Exploring the City: Regular readers may feel like Joni and I see some kind of blog-worthy sight every week. Indeed, there are many things that blend together for us and I can't always distinguish between our various adventures when looking back. This past weekend we took things to another level, managing to see the Eiffel Tower, the Trevi Fountain, the Brandenburg Gate, Tower Bridge, and several other well-known European landmarks in the course of a single afternoon. Have we shunned our language study in pursuit of mastering time travel? Did we finally lose it and hallucinate these things during a long-awaited mental collapse? Are those European trains really THAT fast? The truth may be even stranger - all of these enduring cultural testaments are actually located in a suburb of Madrid. That's right, a 40 minute train ride from the city will carry you to Torrejón de Ardoz and the quirky Parque de Europa.
Home to a cornucopia of (less-than-life-sized) statues, monuments and buildings that rose to prominence across other places and times, this park was the setting for a Saturday picnic with Ben, Cat and Violet. A handful of paid attractions like mini-golf, a ropes course, and a petting zoo seem to furnish free general admission to the grounds. It was all a bit odd but also impressive in a way - and we weren't even visiting during peak season when the place is purportedly filled with live music and fountain/light shows. Cat and Ben were particularly taken with the experience, as they anticipated the structures to be more in line with a play-house scale.
Memorable Meal: On Friday, Joni and I surprised two of Joni's students from her old job in DC teaching ESL. The Mendoza family was visiting Madrid on vacation, and Emely (the matriarch) wrote to Joni in hopes that we could meet up. The kids, Alejandra and Samuel, were equal parts shocked and sleep deprived when we spotted them at our agreed upon location in Retiro. We came to find that the family had arrived that morning, checked into their hotel, then toured Real Madrid's Bernabéu stadium before joining us for a late afternoon picnic lunch. All that considered, I was in awe of the whole group's ability to converse and even play some games whilst seemingly running on fumes.
Who’s Coming to Dinner: We were excited to welcome Teresa (Joni's former Spanish teacher and our current fellow choir member) back again for another lovely dinner at our place. I prepared a really easy but satisfying dish of baked chicken and veggies with a peanut sauce, served over lemon-chicken rice. Joni reprised the carrot cake cookies from our Easter meal, and after a long and painstaking process concocted a delicious frosting. Every chance we have to spend time with this Teresa is a joy, and this particular meeting we exchanged stories from our recent international trips (our jaunt to Italy and her much longer journey to Japan). She even brought us some intriguing transnational delicacies to sample - Kit Kat bars with flavors befitting the island nation (seriously: sake and green tea?!).
En la clase: It's been a rather slow month for classes. With Semana Santa knocking out a week of class and some of our classes that took an additional week off, it seems our teaching loads are growing ever lighter. I'll barely reach 20 hours by the time the month is over (I KNOW!), but Joni has sustained a much more robust schedule thanks to VIPKID. This hasn't stopped her from continuing to study Spanish, and after no small amount of lovingly applied pressure I have decided it is time for me to pursue a more structured learning environment as well. Self-study is helpful, though the expertise of a native speaker is priceless. I look forward to starting regular classes next week.
Final Notes: Despite the dearth of work, life continues to feel busy. This is partially due to travel plans, as our impending trip to the north of Spain this weekend has been fraught with over-booked Airbnb locales for a popular weekend. But over the course of four days, a television show made a rare appearance in the "things keeping us busy" category. Surely by now you've all heard of 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix adaptation of the young adult novel by Jay Asher. Nothing about it is specific to Spain, save for the fact that we watched it while living here, yet it had a pervasive effect on our thought processes as we traversed the city. There's a lot to say about the show, and at some point I'd like to write up all my thoughts. Suffice to say that it was compelling enough to drag us into a binge of all 13 episodes, it is both utterly tragic and seemingly realistic, and it touches on the effect that each interpersonal interaction can have on an individual.
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