Paris, je t'aime!

We have arrived back from a wonderful weekend trip to Paris! I was a little nervous about going. I had heard that the French are quite annoyed when you don't speak their language (and I only have 2 years of middle school French under my belt). On our flight, we reviewed the few phrases I could remember in the cobwebs of my brain.

We arrived in Paris and first walked to our hotel. The first thing to catch my eye was the charming architecture of the apartments. I loved the shutters on the windows and the details in the building!



After we dropped off our luggage at the hotel, we went into a small shop for lunch. It was a bakery as well and people were dropping in to quickly fetch their daily baguette. Here's a picture of some of the delicious desserts!



We then made a beeline to the Louvre museum. You honestly need several weeks in order to actually see everything in this place! At one point, this place was a palace and I can only imagine it changed because too many royal figures got lost and were never found again.





My photos do not do justice to the sheer size of this place! In addition, it had quite a crowd! We were able to enter the museum among throngs of people from all over the world. I don't want to bore you with lots of art photos, but here are the highlights.

Venus de Milo


Mona Lisa


Liberty Leading the People


You get the idea--lots of famous art. Every room was cluttered with art, which is saying a lot since the edifice was already enormous. It took us 4 hours to hit all the important works that my artist partner insisted we see. After that, we crossed the bridge over the River Seine and headed to the Latin Quarter for dinner.



The next day, we awoke early and went to see the Eiffel Tower. For some reason, I have fallen in love with this structure. It's quite elegant in the Parisian backdrop!



The building becomes a motif in my later pictures, so I'll just leave you with that one now. Later, we went to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It's a famous street lined with expensive shops and this Arc de Triomphe.



We then headed over to see Notre Dame. I tried to get a nice picture, but it was difficult because there was this giant tent holding a bread station.



We went into the tent and watched dozens of bakers mix, mold and bake bread. Here are some of the workers. You can see the ovens behind them.



We then went over the bridge and back into the Latin Quarter, where we found Cafe de Flore, a famous coffee shop where Ernest Hemingway used to write. When you sit down and start to balk at the price for a cup of coffee (4 euro!) you notice that there isn't any obvious indications that Hemingway had been there. Apparently, there's a small plaque over where he used to sit, but we never saw it.



After purging our wallets in the Latin Quarter, we went up north of the city where Sacre Coure is located. This is a large beautiful church-you get a great view of the city from there!





You may know this building...



We returned to the centre of the city and I was able to capture this shot of the Eiffel Tower at dusk.



And no trip to Paris is complete without a visit to the Moulin Rouge! It's located amid a lot of sex shops. O la la.



So that was our trip to Paris! As I said earlier, I was quite nervous before going, but in truth, it was wonderful! The people were very friendly and usually spoke English. The food is a bit pricey, but delicious! I might have to make another posting simply for the food!

Au revoir!

A day in the life...

In my effort to travel and make interesting blog posts, I realize that I never actually showed pictures of what I do on a day to day basis. Since we are having a low-key weekend, I thought I would dedicate a post to our normal work week as ESL teachers.

In general, we work from Monday to Thursday. There are opportunities to teach on Fridays, but we decided to decline those on account that we wanted to travel. Instead, our Monday through Thursday schedules are pretty packed. There are classes that begin at 8 in the morning and you can teach classes until 9 or 10 at night. Classes are usually scheduled around the normal workday. For example, they are an hour or two before work (at 8am), or they are at lunchtime or they are after work. This means that there are several hours in the day when we don't teach. At times, it can be frustrating, but I find a good book makes the time fly.

On Mondays, I work in the north of Madrid at an area called Alcobendas. It's outside of downtown and is mostly business buildings.

The metro stop is Ronda de la Comunicación. It takes about an hour to travel there from home, unfortunately.



Those large glass buildings are Telefonica. They used to be the only telephone and internet service in Madrid. Now, there are competing services, but they all have to work through Telefonica because they established the phone lines.



