Week 11

Lost in Translation: As some of you know, I am a rather picky eater.  I don’t like seafood and I generally don’t eat a lot of meat, which means that I’m often left a little miffed by traditional Spanish food.  Desserts, however, are more broadly my style and I more readily embrace all that Spain has to offer on this front.  Aaron spoke to my sweet inclinations recently, ordering what he believed to be a deep fat fried Oreo with a raspberry sauce.  So imagine my surprise when I took a bite and felt a soft texture...as if an Oreo had been soaked in milk and then fried.  My taste buds told me that something was not right, and upon trying it himself, Aaron realized that this was in fact blood sausage from the northern Spanish town of Orio.  It’s possible I’ve never felt more betrayed by Aaron, expecting something amazingly sweet and getting something both utterly savory and utterly disgusting.

And what would a Lost in Translation section be without an update on our internet situation? Well, the short story is that we still don’t have internet.  Rosa had promised that if the man did not come by the end of the week, she would call a different maintenance person to perform the repair.  Friday came and went without any word from Rosa or any indication that someone had been in the apartment while we were away.  But on Saturday at about 8:30, we received a knock on our door.  There was Rosa, bathrobe-clad and waiting at our door to deliver the news that the man would be coming that very day at 10 AM.  We were about to head out for a day trip to Toledo with Aaron’s family, so we left our spare set of keys with Rosa with the understanding that she would let the man into our apartment if need be. Sunday rolled around and we paid Rosa a visit to see how everything went with the repair.  It turns out that the man did not come, and Rosa was visibly shaken by the outcome.  She said that on Monday she would call someone else to come, and we confirmed today that there is a different person coming on Thursday to make the repair.  It could well be another dead end, but we are naively certain that this will finally be the day when we make a significant step forward in this never-ending quest for a basic utility.  Maybe, just maybe, we will publish our next post from the comfort of our own home.

Exploring the City: This week we were tour guides, so we

explored a lot! While Aaron was working, the Yosts and I explored the area around their apartment and made our way through Mercado de Antón Martín and spotted a cereal bar – no, not like a Nutrigrain. A bar with different kinds of cereal available for the tasting.

On Friday, we showed the Yosts our apartment, Tiger (a fun school supply/home goods/random stuff store that seems like a nicer version of the Target dollar spot), our old Gran Vía apartment area, the fancy McDonald’s, El Corte Inglés, and TtMadrid. We also explored the Crystal Palace and the Rose Garden at Retiro Park, followed by a visit to the Prado Museum where we saw paintings by Goya and Rembrandt.

Retiro Park with the family

Retiro Park Rose Garden

Saturday we took a bus to Toledo, a nearby town in Spain. We

toured the Cathedral there, and it was absolutely breathtaking. On the way home we checked out a Design Market going on at Matadero, an old slaughterhouse that is now a cultural center.

Street in Toledo

 Cathedral in Toledo

At the design market

Sunday we went to check out El Rastro, a giant flea market in

El Rastro

Madrid. After strolling through the streets of the market, we all went to Community Church of Madrid. Following lunch, we were able to take in an amazing view of the city from El Faro, which looks like Madrid’s own space needle. We then toured the palace and got to see some very elaborately decorated rooms. The dining room table has 50 chairs around it!

 El Faro

 View from the top

 View from below

 The palace

Tuesday, we were able to visit the Ferrocarril Metro Museum (got to see some really cool model trains), Conde Duque, an old military fort turned cultural center (which had an exhibit about the history of light switches), and the Templo de Debod (an Egyptian temple that Egypt gifted to the Spain). We had a wonderful time and are sad to see our guests go. 

 Ferrocarril Train Museum

 Amazing model trains

 Light switches through the years

Templo de Debod

All future visitors, there is all of this and more to explore here in Madrid! 

Memorable Meal: Last Wednesday Aaron and I celebrated our third year anniversary by getting dressed up and going out for a dinner date. We planned very last-minute, but somehow managed to find the perfect places for a romantic evening! We had dinner (in true Spanish fashion at 10 pm because we both worked that night) at Terraza de Sabatini, which is a rooftop hotel restaurant with an incredible view of the palace. We enjoyed some tapas, and I was pleased to find some mocktails on the menu. I very much enjoyed my San Francisco, which was a delicious mix of fruit juices and grenadine. 

We were at Terraza de Sabatini pretty much until closing time, but then still wanted dessert, so we ventured to a little place called El Jardín Secreto, which appears to be straight out of

Wonderland. The wild, random, and meticulously arranged decorations alone make a visit to this place worthwhile, but they have an extensive menu of drinks and desserts that really make this place great. We enjoyed our Cacao hazelnut banana batido (kind of like a milkshake), violet lemonade, and a brownie dessert a la mode called the “orgasmo multiple” while surrounded by what seemed like a real-life I Spy book. The dessert had a regular brownie and a blonde brownie with 2 scoops of ice cream on top, as well as strawberry, caramel, and hot fudge syrups. Sugar overload. It was such a lovely evening, and I’m so happy to have spent it with the love of my life.

