Barrio de las Letras

What a week! A and I are beginning to work as English teachers in Madrid, and it is quite taxing! Most of our classes are held way up north in offices. I really like it up there; it's much more scenic and contains highways. It kind of reminds me of West Virginia and every now and then I get a little homesick. The only downside is that our commute can take from an hour to an hour and a half! Thank goodness I found a library with some books in English!


This weekend, I decided that I wanted to actively visit the historical sites where some of the greatest Spanish writers once resided. Spain's most famed writers are Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega. In fact, both of their houses are on the same street! Here is a picture of the plaque outside of Cervantes's house.I believe that the plaque states that he lived and died in this house. Coincidentally, he died the same day and year as Shakespeare.

As you meander down this street a bit more, past the posh clothing stores, which I doubt get any business in this terrible economy, you come across Lope de Vega's house. In a time when most of the citizens of Madrid were impoverished, this house really stood out, and it still stands out today. It is quite a big house to have in the downtown area!



Lope de Vega was born in Madrid, but then traveled around Spain. He returned to Madrid and lived in this house for the last couple of decades until his death. It is here that he write Fuenteovejuna, one of his most popular plays. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside of the house, but they did let us take pictures of their garden. Here's a picture of part of the garden and a well, which was rare to have in the 17th century!



Lope de Vega and his family used this garden for food. They would plant their vegetables here.



Anyway, that was our trip down literature lane. For anyone who was bored to tears by this post, I will end with a picture A took while I wasn't looking. At a store across the street from Lope de Vega's house, the owners drew this sign on a whiteboard. A thought it was hilarious and worthy of capturing on film. Hope you enjoy.

Morning Review

It's mid-morning here in Spain and I am attempting to wake up and have my first cup of coffee. As I try to embrace a new day, I thought I would take this time to post up some of the interesting stories and pictures from the last two weeks. To make the post look nicer, I'm going to randomly add some pictures that I haven't been able to post. Some really don't need captions--they're just cool statues on top of buildings.

Coffee...check. Muffin...check. Here we go.


A few Fridays ago, A and I were invited to a friends' new apartment in the north of town. It was the home of some fellow Ttmadrid graduates originally from England. They have been kind enough to help "amend" our English and provide us with charming new phrases like "knickers" and "biscuits." A and I are not the partying type, so we deliberated as to how long we would stay at the party. Our decision was to stay until the cops came. That evening, the possibility proved true. While we were all together at the apartment, the neighbors had complained about the noise and called the police. The next thing I know, I have to leave the apartment and it's only midnight. A Spaniard friend informed me that citizens can call the police for a noise disturbance after 11pm on weekends!

Nonetheless, there was no harm done (thank goodness!) There were so many people in the apartment that the cops didn't stop each one of us and ask for our passport. For A and I, this was an exciting night. In the multitude of years we resided in New York City, we never encountered the "fuzz" if you will. We finally got to don the renegade regalia we had always dreamed of.

Except we didn't really want to be rebels. We want to be comfortable legal citizens! This brings me to my next story in the unending saga of getting me my legal documents in Spain. A is an EU citizen because he has dual citizenship with Italy. This has made his paperwork in Spain work out seamlessly. Since I am married to him, I have to report that I am currently organizing my paperwork. I am technically legal, but the stupid consulates are taking so long to send us our important information. (Long story short, my marriage license may or may not be headed to Italy right now).

My experience with the job hunt has been affected by my current legal status. The Spanish have cracked down on businesses that hire teachers who do not have their legal paperwork in order. It used to be much easier for Americans to come into the country and find work. Nowadays, it proves challenging. And though I am on my way to obtaining all the necessary documents, many agencies inform me that they can't hire me until I have the papers in hand.

Last week, I received a call from one of those agencies. They were frantic to find an English teacher to start that day teaching a one-to-one class. They wanted to know if I had my paperwork in order yet (the Spanish don't exactly understand the slowness of their own country). The agency offered to help me get my social security that day if I brought all the documents I already had. Well, I jumped at the chance and the next thing I know, A and I are walking to the Ministry of Work with one of the agency employees who speaks very little English. I just nodded the entire time we walked over. Once we got to the office, they saw us, gave me a paper and we were done. They didn't even look at our marriage license to make sure the names were correct!

