Week 14

By Aaron

Lost in Translation: (Brought to you by Joni) Teaching English is fun, especially when your students try to translate Spanish idioms into English. In my intermediate class on Wednesday, one of my students was describing what her perfect day would be like. Her ideal day sounded quite lovely at first, consisting of sleeping in, spending time with her cat, reading at home, and touching her balls all day. Wait, what? Everyone in the class laughed, but it was definitely not the kind of laugh that made me think anyone actually knew what that meant in English. They should have been laughing harder. Thanks to my 8 weeks of Spanish class, I knew that there is an idiom in Spanish, "Tocar las pelotas," which means to bother someone. I think she meant to say that no one would bother her on her perfect day, but that is definitely not how it sounded. 

Exploring the City: 

Joni and I have a tradition of taking long

walks as the weather and the leaves begin to change, which

we lovingly call Walktoberfest. Our epic long walks in the U.S. meant that we would cross state lines on foot - once we walked from Maryland, through DC, and ended up in Virginia!  We've found that walking provides a totally different perspective of a place, especially if it's a familiar route traveled often by car. These past couple months we haven't driven anywhere, but there are certainly many parts of the city that remain ripe for exploration. After

getting a tip that part of the Camino de Santiago runs through Madrid, we decided to incorporate a portion of the route into our plans for the day.

Starting from our apartment

in the south/central part of the city, we worked our way down to the river. Along the way, we found some swings hanging from the underside of an overpass! This route then lead us to walk through/under Vicente

Calderón Stadium that plays host to the Atlético soccer team. That's right, the sidewalk passes underneath the stadium!  We proceeded to turn north and work our way up a grueling incline that passed by the

Cathedral, and eventually gave way to Iglesia Santiago - the church that marks the beginning of the Madrid portion of the Camino.  At this point we entered the familiar territory of central Madrid, streets we frequented during our first month in the city.  We even passed by the apartment we called home for close to a week when we lived with Ben and Cat.  With that block in the rear view, we moved through new streets that lead to Cuatro Caminos and Tetuan.

After seeing the office buildings that appear to defy gravity, our quest continued north as we walked over the M-30 highway and into a noticeably quieter suburb.  We stopped for lunch in a small park next to a community garden, and enjoyed our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chex

mix.  With full stomachs and full bladders, we carried on for about 2 minutes before realizing the odds of finding an indoor bathroom were swiftly falling out of reach.  We opted for the only storefront in sight, a small bakery where we gladly purchased some buñuelos (a seasonal Spanish dessert that is essentially a fried cream puff!). Chatting with the woman behind the counter we learned that this bakery has been in her family since 1918!  

She looked to be about our age, and was working alongside her father.  Upon hearing we were visiting Spain and this was our first time ever sampling buñuelos, he insisted on giving us the two flavors of

the dessert that we hadn't purchased.  It was so nice to see this father/daughter team in action, and the hospitality was awesome.  We didn't notice until right after leaving that we had likely infringed on part of the siesta break, as the store was closed promptly after we left.  If you ever find yourself north of the center in Madrid, check out El Obrador de Valentin. We also found a fun playground nearby! 

At this point our path became distinctly

more rugged and increasingly seemed to lead into the depths of a dessert.  We encountered several people on bikes and even a few on horses, but didn't see anyone else on foot.  It's not the most popular section of the camino.  Every time we paused for a water break, we would turn to see an ever-shrinking Madrid on the horizon.  More than once did it occur to us that this may not be quite the route we'd mapped out on Google, but the continued presence of yellow arrows assuaged any creeping sense of doubt that set in.

We finally emerged from the wilderness to walk alongside a

quite busy highway (on a paved trail), and found that there was indeed a sleepytown lying in wait as the sun set.  Tres Cantos is a name that we had heard during our job searching days, though I'm not sure I ever had any inkling about what it might be like.  It's a stop on the local Cercanias commuter train line, and is home to a mall - the first one we've seen in Madrid.  We were more or less on schedule with our arrival time, just before 7 o'clock, and thus were about an hour

and a half early for Spanish dinner.  I had thought about this before we left, but figured Foster's Hollywood (a chain serving American-style food) would take marching orders from capitalism and throw out

such tradition.  I was wrong.  But luckily Puerta de Pirata, a kid-friendly arcade/restaurant in the vein of Chucky Cheese, was still teeming with children from the prime-time Saturday

afternoon birthday hour.  We were the only people actually eating in the restaurant the duration of our meal.  It was delicious.

Inside of this mall in Tres Cantos there is a Carrefour - what

we assumed to be the same as the grocery chain we have visited in Madrid.  Turns out that this particular store is more along the lines of a Target or Super Walmart!  We each bought slippers, Joni bought some shoes, and most importantly we bought home a tub of apple

sorbet to share on the train ride back to Madrid. Ah, the comforts of home.  It was a long day, as is typical for any successful Walktoberfest, and we were happy to experience a bit more of the outlying parts of our city.

Memorable Meal: We enjoyed the company of our friend Jen (who Joni met in Spanish class), as she joined us for dinner last Thursday.  And by "joined us for dinner," I believe I mean came over and made dinner for us - the details are still in question, but when I arrived home food was on the table and Joni was not eager to claim credit for preparing the meal.  The dish was black bean lime sweet potato tacos, and it was wonderful.  We enjoyed the leftovers for several meals hence - thanks, Jen!

Who’s Coming to Dinner: 

This past Tuesday was All Saints' Day, and in Spain it is

observed as a major holiday where almost everyone has the day off.  It was the perfect day to have people over for a belated housewarming party, and Joni took advantage of Halloween's proximity to make some Pinterest-inspired snacks.  The apartment is feeling more and more like an actual home, and welcoming friends definitely adds to that. We later realized that neither one of us went outside - or even stepped outside the apartment into the hall - for the entire day.  It was glorious.

En la clase: Last week, my Spanish class took a field trip to some major tourist hot spots in Madrid.  But we weren't exactly there to be tourists.  Each person in the group was assigned a site to describe as a tour guide - all in Spanish of course.  This required an extensive amount of writing in Spanish beforehand, which was great both for writing practice and for reading about the site I was to explain (the Teatro Royal, near the Royal Palace). Even though I had visited several of the stops on our tour, it was great to hear my peers explain details in Spanish.  

Final Notes: We are still struggling to get into the groove of a routine.  It seems that students cancel classes due to holidays or work or sickness or school, and that tends to leave awkward gaps in my schedule.  In the coming week, Joni will pick up a few more classes to bulk up her course load and that may provide some more order to the daily flow of things.  It is tough to find a balance between working too many hours and working too few.  In the latter case the non-working hours can get so spread out that the free time doesn't amount to much, and with the former comes the added weight of extra lesson planning.  It's like any new job, just less so.  Still, we continue pressing onward and doing our best to compartmentalize anxiety in service of enjoying this experience.