In the next few pictures, you can see the Guadarrama mountain range bordering the buildings.





Also, I can see these four skyscrapers from Ronda. These four skyscrapers were recently completed in 2008. Each was funded by the money earned in selling important Real Madrid (the soccer team) players to other teams. I know that one was funded with the money from selling David Beckham and I cannot remember the others.



Twice a week, I travel even farther north to La Moraleja. This is the wealthiest neighborhood in Madrid. Near the metro stop, there are mostly large businesses. Both A and I teach classes here at Cap Gemini, which is an international company that produces computer programs and software. That's the best explanation I can give. It's a French company, but it has locations all over the world.



Not all of our classes are for businesses in the north. We also teach private classes to individuals who just want to learn English. For some students, I travel to their homes in Madrid and others prefer to come to my home for class. I really enjoy these classes because the students really want to learn English! Also, they love to tell me more about their Spanish culture.

It's nice to have a balance between business classes and private classes. With business classes, you are always going to have class on that day and time. Even if no one attends the class, you still get paid because the company pays for X amount of classes. The only problem is that the pay is low and you sometimes have students who are forced to learn English. In general, we have been lucky, since most of our business classes are filled with students enthused with improving their fluency. With private classes, you can name your price for the lessons.

So this is our daily life here. At times it is tiring and difficult, but our students make us love our job!

We have just returned from a wonderful trip to Paris! In that short weekend, I somehow took 400 photos! We will be posting highlights from the trip soon!

Ciao Roma! Due

I have much more pictures and stories to share from our trip! My posts have been a little delayed because I have been under the weather. Yes, Spain has finally embraced Spring, which feels a lot like summer. I think the change in temperature gave A and I mild colds. As I try to get on the mends, here are some more highlights from Rome!

Whenever we traveled into the city center, we had to take the metro. It's only 2 lines and the cars are covered with graffiti, like this one.



Makes the New York City subway look pristine. I also have to put up the amazing warning signs on the metro. I find them hilarious.



When you're in downtown Rome, you can't miss all of the ruins splayed out in the area. Some of the cousins informed us about one site where they were planning to build something and discovered more ancient ruins, which they didn't want to remove. It's amazing that a large amount of the pieces are in tact. We were lucky enough to be in Rome fr "Culture Week" so admission was free.



These are pictures of the Roman Forum. In the one below, you'll notice a group of people dressed up in costume. I was really hoping it was one of those history tours like the ones in the U.S. when you tour with a colonial period person. However, the characters in these photos look quite spiritless.







From the ruins, you aren't far from the Roman Coliseum. I have seen this a few times, but it is always an awesome sight. It dates back to the 1st century AD.



We decided to have an overpriced drink by the Roman Coliseum. Hey, you only live once.

One of the other important items we saw was the Bernini sculpture called The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in the St. Mary of Victory Church. The church is small compared to other religious edifices, but it contains an immense amount of art!



Here's a picture of the interior of the church.



And here is the famous sculpture.



I wished I had had more time in this church; it was so packed with statues and paintings that you had to allot yourself some time to actually peruse through the building.

After that, we headed over to St. Peter in Chains church where Michelangelo's Moses sculpture decorates the tomb of a pope. He carved this statue out of one block of marble.



A told me an interesting story about this sculpture. While Michelangelo chisled away at this statue, he was determined to make it life-like. In anger, he hit the statue on the knee exclaiming, "why don't you speak?!" Apparently, there's a scar where he struck the statue.