I began to teach the one-to-one class, but then the agency contacted me again, wondering if I had finished my legal paperwork. Of course I hadn't, but I was sure that they knew why. After a week and 3 teaching days, they had to let me go. They needed me to have another identification document, which I cannot get yet. I was pretty annoyed at them for their unorganized workstyle, but I accepted this as a positive point. I wasn't sure if I would have been happy working with them anyway.

Even though I have lost my first job, I still have a lot of teaching hours. Next week, I begin teaching 11 hours worth of classes! This means I need to start making some lesson plans this weekend!

Last Sunday marked our first 3 months being married. Honestly, all the adjusting, moving and transitions has made this time fly by. It was funny that while we were out that weekend, we stumbled upon a couple who had just gotten married and were having pictures taken. I decided to take a picture as well...

In honor of our 3 months of marriage, we decided to finally go out and have some paella. We found a little restaurant around the street from where we live. If you got two paellas, you got a free pitcher of sangria. Bon appetite!

Museums and mayhem!

Now that we have internet in our apartment, it's time to sort out our photos and let you in on how we are doing. We moved to Sol where we are walking distance from a plethora of museums, parks and famous, touristy places. Right after we moved into our new apartment, we headed on over to the Reina Sofia, a modern art gallery with some great (and some real odd) masterpieces. This is a picture of the outside of the building.

The Reina Sofia is best known for its collection of surrealist paintings and, of course, Picasso's Guernica. This painting is huge. There's always a large group taking pictures and admiring it. When you see it in person, it's much more powerful. Here's the best shot I could get of the painting. It's so big, I had a hard time trying to get the full picture, especially without random people in it. I really liked this museum. It has this lovely courtyard with outside sculptures. Here's a shot from the hallway.

We decided to walk farther down the street and looked into this train station. This might be the train station that A and I have to take when we travel to other parts of Spain. Anyway, when you enter the station, it's like a giant terrarium. All these plants in the center of the place.

As we were walking inside the station, we noticed there was a small pond where a lot of Spaniards had gathered to look. When we come up, we noticed that there were hundreds of turtles in this pond! Other than the fact that it smelled terrible, it was really neat!

That's all for right now. I have more to share, but we have to run over to mass at 7:30. We believe that Lope de Vega, a famous Spanish playwright, is buried in this church. We're going to find out and tell the 5 people we know who may be interested in that piece of information...

And we're back!

Hello all!

So sorry that we haven't posted in ages! It's been a mess of transitioning and settling into Spain.

The first news is that we graduated and received our TEFL certificates! Now we can teach English! Right after our graduation and farewell party, A and I moved to Sol. We are now in a tiny apartment where you can just see Puerta del Sol (if you strain your neck to the right).

The area is a complete change from Cuarto Caminos. Every time we leave the apartment, we are bombarded by people outside. It's a lot like living in Times Square. It also feels like everything takes so long to do because there are so many slow people walking ahead of you. At the moment, they are renovating Puerta del Sol. This means that at 8:30 every morning, you can hear constant jack hammers for the entire day. Not my cup of tea. Fortunately, they have made a lot of progress and seem to be finishing up.

A and I are currently in the middle of finalizing job opportunities. Since we are freelance, this means we are interviewing all over the city and trying to get job prospects where ever possible. A has already begun teaching a class in the north of town. I hope to set up hours this week.

Anyway, that's all for now. We have been pretty boring trying to stay home and save money. Now that our internet is hooked up, I will post pictures soon!

"Home"

We've been here in Madrid for about a month now. Crazy how time flies (the rigorous course helped us get lost in the space-time continuum).

In any case, we're starting to feel more at home here in the country's capital. We have our little market for fresh fruits and veggies, we have a metro right by our apartment and we're getting used to not having AC in the apartment. Here's a shot of one of the buildings by our apartment. When I first saw it, it reminded me of another place my family thinks of as home-India. It scared me when I first got here and saw places that looked like India. What do you think?

Now that we feel 'at home' here in Cuatro Caminos we have a new dilemma to face-we need a new home! Our sublet finishes this Saturday and we need to find an apartment in the city! Madrid, like most of the world, is suffering from the economic crisis and it's a renter's market right now. It's been a bit of a struggle for us to find housing because we don't have a work contract yet. The landlords feel better if you have a work contract because they know you're going to be able to pay. Fortunately, it looks like we found a place for after August. I'll post pictures once we move and settle in.

