Thursday, November 17, 2011

Challenges, challenges and more challenges

Well...I have been terrible about blogging lately.  I believe it has been two months since I have blogged.  I suppose there is a good and a bad to this.  The bad part is that you all don't get to read about our experiences, but I suppose the good part is that our experiences are feeling a bit more normal and less overwhelming and I hadn't felt the need to rush and blog about it.  As I was chatting with a friend today about how terrible I am at blogging, I thought, I need to be better about this because we can laugh at our experiences here and that may also give all of you a good laugh as well.  So I decided to talk a little about some of our challenges lately where we have had to insert said sense of humor.

We have been here in Madrid now for about 4 months.  We are far from "settled", but definitely feel like we are functioning pretty well.  There are many, many challenges that we face each and every day.  Being 4 months into this these challenges certainly don't feel as strange as they used to and we pretty much accept the fact that whatever we are about to do is certainly not going to be easy.  My friend here always says, "Living here is the good life, but not the easy life".  This is soooo in your face true that we have concluded that if we do not have a sense of humor here we will be eaten alive. :-)  I am going to talk a little about such simple things that become so difficult and our "experiences" along the way.

As a military family we have had our fair share of living in different states, different cities, different military posts and many different houses.  Usually when we get to a new spot we have to "cruise" our current city for all of our favorites.  You know, like our favorite stores, favorite coffee shops, favorite salons, favorite restaurants and really anything that we can "relate" to or "recognize".  Well when you transplant to a foreign land there are certainly no familiarities and definitely no "cruising" the city to look because we would surely get lost.  Then add the language barrier and you are certainly set up for disaster.  So let's take a look at what sorts of challenges that we run into.  Imagine the simplicity of these things in the States and you might be able to understand our frustrations.

Imagine for a second what you do in a day...now imagine doing this in a place where nobody speaks your language and you don't speak theirs.  Here is where you absolutely must have a sense of humor, not only at yourself, but also with the situation.  The grocery store...now this is actually getting much, much better.  I can recognize so many more items on the shelves, have found our favorite olives, favorite jamon and favorite cheeses.  This week, for the first time, I was actually successful at getting a certain cut of meat that I needed.  You don't find as many meat choices that are already cut for you out on display for you to just grab and go here.  There are pre packaged meats, but it doesn't compare to what our grocery stores have.  Plus you really need to know what the cut of meat you want looks like because you aren't going to find a chuck roast anywhere, well no roast for that matter, but that is another blog.  For some reason the pork chops here are paper thin with shrapnel.  Shrapnel, you say, ahhhh yes, shrapnel.  The meat seems to be cut with a bit of wrecklessness.  I have to warn the kids before eating their pork chop that they may find little bones in their meat.  I cannot stand this, but it is what it is, so we just deal with it.  Well...yesterday I ran to my local mercado and went back to the butcher and found the cut of meat I wanted.  Well here comes the hard part...I needed to tell him what I wanted.  I wanted that cut of meat cut thicker and I wanted 6.  So....here it goes.  Hola, Buenas Tardes.  Now remember...I have complete survival spanish...I sound like the local village idiot, but at this point if I can get my need across to them then it is a win win. :-)  Esta. Gruesa. Seis.  Well he cut me the most lucious pork chops that we have gotten yet and it was absolutely AWESOME.  Now you can imagine my pride as I just ordered meat from the butcher in a language that I am not even close to native at speaking.  I was on cloud 9.  It sounds so silly to want to call your husband as you leave the store to tell him that you just got pork chops.  This is just a funny situation that if we were home in the States...who cares...do you want some sort of medal because you bought friggin pork chops...well actually in Spain, yes a medal or girl scout patch of achievement would ROCK.