Yum.

Fun teddy bear swing seat

El Jardín Secreto

Who’s Coming to Dinner: This week, we had the pleasure of sharing many meals with the rest of the Yosts, our first visitors! David, Laurie, and Emily (Aaron’s parents and sister) flew into Madrid on Thursday afternoon from Arizona and California and left Wednesday morning, October 12^th. They rented an Airbnb

apartment just a 10-minute walk from our apartment, and it was spacious for all of us to visit with one another and to house Aaron and me a couple of nights, but most importantly, it had Wifi! We enjoyed a very European breakfast of bread, cheese, and fruit each morning, and then explored different restaurants throughout the days. Here’s a list of the places we visited:

• Oliveto – a cute little Italian restaurant on Calle Santa Isabel with delicious dishes. My favorite: “pasta bags” with pear. Sounds weird, but tastes amazing.
• El Corte Inglés Gourmet Experience – tried food from a couple different restaurants in the fancy food court on the top floor of El Corte Inglés department store in Callao.
• Taberna del Sur – Emily found this one highly recommended on Trip Advisor, and we waited nearly 2 hours for a table! The tapas were so delicious after that long wait, though.
• Café del Fin – In the midst of a long day of walking the streets of Toledo, this restaurant’s veggie lasagna really hit the spot.
• Van Gogh Café – Ben and Cat joined us for lunch after church on Sunday at a Van Gogh themed Café in Moncloa. Lots of great conversation was had!
• San Ginés – Churros con chocolate, take two. Much better than our first experience with them, but still not my first choice of dessert.
  
• Shapla – So. Much. Delicious. Indian Food.
• Goiko Burger – This place offers unique and delicious burger creations served with yummy potatoes. David indulged in the “Kevin Bacon” burger.
• Rodilla – Just stopped in the café close to home so David and Laurie could see in real life the place that they have often seen via video chat. It’s one of the few places near our apartment with free Wifi, so that’s our Sunday spot to call our parents. They have amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice.
• El Jardín Secreto – We had to share this quirky place that we just discovered earlier this week. Merely stopped in for drinks after a large lunch, but really enjoyed our various fruit-flavored lemonades (like kiwi, green-apple, and mango), and got a complimentary snack mix delivered in a tiny bathtub.
  
• We also enjoyed 2 nights of meals in: Empanadas, kindly delivered by David and Laurie while Aaron and I lesson planned, and frozen pizza baked in another exciting amenity at the Yost apartment – the oven! Oh, the little things. 

En la clase: I started my adult English classes this week, and Aaron added a few new classes to his schedule, so his schedule was a little more full than mine.  As of Wednesday the 12th, I have taught five classes.  Right now I have a bi-weekly class with an 8-year-old (at his house), and three classes teaching actors that each meet twice a week at what I believe is a union for performers.  It’s a little too soon to predict exactly how each of these classes will evolve, but I think it’s going to be a good mix of fun and challenge for me.  Aaron has taught 12 lessons to date.  His classes consist of multiple 1-on-1 lessons as well as one group of five students, and he is focusing on anything from general English to preparing to take the Cambridge Advanced English exam.  About half of the classes are held at the language academy that hired him, and the others are held either in-company at the offices of various businesses or in the home of the student.  All of his students are incredibly kind in addition to being eager to learn, and he has enjoyed the time spent in the classroom.  I think that we both struggle most with the planning aspect of teaching, in that it takes so much time to prepare every class!  It can be fun to fit together the pieces that form a lesson, but it can also be frustrating to put a lot of thought into something that ultimately goes unused or falls flat.  I’m guessing with time it will become more fluid, or at least we’ll get used to the habitual, requisite struggle. All in all it feels good to be working again,  and I think both of our schedules will bulk up in the coming weeks.

Final Notes: We really enjoyed having Aaron’s family in Madrid for the past week, and not just because they brought us all of these goodies.

However, we spared little time in getting out of town as soon as they left.  Taking advantage of our somewhat lax schedules we decided it was time to explore another part of Spain.  On Wednesday, the National Day of Spain (a holiday in which almost no one has to work), we boarded an overnight bus to Barcelona, where we’ll spend three days before returning on Sunday.  It is our first overnight trip since arriving in Spain, and possibly the first no-strings-attached vacation we have ever taken as a couple.  We’ve traveled a lot together, but there is always a friend or family member who has been the main reason for the trip.  Technically our honeymoon to Mexico would fall into this category as well, but we decided that had there not been a societal expectation of such a journey we never would have thought “yeah, we deserve to relax after our wedding.”  One big reason to come to Spain was to travel, so here’s hoping that this is the first of many trips both to destinations in Spain as well as to other semi-nearby countries.