That was the end of our Rome visit. We got packed on Monday only to see the news that the Iceland volcano ash covered most of Europe. We received an email stating that our flight was cancelled! The email had a hyperlink directing us to book another flight, but it didn't work. The email stated we could call, but there was no phone number! We decided to go to the airport and try to handle things there. The ticketing desk told us we wouldn't be able to get another flight until next Saturday or Sunday! We decided to get a refund on our tickets and try to return to Madrid through cheap trains or buses. As the ticketing agent tried to process our request, he discovered that our flight indeed was leaving today! We looked at him perpelexed and he explained that they cancel all the flights and then start them up again if the airspace is safe. Though I was mentally cursing at this man, wondering how in the world we were supposed to know that when we were given the impression we had no flight home, I was releived to see our flight on the board. Unfortunately, many people were stranded at the airport. Here's a picture of the departure board. Granted, this was a small airport, you can see that the majority of flights were cancelled.



We have some more travel plans happening in the near future, so come back soon!

Ciao Roma!

Last weekend, we went to Rome to visit A's aunt and uncle. It was a lovely trip filled with good family, friends and food!

We arrived on Friday and were able to visit a shopping mall. I know, I know, why would the first thing we do in one of the most historic cities be to shop at a centro commercial? Well, A's cousins were nice enough to take us around. Both A and I have traveled to Rome a few times in the past. We only had a few items on our list to see. All I'm going to say about the mall is that it was very posh and there was a giant supermarket inside of it! To me, this was quite strange, but it's apparently becoming the norm in Italian malls.

When we weren't shopping, we were visiting with the aunt and uncle in their beautiful apartment. Here are some photos of the landscape from their home!





During our stay with the family, we were able to run around on our own and visit some important points of interest. Topping our list was a trip to the Vatican museum. I haven't been in this museum in 5 years and they have opened up a new wing.







In this new wing, there is a famous sculpture of Augustus. Though it's probably not the original one, you see a lot of copies all around the Roman streets.



We journeyed on among the hoards of tour groups in order to get a good picture of Laocoon and his sons. This is the famous statue depicting the Trojan Laocoon, who warned his fellow citizens that the giant wooden horse the Greeks offered as a gift was a trap. According to the story, deadly snakes came out of the wilderness and attacked Laocoon and his sons. The Trojans took this tragedy as a sign and ignored Laocoon's warnings.



For the sake of brevity, here are a few of the highlights from the Vatican Museum. There is "The School of Athens" by Raphael.



Here's the ceiling in the Gallery of Maps.



Finally, here's a sculpture known as the Belvedere Torso. If you're anything like me, you're wondering why this broken sculpture is of note. According to A, Michelangelo was very impressed with this piece and would devote many of his drawings and paintings to imitiating this form. Once you study it for a few moments, you recognize some figures in the Sistine Chapel ceiling with a similar physique.



No trip to the Vatican Museum is complete without a walk around St. Peter's Basilica.



We crossed this interesting bridge over the Tiber River in order to return into Rome. I was conflicted; part of me wanted to gaze at all the beautiful art that seeped through the city, while the other part of me wanted to bolt home for more Italian cooking!



On our walk to the metro, we saw Altar of the Fatherland. I love this building/monument. It depicts the first king to rule a unified Italy, Victor Emmanuel.



Here's my attempt to be a deep photographer. It's a profile of the Emmanuel statue.



I feel this is a fitting place to end this post. I will upload more photos as soon as possible because there are many more statues, monuments and volcano threats! To be continued...

Good Friday Procession

Sorry that this post is a bit late! Last Saturday, we said goodbye to our last guest. We have had friends and family in our apartment for the last 3 weeks! We enjoyed their company, but now we're trying to clean the apartment and plan for lessons. After we have people in our apartment, we always give ourselves one full day of being absolutely lazy. We did nothing, yet the time seemed to fly by (how is it 5pm already?!)

I really need to post these pictures from the Good Friday Procession during Easter week (or Semana Santa as they call it here). This is the day they really celebrate; when it's Easter Sunday, you don't see anyone outside. I guess they are eating with their families or sleeping because everything is closed. But Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified, is a large solemn event. There are parades all over the cities that range in scariness. I say this because in all of the parades, there are people wearing large hoods over their faces. As an American, I have a negative image of this garb, since it is similar to the KKK hats. The truth is that the KKK took the idea of these hats for their organization; the actual meaning behind the hats is very different in a Good Friday procession. They are worn by believers who are repenting for their sins and wish to remain anonymous. There are also several other groups who follow in the parade. One is a large group of women in black with beautiful mantillas (the veils on their heads) to show they are in mourning. The weirdest part was the ordinary people who were barefoot and had chains on their ankles. You could hear them dragging their chains on the street, which had a pretty ominous feeling to it.

