In and Out of Africa: Part One

After New Year's, some friends from NYC came to town. A's good friends from art school dropped by (or "popped in," if you're British) and we showed them around for a couple of days.

The four of us then traveled to Morocco! It was a wedding present from A's friends, since they were unable to attend our wedding (quite a nice present). Unfortunately, we weren't on the same flights; our friends had to take a flight hours before ours. Here's a picture of Morocco from our plane. Quite majestic.



We decided that we would meet at the Ben Youssef Mosque in Marrakech. I feel that the main theme of this trip was "Oh, God. Am I going to die here?" I say this because we had many rather odd and scary situations happen to us yet we survived unscathed. A and I arrived in Marrakech, a city known for it's amazing culture and highly experienced thieves. Our cab driver explained in broken English that he could only drive us to a certain point near the Mosque; we would have to walk the rest of the way. After we paid our fare and memorized our driver's vague directions, we found ourselves lost within minutes. One Moroccan helped us get to a mosque, but the wrong one. Another took us to the correct location, only to berate us for money. We gave him only a few coins. Many people in Morocco will help you out, but then demand an atrocious amount of money for their services. I'm sure that most tourists would simply play the men with bills, but we gave the excuse that we are students.

As we waited in the square, I became nervous. I didn't know exactly where I was and we would be an easy target for other Moroccans to bother and swindle. In addition, if we didn't meet our friends here, we had to go to the train station and we weren't sure where we could get a cab. Before I hyperventilated into a stupor, I saw our friends exiting the museum section of the mosque. We were saved! They said we had to get through the marketplace in order to get to a main road and to the train station. We followed our friends, relieved that we would be able to get through the rest of the city with our friends (who had a few more hours experience in the chaotic place). Unfortunately, the marketplace was such a complicated labyrinth that even Theseus would not have been successful in solving! If you don't understand my last sentence, read some Greek mythology. Anyway, our friends were trying to remember their steps with landmarks such as leather pelts hanging on the walls. Even though we got lost, there were shops for clothes, electronics, jewelry, trinkets, and also a cage with a falcon! After a half an hour of feeling completely lost, we found the major square that led to our destination. In this square, many Moroccans were relaxing under umbrellas. Some had animals like monkeys or snakes. One man tried to lay one of his snakes on our friend, but he ran like the dickens. Here's a photo of the square.



We began to journey to the train station, when we stumbled upon a restaurant called La Maison Arabe. One of our friends had heard of this restaurant in a magazine. Apparently the magazine had stated that this was a restaurant worth flying to just for their chicken dishes. We decided to have lunch at this highly-vaunted establishment. My shot is a bit obscured by the foliage, but it was a beautiful courtyard.



Most of us ordered the chicken tagine, which is absolutely delicious! The chicken is cooked in this unique-looking pot with apricots, olives and other wonderful things. Here's a picture of my dish before I devoured it.



After our lovely meal, we headed on over to the train station. We took a train from Marrakech to Fes, a former capital of Morocco. We arrived in Fes around one in the morning. Fortunately, we had the foresight to hire a cab driver ahead of time, who would escort us directly to the hotel. He had to park on the street and then guide us through a maze of streets. Once again, I began to wonder how in the world I would be able to exit the hotel since I was utterly lost. The hotel was called Dar Houdou. It is basically a house that the owner renovated and opens to clients as a hotel. The house only has 3 rooms, which is quite nice, since you don't feel there's a crowd of guests at your lodgings. After sleeping in, I took some shots of the hotel.





The last photo is a picture of the courtyard in the hotel. I took the picture from the second floor. After a wonderful sleep, we awoke close to noon and started our half day tour with Khalid, a native of Fes. He first took us to the Blue Gate, which is a popular attraction. The blue symbolizes the purity of water.



Khalid escorted us around town, showing us a madrassa (school) and a bronze metal shop. A and his friend were specifically interested in learning more about the large covering the men wore. Khalid explained that it is called a jellaba, but A and his friend had already renamed it the "snuggie." Our guide took us to a shop where the boys tried on jellabas until they found the perfect fit. Here's the boys with our tour guide in their fancy new attire.



While the cashier rang up our items, I noticed a small decorated outfit in the store that reminded me of the nice Indian outfits my parents would make us wear for special occasions. I asked Khalid about these outfits, expecting them to be for attending weddings or some sort of formal ceremony. Khalid explained that they were for a ceremony--that of the boy's circumcision. Apparently, some boys are circumcised a little after infancy and they are adorned with this outfit for the event. I was surprised that I never saw any young boys or men look at the outfits and resort to screams of terror.



Speaking of getting "cut short," I must wrap up this first part of my post. I am currently organizing photos for the second half of Fes and our journey back to Madrid. More updates to come!

Holidays with the Family

Even though A and I didn't have to teach for the last few weeks, we've been pretty busy with holiday festivities and family gatherings! My family came into town and celebrated Christmas with us! It was their first time in Spain, so everything was a new experience. It's great because even a trip to the market is interesting to them;).

It's funny...as a tourist, I go out and try to see all the important sights, but now that I live in Madrid, I realize that I haven't actually toured many of the famous landmarks in my ciudad. One of our first stops was to the Royal Palace in Madrid, which is the largest European Palace. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but here's a picture of the front.



It's an extremely decadent building filled with large rooms covered in decorations. The king does not live there now, but it was home to Spanish royalty for hundreds of years. After our tour of the palace, we headed on over to the Prado to take a gander at the art. My sister was especially excited to see Velasquez's "Las Meninas" painting. It's huge and there is always a crowd around it. When we went home, I was able to get a great picture of the dome near Banco de Espana at night.



My family was enjoying Madrid, but they also wanted to make a trip to one of the more ancient cities. We decided on a whim to spend the night in Toledo. After we called a hotel and ordered our train tickets, we threw some clothes into a bag and headed out to the famous medieval city. We checked into a nice hotel where we had balconies with our rooms. Here's the view from our room!







After we dropped off our things in the hotel, we set off to explore the city. Here's a picture of one of the typical streets in Toledo-small and downhill-with my parents leading the way. We were very worried the cars wouldn't be able to drive through these small passages, but they succeeded unscathed.



My family came to Toledo equipped with a travel book that had recommendations on how to see the city. That evening, we packed ourselves into a small train and had a tour of the city. I have to note that this was not a real train-it was one of those small ones you see when you go to an amusement park or on the boardwalk of a beach. We crammed ourselves into the train and even though I cursed under my breath about how bitterly cold it was, we were able to see the beautiful city lit up at night. This picture is a bit fuzzy, but it's the old palace at night.



When we got back to the hotel, we had to take several night pictures.



I love how the houses glowed at night.





The next day, we toured the major sites. We went into the Cathedral, which is the most impressive edifice to visit. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside. The sacristy has a wealth of art-especially some great El Grecos. Other than the fact that it was very cold, the Cathedral is a must-see when you are visiting Toledo.

We also took my family to the monastery San Juan de los Reyes. I know I posted pictures when I went a few months ago, but here's another one.



The visit went by in a flash. Suddenly, we were helping them pack up and researching whether they would have any security problems getting home. My family flew on KLM from Amsterdam back to the US and there was a terrorist attack attempt only days earlier. The family was able to arrive home safely, though they did experience severe security inspections while in Amsterdam.

Of course, yesterday was New Year's Eve and we celebrated it here in Madrid. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of New Year's, so we stayed at home and followed the traditional Madrid customs. When the clock bell at Puerta del Sol strikes at midnight, you have to eat a grape for every chime (and a swig of champagne). We watched the crowd gathered at Puerta del Sol on tv (much like when we would view Times Square) and we began to eat the grapes. I wasn't able to keep with the strokes and I maxed out at 5.

Happy New Year!

Christmastime is here...

I know you must all be wondering, "what does Christmas look like in Spain?" Well, the lights are not as spectacular as Rockefeller, but there are decorations galore! I decided to dedicate this post to the Christmas ambience in Madrid.

It's beginning to get cold. Though we are on the same latitudinal line as New York, we are not experiencing the same degree of coldness (thank you Mediterranean Sea!) It's in the 40s and 50s here; it probably won't snow until Jan. or Feb. People are bundled in their coats and boots. It's not surprising to see many women in real furs (la de da!) but these are for the older generation.

On your way from our apartment to the metro, there are Christmas lights adorning the streets. Here's a picture of the lights near our piso.



We headed downtown to Gran Via to see more lights. Gran Via is a major street filled with theaters for local performances; it's the 42nd Street of Madrid. In any case, they have several different street lights along with interesting blue chandeliers that decorated the area.





Every street seems to have their own unique Christmas lights. Here are a few we noticed while downtown.





Unfortunately, this isn't a city where you can easily get hot drinks to go. I miss my Manhattan days where I could grab a cup of coffee and leisurely sip it while walking in the New York cold. In fact, it's difficult to find many places where you can get food items "to go." In this time of the year, many street markets pop up in the squares selling goods and churros. Churros and chocolate are a popular treat here, especially in the winter. It's fried dough dipped in chocolate. We stopped by a churro stand and noticed that an ice-skating rink had been set up in the square!



A and I decided that it was safest for the other skaters if we didn't participate, but it was a lovely evening exploring the Spanish decorations!

