Not Like In The Movies

The last 10 days have been about as frustrating as anything I have experienced on the personal front. It has practically nothing to do with being in Spain and everything to do with the so-called "global financial network." Ha. More like the "global marketing blah blah but it's really a country by country system and it would be faster if you wrote a check and sent it by freighter and donkey network"!!! It's sure not like James Bond or Oceans 11 or The Bourne Identity where you push a button and watch it fill your Swiss bank account.

We literally had tens of thousands of dollars that was really our money and we couldn't get access to it because it was being wired somewhere at some point by somebody and we would get it some time. Which, for those of you who read my early post about the fear landlords have here of letting someone rent their property and never being able to get them out, didn't make our first time landlord any more comfortable with the Americanos.

We did move into a new apartment, more about that later with some pictures, and life is getting much better. But if I had written all this last week, it would have been too bitter. With a little distance, it's not funny but it's not as stressful as it was either.

Two great things did happen out of it. First, we were again reminded how many good friends we have who were willing to do a variety of things to try to help. Genuine offers that came right from the heart and did indeed help...sometimes just listening and empathizing was what we needed.

Secondly, while Becca and I were very worked up, the girls continued be the girls (though they did tell us to relax a few times.) One afternoon Becca took them into a church she had been wanting to see. Taylor and Laura Macie were very NOT excited about that little trip. However, once they got in, past the ordinary facade, their jaws dropped. That night, when they usually take a few minutes to say what they're thankful for, Taylor said something that was worth all the hassle and frustration, "Thank you for opening my eyes to knowing that sometimes what is plain on the outside is beautiful on the inside."

It's so good that our kids are smarter than we are.

Flamenco Dancing - Way better than I expected!

Becca was committed to doing something this past Friday night with the girls that was more than just dinner and walking around, as lovely as those two things are. Her idea was, to me, the dreaded flamenco dancing show. A necessary stop on the Madrid culture tour but one to be endured more than enjoyed.

The evening started out quite nicely and set the tone for the entire night. The girls dressed up and were excited about such a mysterious word.

We had (mediocre) paella in the Plaza Mayor. Sure, it's a tourist magnet but the outside seating allows for fantastic people watching and there are a lot of people in the Plaza on a Friday night! The girls were totally entranced by a spray paint artist who was simply incredible. Once we move, this week hopefully, the girls want to go back and ask him to create some custom work for their rooms :-)

We finally made our way to the flamenco bar and right away my antennae went up. It was small and dark and seemed ripe for the American in Spain nightmare...audience participation! But I couldn't have been more wrong. Right at show time, the small stage filled with four dancers (three female and one male ), two guitarists and two singers. And from the first note, the stage just exploded with noise and passion and movement. What a fantastic hour we spent.

The photos aren't great (part of what makes flamenco exciting is the exact opposite of good photo conditions) but the evening was another terrific taste of Spain and more fun than any of us expected!

Cheese and Honey Tour in Avila

While Laura Macie and I toughed it out at home yesterday, Becca and Taylor took a tour of (relatively) nearby Avila. This trip, led by a fantastically Madrid/Spain-savvy woman named Ann Pinder, was to three artesinal cheese and honey makers. They learned fascinating things about bees, goats and rural life in Spain. The cheese makers live in a village of about 300 people, maybe 100 families, 20% make earn their livelihood in some way connected with the goats!

We are enjoying the great queso fresca de cabra and two different kinds of honey (one from flowers and one from a tree).

Here are a few other terrific pictures from their

trip.

Expat Community is a Different World

Through some connections Becca has made, we have had the chance the last two weekends to meet several people who are corporate expats here in Madrid. What a different world! We met one lovely Australian woman who has been married 29 years and moved 23 times!!! She considers Connecticut home and kids have gone to university all over the world.

As a group, the expats all speak multiple languages with ease and have interesting perspectives on the world because they've seen so much of it. At the same time, there's a certain fatalism as they often have little control over when and where the next assignment is or for how long.