The procession began with a team of soldiers on horses.



Then came the first few of the hooded people. Here's one carrying a large silver cross.



Here is a hooded person with a few of the ladies in black. Every group that passed by had a flag of a saint. I think they were parts of different groups in the church.



Here's a photo of the large marching band. I'm not sure if that's appropriate, since they weren't really marching as much as solemnly walking in a procession. At times, they would play something, but it was always in a somber mood. In many processions, they don't have music at all--just methodical drums. Pretty ominous if you ask me.



Here are some of the citizens who participated in the procession by walking barefoot and wearing chains on their ankles. I'm sure it wasn't painful, but the sound of the chains was quite creepy.



Here's a group of the ladies in black. I love those mantillas!



Here's the grand finale that is unique in every procession-the float. Every parish procession has a different image; it's either the Virgin Mary or Christ. This one shows the Resurrected Christ. You also can see that the hooded people flank the float.



It was quite an interesting event. Not something you would see on the other side of the Atlantic.

We are going to Rome this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that the volcanic ash from Iceland won't delay our plane!

Escorial...we meet again....

It's time for me to catch up on my blog posts and update all the wonderful things we've been up to.

When our California friends came to town, we showed them around Madrid. It's always fun to see your city through an outsider's eyes. I take for granted how beautiful Puerta del Sol can be.



Here's one of the Royal Palace and a statue of Felipe IV.



I felt those were worth noticing. In other news, we were able to convince our out-of-town friends to travel up to Escorial-this time, to enter the monastery! Remember that the last time we endeavored to make this trip, we were held hostage in a poorly-runned restaurant where it took us hours to receive our meal, only to exit the establishment once the monastery was closed for the day. This time, we planned ahead, took bagged lunches and went straight through the entrance! It was a nicer day, so I have added some photos.



We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but I was able to sneak a few out the windows, which looked upon cultivated gardens and beautiful mountains.



Escorial is a small town centered around the palace/monastery known as San Lorenzo de Escorial. In the lower floors of the palace is the Royal Parthenon-an interior chamber made of marble where 400 years of Spanish kings and queens line the walls in their tombs. As you tour through the stone-walled palace, you enter a black-marble corridor that takes you downstairs to the mausoleum. There are dimly-lit chandeliers down the steps, which makes the whole journey even more ominous. The tombs of the kings lie on the left of the altar and the queens are on the right. Of course, I was not allowed to take pictures in this area, but I found one online. It's not the best quality photo, but you can see how the tombs are staked up along the sides of the room.



It was a humbling experience being inside this room among the remains of the most powerful Spanish rulers of the last several centuries. When we left this chamber, we encountered even more tombs, but they were for the princes and princesses. One room contained a large white marble polygonal tomb known as La Tarta. This is where all the royal children and infants are buried. Once again, I was not able to take a photo, but here's a picture I found online.



After seeing these tombs, I was certain that the tour was completed; apparently, there's much more to the palace. Near the end of the walk, there is a huge library with frescoed ceilings depicting the liberal arts. At the end of the library is a Ptolemaic sphere, which shows the assumed orbits of the planets around the earth. Here's a photo from online.



Mission accomplished! We were finally able to tour through the palace and it was well worth the wait! I highly recommend visiting San Lorenzo if you ever travel to Madrid; it's an awesome historical edifice a quick hour away. Also, if you get too depressed after visiting all the tombs, just head back into the capital for some churros.