Sushi and Segovia

There was a puente today, so we had an extended weekend! It was quite lovely; some relaxation balanced with some quality-time with friends. On Friday, there was a Ttmadrid sushi party. A and I have had a hankering for sushi for quite a while and although there are sushi restaurants in Madrid, they are expensive. I miss my sushi place on St. Marks in NYC which had sushi for half-price after 4pm. We decided the party would be an excellent opportunity to see our old teachers and eat our weight in sushi.

There was a catch--we had to make the sushi. The teachers set up tables and ingredients for us to use and instructed us as we made our Japanese delicacies. It was like being in the TEFL school all over again, except there was a food incentive. Here's a picture of A making a sushi roll with our British friends.



After several rounds of people took turns making rolls, we had enough sushi. Some had tuna, salmon and even eel. We left the party filled with content in our consumption of our Japanese cuisine!

Today, a few friends came with us to Segovia, a city about an hour outside of Madrid. During a class, I asked my students to tell me about countries I should go to or must go to (trying to have them practice modal verbs). One of my students said, "You MUST go to Segovia." I had never heard of Segovia and had no idea what was so popular about it. One of my American friends who has been to Spain several times explained to me that they make a great roast pig. The pig is so tender that they cut the pig with a plate! We tried to find this in Segovia, but we were unsuccessful.

Here's a link to a youtube video of the suckling pig being cut with a plate.

Though we didn't actually get to view this event, we did get to try sucking pig at a restaurant.



The meat was quite tender; it melted in your mouth. It was a lovely lunch with good food, wine and friends. We proceeded to view other points of interest in Segovia. One major attraction was the ancient Roman aqueduct that was built around the 2nd century AD.



It was surreal to see this ancient aqueduct amidst the bustling city.



We proceeded to Alcazar Castle, which was a residence for many kings of Castile. I felt it looked like a fairy-tale princess castle.



This castle dates back to the 11th century! It was originally an Arab fort, but over time became a castle to Christian royalty in the province.





Here is the throne room, of course.







Those are the highlights from our trip to Segovia! Now we must get some rest and finish this half-week of work. Poor us;).

Happy Turkey Day!

For most Americans, November 26th was Thanksgiving day. For the two ex-patriates in Madrid, it was...Thursday. We arrived home after a full day of work, ready to relax from the week. I looked over at A and asked,
"Are you going to Skype your parents, now?" A stared at me quizzically.
"Why do I need to Skype my parents?"
"Because it's Thanksgiving and they want to talk to you!"
We proceeded to spend a few hours in front of our computers, talking to loved ones and watching them run around as they prepared the holiday feast. We told them about our work and how our students were interested in learning more about Thanksgiving. Then, came the inevitable question:
"How are you spending Thanksgiving in Madrid?"
We hadn't really thought it through. I mean, we did plan a Thanksgiving dinner, which was to take place on Saturday, since everyone was working on Thurs. and Fri. However, how were we going to spend the actual Thanksgiving day? Surely we could have some turkey and whip up some mashed potatoes. We looked in our fridge and realized that we had so much food that was specifically for Saturday that we had neglected to think about what we would eat before then! We proceeded to head out the door and celebrate Thanksgiving over a couple of kebabs at an Indian-owned Doner Kebab restaurant.

Though our Thursday did not have the traditional holiday trimmings, we were able to celebrate in style on Saturday! Our apartment filled with wonderful Americans, Brits and Spaniards, many who had never had a Thanksgiving before! For 48 hours before the feast, A and I were cooking, marinating, stirring and baking all the foods necessary for the event. About an hour into the preparations, I realized I should have delegated some of the dishes to the group! Nonetheless, we were able to make enough food and still have leftovers!



There was fillets of herb-roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, spinach and artichoke dip and sweet potato casserole. The recipes came from the food network and were quite good! My biggest challenge was that when I wrote down the recipes, I had to first convert the measurements to metrics and then I had to translate the ingredients into Spanish. It took more time to alter all the foods to paper than it did to actually cook it.



Here's our lovely dessert table with pumpkin pie, pecan pie (made by an authentic Southerner!), apple crumble and chocolate cookies! Everything was delicious! For the Americans, they said it felt just like home! For the Brits and Spaniards, they really enjoyed all the homemade food!

It was a successful Thanksgiving in Madrid! I'm now ready to sleep off my Sunday and munch on all the leftovers in my fridge. We miss you and wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Broke into the new apartment...

Another busy weekend ahead of me...cleaning, cooking and prepping for lessons. Several of our business classes finish this upcoming week, so it is imperative that we look for more teaching opportunities. I have been fortunate to find many students who need tutoring for the TOEFL exam. I have finally adjusted to my work week and now I have to restructure my courses again in order to prioritize these new students.