One French expat talked about living in Seoul, South Korea, a sprawling city of more than 20mm. At the same time there were only 100 French families there so it was like living in a small village (with all the good and bad that comes with that experience) and, in retrospect, a fantastic few years for their family...though living there was very difficult because of the dramatically different language and culture.

This weekend was a little more intimate; dinner with just two other couples but a similar sense of cultural mishmash. The hosts were a French man (different than the one above) married to a Brazilian woman. He works for a French bank, grew up in Africa, the language at home is Portuguese and their English is first rate. And, of course, they live and work and raise a son in Madrid, who uses Spanish on the playground of his French school. Head spinning.

We had a very Spanish day yesterday...late start to the day for most of the family and we didn't go to lunch till 2:30. There are a number of restaurants near our piso (a word we learned this week for apartment), and has we sat outside eating tapas, this was our view. (well, not Laura Macie's as you can see from the top of her head looking at me taking the picture. The phonecam ain't the best)

On Friday, Becca was out meeting a friend at a nearby restaurant when motorcade came screaming by. Turned out to be the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, for an eight-hour visit with Spanish President Zapatero. Not much could have happened in such a short time but this is a "welcome" banner outside of where the meeting happened. Becca also learned that one of the services the US Embassy here (and I think all places) provides is an email alert for when anti-American rallies are expected....hadn't thought about that as a necessary service before.

Self realizations

This morning on my run, I wanted to go the track at Estadio Vallerhmosa, which is about 4km from our apartment. I found it but it was closed; which was strange as there were a lot of people out running around the stadium as well! So I decided to take a different way back, based on my cursory glance at the map the night before. For those of you in Dallas, I basically wound up trying to figure out how to get across the equivalent of the High 5! Not quite as bad but adding being somewhat lost certainly increased the anxiety of running through rush hour traffic!

I eventually found my way back to familiar territory and finished up my run along the Palacio Real. I decided to stop and look at the Palacio in the courtyard between it and the Catedral de la Almudena. And that's when it hit me...I'm a peasant!

Here's the second biggest palace in western Europe, after the Louvre, with a direct link to the Church...how could you not believe in divine right of kings and that they were the chosen? It must have been as plain as the noses on all those faces as it was to me this morning! For all the education and travel and exposure, it was a very impressive sight/thought and, for the first time, I understood how that must have felt.

It's also been interesting how we've had some role-flipping in our family. Because I'm basically at my desk for big chunks of the day and night here to stay in sync with the US, Becca and the girls are the ones out exploring the city, meeting people, and getting engaged. She and I were talking how we both feel sort of isolated from the world in some ways...no newspapers, TV, etc. So we're pulling together as a family but there are tradeoffs, of course.

All part of the learning process about Spain, Madrid, our family and ourselves.

Cercedilla and the Sierra Guadarrama

What a great day! After a little stress getting out the door we made it uneventfully to the Atocha train station and were quickly on our way to the mountains we can see from Madrid and the little town of Cercedilla.

The ride is about 1.5 hours; the train was clean and ran right on time so that was a breeze. When we got to the station in Cercedilla, we knew right away this was different. The air was crisp and we really were in the mountains! (trivia point: after Switzerland, Spain is the most mountainous European country).

Just shy of 4000 feet, we started walking up and up toward the information center. We had no map or plan today; we were totally winging it.

We passed a little spot where we could fill our water bottles straight out of the mountainside and the girls couldn't wait to get their hands wet!

Very sleepy town on a Monday so lunch was hard to find, much to our surprise. We found a supermercardo, bought some bread, cheese, turkey and mustard and had a feast right on the plaza, looking at the mountains. Best, and cheapest, lunch since we arrived. See Taylor's smiling face afterward and Laura Macie's siesta plans for all you need to know!

Our only goal was to scout out the trails and decide if it would 1) work for my running and 2) a good place to come back and spend some time. A home run on both fronts, no question. I even found a marathon here 3 weeks from now. So we know we'll be back at least on the 17 June!

Getting to know you

Friday started off a little rough as Becca fried some of her personal care appliances and blew all the fuses in the apartment, not the best way to begin her day. She's replaced them but lesson learned: for some things, it probably makes sense to buy local so that compatability is not an issue.

