing I could do as I started at the gun he had in a holster on his thigh. After a brief inspection of our IDs, the police officer was content with our information and let us go.

When we finally met up with our documents guy, we told him what happened. Let me quickly note that this document guy is originally from South Carolina, but is married to a Spanish woman and now lives in Spain. It was quite a surprise to hear a southern twang in the middle of a Spanish bus station. Anyway, he informed us that the police in Spain are allowed to stop you on the street and request your documents. In the US, you can’t do that without a warrant, but here, profiling is fine! We plan to be more careful in the future.

We’re now getting down to business to get all of our documentation in order. We hope to make it over to the police station at 8am, but we just realized that we don’t have an alarm clock. Oh well, maybe I can stay up.


Here's a picture of an actual construction sign. Anthony thought it was hilarious that the sign seems to show that it's ok to scoop up people in a construction machine. I hope to add more in the coming days.

Arriving in Madrid

About a year ago, Anthony and I deliberated on how to handle our future. After some extensive research, discussions and soul-searching, we decided to spend a year abroad and to explore a new country, culture and language. This is our journal of our traveling experiences.

Our flight to Madrid went well. We took British Airways to London, which we highly recommend. Anthony couldn’t stop spouting “I love British Airways!” after he would discover another element of the plane that, compared to his experiences in AlItalia, seemed luxurious. Though we boarded a 9pm flight, we were served dinner, offered UK newspapers and had individual touch screens where we could watch a milieu of movies. After our lovely dinner (Chinese chicken for Anthony and vegetarian pasta for me) we hunkered down to watch our own movies. Anthony viewed a censored screening of “The Watchmen” while I watched “Billu,” a new Indian movie starring Sharuk Khan. Fortunately, we were able to catch a few zzzs before breakfast was served (a Danish and coffee).

We arrived at Heathrow and were herded into shuttles that took us to more terminals. When we finally reached our terminal, the place was a zoo. It seemed that rush hour had already begun and we were swept away with the other wandering passengers through posh stores and duty-free shops. When we finally made it onto our connecting flight to Spain, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the other passengers were quite young Spaniards (who spoke their native tongue in an unbelievable speed) and an Australian volleyball team. Then, we finally arrived in Madrid. I was anxious and ready to meet with immigration. I was prepared for the long lines and the milieu of questions I would have to answer though exhausted. As we entered the airport, we passed a small window where they were checking passports. I handed the policeman mine, he stamped it, and we were on our way. No hold-ups, no security checks, no scary interrogations. We quickly picked up our luggage and we were on our way!

We arrived in our flat jet lagged and exhausted. We made a quick run out to buy some groceries before they closed. The prices were not too expensive. The weirdest grocery item was our milk. It was not in the refrigerated section. It was in a box. You put the milk in the fridge once it's opened! We hope that it tastes the same...



Here's the view from our flat! More pictures to come!