Several of my family members have urged me to post pictures of our new apartment. Since this is a rather slow weekend, I decided this would be a good time to show you the new place! We moved from Sol to a quieter neighborhood a bit north. We're right by the metro, the grocery store and our bank (very convenient).

Here's a picture of the front door.



When you walk in, the kitchen is the first thing you see. Here are two pictures of the kitchen.





I'm very excited about the kitchen not only because we have four burners instead of one. We also have an OVEN! When we perused around for apartments, we discovered that most apartments are not equipped with ovens.



This is our bedroom. We apologize for the horrid bedspread, but it is a conglomerate of items we were able to find when we moved in. The former owners took their quilts so we bought these zebra blankets in desperation for warmth. In any case, they suit for the time being.



When you walk down the hall, you come to the living room, where Anthony has set up his work desk. It's more for his drawings than for constructing lesson plans...



That little table is my desk next to our windows. The large window/door leads to our balcony!



Here's a better picture of our balcony! We haven't sat outside much since it's now getting cold. Sometimes, I like to sit inside and stare at the view.



Here's our couch and tv. It's quite a lot of space, so it will be wonderful for our Thanksgiving feast next weekend!

That's all for now!

Livin' it up in Lisboa!

So many updates in order! Last weekend, we moved to our new apartment near Avenida de America. It's much more of a neighborhood than Sol, which is pretty touristy. We're near the metro and supermarkets and kepab houses;). Plus, the place is a lot bigger than the closet we were previously residing in. I will try to post up pictures of the new place soon.

This weekend, we went to Lisbon, Portugal. It's a funny story. A couple of months ago, I was searching for a place to take the GRE Subject test in Literature. I was sure I could take it in Madrid, since they proctor the General test here. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. I skyped my mom and told her my dilemma and she suggested that I look to see if there are any other countries where the test is available. Sure enough, I could take the test in Lisbon. "Why don't you just make a weekend trip out of it?" she said. When I shot the idea past A, he was adamant that I take the test there.

So, we took a quick flight on over to Lisbon Friday morning. I was a little nervous about traveling to a country where I didn't know the language; even going to India is not that bad because I have dad there to translate. All my fears were eliminated when I learned that the Portuguese understand and speak both Spanish and English. It's very easy to get around the place and simply ask for things in English. Thank God.



Here's a picture of a building outside of our hostel window. Many of the buildings had colored tile on the outside. It seemed odd to me, like a kitchen that was inside-out; however, they were unique and quite beautiful. Even the sidewalk had some decor. They were small cobblestones with different designs. Here's a picture of what I'm taking about:



After we settled into our hostel, we decided to go get lunch. Many of A's students recommended that we try Baccalau. This is a codfish dish with vegetables. We stopped in the nearest place to try this specialty. Here's a picture of our wonderful meal.



It was delicious! The fish melts in your mouth. The onions and cilantro complimented the dish very well. As you can see in the picture, the dish was served in a sea of buttersauce, which stayed in our stomachs all day. We proceeded to explore the center of the city and take lots of pictures.



This is a picture we took on our walk towards the center. There are a lot of hills in the city and a large castle/fortress top of this one. I couldn't help but think of Monty Python when I saw it. This is the Castle of Saint George. We didn't have time to go up and tour it, but it is an awesome sight amidst the city!

We went to the bay and saw this statue across the water. It's a replicate of the Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro.



The next day, I went to take my test in Lisbon. There were 6 young men there who were taking the GRE Subject test in Math, Chemistry...basically, in important fields. The test proctor assumed we all spoke Portuguese, but I had to request to hear the directions in English. Fortunately, the test was all in English!

After the test, I met up with A and we headed over to the Lisbon Aquarium. We had noticed several ads for the aquarium and in our tourist maps, it stated this was one of the world's largest aquariums. That sealed it. We were going.



The aquarium had this huge tank filled with sharks, fish, and this really big thing called the Sun Fish. When you are on the bottom floor of the tank, you can look into the whole seascape. It seemed 3D. My photo doesn't do the aquarium justice, but I think it's a must-see when you're in Lisbon!



After the aquarium, we strolled around the area and saw the Vasco de Gama bridge. It's pretty famous for its unique shape.



I was really impressed with the architecture in Lisbon. There were a lot of creative edifices. Check out these apartment buildings. Don't they look like fish?



Well, that was our fabulous trip to Lisbon. Once I actually clean the apartment, I will post up pictures! I leave you with this wonderful warning picture from the Lisbon metro. Be careful of the doors or you will get cut in half.