Getting to Know Madrid

It's Easter tomorrow (or Semana Santa as they call it here) and we have been very busy entertaining guests from home. It's really nice to have friends and family come to stay with us and show them Spain! First, some friends from California came for a week; we had a great time showing them important points of interest and staying up until 2am laughing and catching up. A day after they left, A's mom arrived and now we are attempting to show her around despite the fact that many places are closed for the holidays.

I've been reflecting on the American view of Spain and I find myself thinking about a similar situation I have experienced in my trips to India. I have traveled to India on several occasions with my family in order to visit my father's relatives. I always brace myself for the trip because it can be strenuous: we can't drink water from the tap, we bathe in buckets (my grandmother's house had old plumbing) and they didn't usually use toilet paper. I vividly remember my aunt discovering the toilet paper in our suitcase and speaking to my father in fast Punjabi, interrogating him as to whether he's too good for his home country that he must bring this from home. The situation was amusing (since it was over a trite thing), but I'm beginning to empathize with my aunt's perspective. Now, I'm the one from the foreign country and I must host guests so they enjoy their stay even though I can't offer everything.

Our guests have all been wonderful, but they were all surprised when they hear that many things close between 2pm to 5pm on a regular workday. It's an old custom many stores and markets still follow, though many big shops stay open. The other surprise is food; if you are looking for a place for dinner at 7pm, you're out of luck. You're not going to be able to eat anything but tapas until around 9pm. Most people don't eat dinner until 10pm normally. The same can be said for getting lunch food-most places don't serve lunch until 1 or 2pm. I remember some friends wanted to order a pizza at 11am. In the US, this wouldn't be a problem because the normal pizza chains open at that hour. When I called Telepizza, they informed me that they won't open until 1.

Buying food at the market can sometimes be a hassle as well. Back in the US, I could always run to my supermarket to buy some items. Here in Madrid, I must think ahead of time when I can do my shopping. You can't wait until Sunday to shop because most supermarkets are closed. In addition, holiday times make it even more important to know when your markets plan to be closed.

In many of these situations, I felt ashamed that I couldn't offer my guests exactly what they wanted when they wanted it. I want to agree with them and say "yes, Madrid is inconvenient" but I don't truly believe that. It's not a terrible adjustment, but it is something you have to get used to. When you are aware of the daily life and how you function in it, the flow seems logical. You begin to love the eccentricities that make your country unique.

My other example comes from the other way around: a Spaniard adjusting to the English customs (which aren't too different from American). She was a former student of mine. Over a few months, we became good friends and we would share and discuss the different customs and cultures between Americans and Spaniards. I remember how shocked she was that we actually have school dances as teenagers-she was certain that was just a myth we made for teen movies. Anyway, she decided to quit her job and move to England to be a nanny and practice her English. Our final classes were discussions about life and culture in England in order to prepare her for a completely different place! She came to class one day exasperated and explained that she had booked her flight to England. I congratulated her and asked why she seemed bothered. Apparently, her flight was scheduled to land in England at 8pm, which was early, in her opinion. She informed the family and they expressed some disdain that she chose such a late flight, but they would still pick her up. " I don't understand how 8 or 9pm can be considered late!" she exclaimed to me. "For me, 8pm is the afternoon! How am I going to live in a place where they go to sleep in the afternoon?!" It's true, most Spaniards eat dinner so late that they go to bed around midnight. I told her it would be hard, but she would adjust and fortunately, she was able to change her sleeping and eating patterns without much anxiety!

I guess my conclusion is that it's very important to be aware of certain cultures and customs before you come to visit. Though Europe is far from a third-world country, there are many differences in the daily life you must be prepared for if you wish to really enjoy the environment. If you come and consistently mumble to yourself how things are much more convenient in your country than here, well, you should probably just stay in your home then. It's different, but it works for the people, so why criticize it?

Anyway, these are some of the thoughts I have collected over the last few months. My next few posts will be more about Escorial and the Good Friday parade in Madrid. Ciao!