That evening, while she was out with girls shopping to replace the electronics, I met them for dinner in Sol, which is a happening place at any time. We found a Madridleno-recommended Thai place and had a great dinner. On the way back home at about 11pm, we've suprisingly/ quickly adapted the Spanish schedule, we walked through the Plaza Mayor (pictured here). There's always something going on here as well and it was simply delightful to be out, together, experiencing Madrid.

Looking for a new place to live

We're only living for the first month here on Plaza de la Paja with the goal of finding the place to live for the rest of our stay in Madrid. Becca and the girls spent Wednesday looking at nine different places, some of which were apparently just nightmares, but they found two that we looked at again this morning.

One point to note is that Madrid gets 300+ days of sunshine a year. But today was not one of them! Parking and slogging to the Metro in the pouring rain was certainly not the charming picture of house-hunting that we had in our minds.

We have learned a few lessons about renting an apartment here. In addition to one month's deposit, most furninshed apartments require an additional month deposit. OK, we can work w/ that. But wait, in Spain the renter pays the real estate fee so there's another month's rent. That's it, right. Pero no! Because the laws are so lopsided in the tenant's favor here, the stories are shocking. It takes at least a year to evict someone who's not paid rent, for example, and they can stay in the apartment during that process and not pay anything! So most landlords require a 3-12 months bank guarantee, which is effectively an additional deposit. Incredible!

Still, it seems like we have two good choices and should be making a decision in the next few days and we'll have some pictures to post.

Trip to Barcelona

I left early Tuesday morning for a meeting with Maria Sipka in Barcelona to work on YPO Networks. Definitely found out that flying in Spain is a lot like flying anywhere else: grumpy people in long lines being herded like cows...we are the world :-) It was a good experience to be mostly clueless as to why everyone was so grouchy (turned out to be a cancelled 7am flight) as all I could really do was smile, remain calm, try to figure out the rapid-fire Spanish PA announcements and trust. It worked, no surprise really, and I was in Barcelona only 10min late.

Traffic was crazy and I was a little stressed but quickly realized Barcelona is not a place to stay stressed. After checking in at a very, very cool little hotel (suprisingly affordable) called Chic and Basic we walked through the Zoological Park and saw the beautiful fountain (above). Overall a gorgeous city full of cultures and culture (though so much I didn't even see!).

I had a great run along the sea, past the Hotel Artes, the Olympic Village...ocean on the right and mountains on the left, running toward the sun. Not a bad a start to the day!

One interesting note about the place where we actually met, CAN (Caja Navarro) that was started by and for entrepreneurs, no bankers allowed in the start up phase! They do an incredible job of supporting their entrepreneurial customers and was a different approach. Barcelona is working hard to the business capital of Spain and seem to be doing some things right.

Can't wait to go back and spend more time.

Running in Casa de Campo

I was worried about where I would run in Madrid but I needn't have been. From where we're staying now, it's about a 10 min warmup to El Parque del Retiro and then about about a 4k loop around the outside with many lovely interior paths. I see many runners and walkers at every time of the day.

On Saturday, I did my first real run in Casa de Campo. When Becca and I visited in October, I ran here, in the dark, and had a less than good time: I didnt know where I was going and the transvestite who popped out of the bushes was not good for the heart rate! But I was much better prepared this time and once I got past the dozen or so prostitutes at the entrance (very agressive in that they were not afraid to step in front of cars!) I was stunned at the size (more than 15k around with untold paths crisscrossing the park) and how isolated it felt. What a treat it was to be out there.

This coming weekend we're planning an excursion to the nearby mountains, a combination of running and exploring for all four of us, which I'm hoping will help me train for the Karwendal Challenge I'm planning to run at the beginning of August.

First week in Madrid...and having a great time

We arrived on Monday 14 May and we have already started falling in love with this city. We decided not to fight the time difference and have allowed Taylor and Laura Macie to go to bed late and sleep late as well. It's the Spanish way and, because they're not in school, has made the first week that much more fun and different for them.

We are living in La Latina and loving the little plaza outside our 2nd story apartment.