As a girl this next situation is one that I have been thinking about since we got here.  I am not going to lie.  I am extremely high maintenance and I usually have my new salon in my new city picked out before my new curtains go up.  Again...not here.  I went to an Aveda Salon back home in the States and had looked up the local Aveda Salon pretty much as soon as we landed.  I have been telling my husband for the past 4 months that I need to either go down to the salon or attempt to call to see if anyone speaks English.  This is actually a situation where I absolutley NEED the hairstylist to speak English because there can be no miscommunication when it comes to cutting my hair.  We already had this happen to Ellie and that is a whole other story, but she is 6 and I am not and if my hair is cut way shorter than I had expected there will be tears.  Each week I get an email that talks about recent events and goings on in Madrid.  Well each week they have the Aveda Salon in downtown Madrid highlighted and they talk about one of their services they offer.  Last week in this email it said that a brunch had been organized at this Aveda.  At this brunch you got a consult with a stylist, a free manicure and a mini shoulder massage.  I was certainly ALL OVER this one.  I had been wanting to get my foot in the door of this salon since we arrived and what better way than with a group of other people.  Perfect...this was going to be fabulous.  I drop the kids off at the bus and head into the location to catch the light rail into the regular metro station to take the metro into the city because Lord knows you don't want to drive into Madrid at 10 am, plus there probably wouldn't be anywhere to park.  I arrived at the salon a few minutes early so I popped into the Starbucks right across the street.  Just a little side note, I was so excited when I saw Peppermint Mocha on the menu.  I, of course, ordered myself a Peppermint Mocha and just sat in a little bliss of familiarity as Christmas music played in the background.  It was certainly my happy place for a few moments.  It was now time to head over to my brunch event at Aveda.  I walked inside and was greeted by a Bonjour.  What the...I must admit I sort of froze.  All I could think to say was Hola.  Holy Crap why is she speaking French...wait a minute...THEY ALL ARE SPEAKING FRENCH.  I am bad enough with getting by in Spanish and now I am surrounded by people speaking French.  The coordinator of the event, whom I corresponded with in English, did speak English to me as she checked me in.  Come to find out, this was actually a French Club that had arranged this.  I am not sure how I was included in the original email about this event, but I had to look at it...with a sense of humor.  These ladies did speak Spanish, but not English.  Well, a few spoke English, but they all knew each other and were all speaking French.  It was just one of those moments where I thought, "How bizarre".  The positive that came out of the whole thing was that they were able to get me hooked up with a stylist that does speak English and I was able to make an appointment with him for next week to actually get a cut and a color plus I got a free manicure and shoulder massage.  So again a win win.

I will leave you with one last challenge that is sooo super easy to do in the States that you don't even think twice, but now we are going to figure out how to order a pizza. This should be fun.  Ellie and I were leaving girl scouts and we thought it would be great to bring home a pizza.  So we put Domino's in our GPS and go.  Well, you know how GPS's are.  After the fact we find out that there was a Domino's much closer to where we were to start with, but such is life. So it is pouring down rain and Ellie and I are on an adventure.  Any where you go in Madrid parking is a nightmare.  I am sure this is the same scenario in any major city, but a new one for us to deal with and you certainly must perfect your parallel parking skills. Ellie and I find a perfect parking spot.  I attempt to "fit" into in the spot with my super American Honda Odyssey....ummm yeah...if you see a Honda Odyssey it is a 110% that it is an American driving it seeing as they don't make this Honda model here...even when the Guardia Civil sets up check points...they wave on through the obvious Americans...aka Honda Odyssey's.  So I am trying to parallel park the van into a spot I knew for sure we would fit into.  Well I kept running into something.  So I asked Ellie to jump in the back and look out the back window to see what I was hitting.  She, so politely, says, "Mom, you are hitting the car behind you".  Well that certainly explains that.  I think we will just mosey along to a new spot.  We did find a parking spot and now the real challenge begins...to order the pizza. Now, of course, the toppings are pretty similar, except for the fact that it is all in Spanish and the lady taking your order only speaks Spanish.  We were able with not much trouble to order our hawaiian and bacon pizzas or jamon con pina y bacon.  Whenever I do something new for the first time I swear I feel like I have a mini anxiety attack trying to get through it.  I just freeze up and forget all that I know. So after I placed my order she asked me for my nombre.  Well in the midst of my feeling overwhelmed I responded telefono, because I thought she was asking me my number...nombre/number...they sound the same to me. :-)  Well it wasn't until she called the name of the other lady waiting for her pizza when it donned on me that nombre was name.  I totally knew this, but totally had a brain freeze.  If Chad would have been in this situation his response is always, "No speako the Mexicano," which he totally stole from our friend Ashleigh. You can imagine how far this gets him.  Let's just say I do all the speaking when possible.

Until next time...