Here's a picture of the traffic circle outside of our apartment. Once again, this reminds me of India (lots of traffic circles in Chandigarh). Well, this is the last week of class and we graduate with our TEFL certificates. We've got a busy week ahead of us, so we'll hopefully be back next weekend!

The Hunt is On

I'm right now in the middle of getting ready for school, so this will be a quick post. We honestly didn't do anything last weekend except stay at home and study. We also couldn't really go out because Saturday was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, therefore everything was closed Sat. and Sun. It's amazing to me that most of the population is atheist and yet they close for religious holidays.

Anyhoo, A and I have been trying to find an apartment for next month and, hopefully, the whole year. People are saying that it's a renter's market right now because there are lots of decently priced apartments out there right now. We've been looking around online and we decided to go look at an apartment in Sol. It was an ideal location-right outside the metro, in the heart of the bustling business of the city. Plus, you're not far from the Prado. Well, we went to the apartment complex and were greeting by an older woman who was in little clothing and holding her chihuahua named "Blackie." This was quite a strange apartment set-up. She opened the door (the door that I was sure would lead to our apartment) and we had to go through a corridor of doors in order to get to our apartment. At first, it seemed like we would be living in an apartment with her, but we would have our own kitchen and bedroom. However, I was told this was not the case and that it was just the apartment hallway. The apartment did not look too much like the one on the internet. In fact, this one had a lot of old furnishings, which made me think I was in grandma's house. We thanked her and Blackie for their time and left.

And so begins another adventure for us. It's really hard to juggle our training with trying to find housing, but we have to stay optimistic. We only have a week and a half left of classes, but we have to finish some big projects and take an exam on grammar and phonetics. I'll post more soon!

Model UN

It's been one crazy, exhausting yet wonderful week. For most of the day A and I are in school for our TEFL certification. It's a great program, but it's an intensive four weeks. Our class consists of a lot of really awesome people from around the globe. I want to say half of the students are from the UK and the other half are from the US. We also have one from Canada, Ireland and Australia. Even our teachers are from all over-one from the UK, one from Australia and the other from Romania. Of course, this means that certain colloquial phrases are being integrated into our 'Merican vocabulary. For instance, no one here says "I'm on vacation." No, that would be stupid. Instead, it's "I'm on holiday." I wish I would explain the pronunciation issues as well, but that may be for another blogpost.

I really like this international class. We're all pretty laid back and we tease each other about how we pronounce things, etc. At one point, A had to be the teacher and teach us like we were Elementary students. He asked our Irish friend to say "garage," which of course he said with an accent (they accent the first syllable in garage, where we accent the second). Anthony made him repeat it until he said it the US way. We all though it was pretty funny and A said we could berate him on his accent as well.

We also have observed some classes where Spaniards take English classes. We observed an Elementary English class and one woman came in drunk. She was very animated for class, but she had a hard time staying focused. I couldn't believe it. In addition, she works in Spain as-I kid you not-an English teacher!

Anyway, the last week has been filled with all-day courses, large amounts of reading and attempting to make our own lessons. After a difficult first week, it is quite nice to have a safe haven where people speak English! When we leave for the day, it's like we're walking into another dimension. When we walk home, we pick up some food items at the market or grocery store for a quick meal in order to finish doing more homework in the evening. One of our teachers said this is harder than Australian military camp.

We attempted to relax this weekend for one evening. On Friday, we met up with some classfolk to see the sights. We got to see the palace pictured below.
I would not mind living in that place. Apparently, the king doesn't live there now and it's a museum open to the public. Around the palace is a line of statues of ancient kings. Pretty sweet.

We then went walking toward an indoor market that all the locals go to. It was packed. We were able to get some good sangria and start to vent about the course. Here's a picture of us wandering towards more drinking fun.

During the evening, we found out that one of our classmates went to high school with our friend who sang at our wedding! She knew our friend very well. Quite a small world!

A and I headed home a bit early. We were so exhausted from the week and we needed to be comatose for several days. Unfortunately, the metro closes at 1am, which doesn't give us much incentive to stay out late.



On Saturday, we went out in the afternoon to check out the only English bookstore in Madrid. It's pretty cool. A couple decided to buy a bunch of second hard books in LA and then move to Madrid to start up this store. It's really nice. Here's a shot from the inside.

I'm relieved there is some kind of bookstore here. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to read (and I would slowly die). I hope to post more soon, but it might not be until next weekend again. This week, we begin trying to teach. A and I are feeling ready, but you never know what can happen in a classroom. Wish us luck!