Well it has been just over a week since I have posted anything. As you can imagine a lot has happened in a week. We arrived in Madrid on Wednesday July 13th. We arrived around 0730 Wednesday morning, which would have been Julu 12 @ 2330 Colorado time. So basically at this point we had been up since 0700 Tuesday morning. Our first plan of attack was to keep everyone awake as long as possible. We did pretty well with the help of our incredible sponsors and co-sponsors. I realize this is how things work here, but the Americans that we have been "assigned" to have just been beyond incredible. The kids crashed finally around 3pm. Hubby and I made it until around 8pm, with little dozes here and there. The first night certainly could have been worse, but wasn't too bad. After we crashed, the kids, of course, woke up at 11pm thinking it was morning. We were able to put on a movie for them and they slept off and on throughout the night. We had to get up the next morning and begin the in processing process through the place where my husband will be working.
Our first order of business was getting to the place where we needed to in process. This began our extensive Metro system lesson. The Metro, really all public transportation here, is just incredible. Those of you in big cities are familiar with this sort of thing, but we have never really experienced it. This leads to yet another incident with our littlest child. A little preface about our little one, she is an extreme drama queen, her belly always seems to hurt and we have figured this is partly because she worries about everthing. So, as usual, we were in the middle of this whole Metro process and had only a few stops to go when she informs me that her belly hurts and she thinks she is going to be sick. Praise God we were off the actual Metro and waiting for the next train when she puked in one of the trash cans. Oh dear...what could I do, but wipe her face, get her something to drink and forge on. We had places to be and with a co-sponsor with us I didn't really want to hold up the whole process. I thought about sending them on, but I had no idea where I had to go, so we had to put on our big girl panties and just go. By the time we made it to the Headquarters she was doing just fine and was able to sit and just get composed again. The kids and I hung out in a community room and played games while Chad did all his running around. We left the headquarters around 5pm for the next adventure.
Next on the agenda was to get some groceries. One of the big supermarkets here in Madrid is the Carrefour. This is very similar to a Wal-mart. It has electronics, sporting goods, clothing, household items, food and other little odds and ends. Food here in Spain is really nothing like the States. Items that are more luxury items for us, such as: chorizos, cured hams, salamis, various cured meats, a gazillion types of cheeses are standard everyday items here. The meat/cheese aisle is similar to the size of our frozen food section. There were 4 huge aisles of these goodies for like 1 euro for a package of salami or chorizo or whatever. Totally incredible. There were even whole cured legs of pig just hanging in the aisle. Depending on the type of pig or "jamon" was how it was priced. So neat. We stocked up on some meats/cheeses and some other little things. Not sure how the cooking will go just yet. Because of the language barrier things got a little sticky checking out. Thank goodness our co-sponsors spouse speak spanish as she is from Puerto Rico and is seriously a god sent. The checker asked me a question and they speak so fast that you just sort of freeze up. Our co-sponsor saves us (0nce again). She was just asking me if I had a Carrefour discount card...who knew. We survived yet another Madrid experience. After our Carrefour run we headed back downtown to see our co-sponsors apartment and we had to get our Abono (Metro pass). The apartments downtown will have to be another post, because they are just incredible.
The Metro pass (Abono)...these little creatures are your ticket to the underground rail system and depending on which areas you choose,d you get unlimited rides to the areas that you have specified an paid for the month. Some interesting things on this process...the only place to get these...you would think the Metro station...that would make sense, but oh no, you get them from Tobacco shops. The particular Tobacco shop that we went to didn't speak English...again thank God for a bi-lingual spouse. This language things is truly extremely overwhelming and intimidating. I have never felt at such a loss. The language barrier really makes you think twice with what you really need or don't need. Right now I am to the point that if I can figure it out on my own I will try that before I try and stumble through a conversation. This is certainly unexpected in one of the top tourist spots in all of Europe, but it is true, the people of Madrid DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. We finally made it back to our apartment. Completely tuckered out.
I will end with this, but have so many things to tell you all about. The women of Spain, our first Restaurant experience, more on the grocery stores, the wonderful people we are meeting, the driving and the list just goes on.
So until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment