The Boys Visit Spain

Tuesday

Rise and shine 6:40 am…

Met the boys (brother Sean and cousins Jake and Gabe) at the airport and welcomed them to Spain. All three were beyond excited to be in Europe.

Side note: about two weeks ago Sean confirmed he was coming to visit. My family had their usual Easter gathering with everyone and their mother at my house; I was informed post gathering that two more of the cousins would be making the trip over to visit. Sean hadn’t been to Europe since his trip to see a friend in Sweden a couple years ago and Jake was making his first trip back since his semester abroad in Ireland. Gabe was making his first appearance... ever.

We dropped their bags at my apartment (boys are so much easier than girls). Gabe changed his shoes (should have listened to Auntie Kathleen!) at about 8:30 am we grabbed coffee and went over some basic Spanish 101 phrases. Sean seemed eager to get back on the Spanish speaking train… Mid-exit Sean just belts out to my coffee buddies, what I hear as, “SEEEEEEEE YA”— what?!? Sean, I thought you wanted to practice your Spanish?

“I do, I said buenos dias, but I jumbled all the sounds together so I could sound like them.” Nonetheless he seemed confident enough.

We took a stroll to Retiro Park and wandered a bit at a slow enough pace to allow Gabe to snap some photos. At this point it was pushing 10 o’clock and I had to get to school. Sean conveniently forgot my emergency/information/everything-you-need-to-know-about-where-I-live pamphlet I drafted up at 3:30 am that morning. So I gave them a map with some notes and sent them off with a hope and a wish that they’d make it back to my piso by 2:30 that afternoon.

Low and behold…

We grabbed Kebab’s for lunch and enjoyed the nice weather. I left for tutoring and they swore they’d try to stay awake until I was home in order to avoid jet lag, I mean how hard would it be to stay awake five more hours?

Let me tell you, I heard the snoring when I walked into the apartment complex! Sean you are your fathers son…

I decided it was in their best interest that I wake them (8:50 pm). Sean woke up and I’m certain he had absolutely no clue where he was for at least 49 seconds. For my own entertainment I decided to simply watch and let him work out the details. After the puzzled look somewhat faded from his face I told him it was 8:50 and that I was going to wake the other boys to suggested a toast to us being in Spain together. Sean crept out of my room slowly, clearly still confused.

“Wait, it’s 8:50… at night? I thought it was tomorrow—I had no idea why you were waking them. And especially confused on why you were offering us a beer.”

“Sean that’s how I start my day, every day.” 

Wednesday

Well they shouldn’t be tired anymore… at least Gabe and Sean, who still had sleep hair when I waltzed in at 2:30 in the afternoon. Jake returned shortly after from a stroll in the park. We headed east on the metro to Argüelles to go to my “flight attendant bar” Maurices. Grabbed a beer complimented with chips, olives and cheese. We then walked to el Templo Debod, today was the first time it has been open to public (side note: not that interesting) now, at least I can say I’ve been inside. The Palacio Real is about a five minute walk so we headed that way. Apparently May 18^th is “National Museum Day” so entance was free!  We did the express tour with Sean leading the way. 

Catedral Almudena sits directly in front of the Palacio Real and every time I have previously tried to enter, it has been under construction. NOT the case today J It was different than I had expected, it was definitely a bit more on the modern side as far as cathedrals go.

 

A lot of color, stained glass windows everywhere—it was beautiful. We all split up to look around, I later stumbled across Sean and Gabe sitting in a pew.

 

Me-      Have you seen Jake?

Gabe-  I have no idea.

Sean-  I don’t know… he probably got suckered into being an altar boy.

Boom. 

h    We found Jake

We kept our walking tour in motion towards the city center. I left them at San Miguel market and headed to one of my tutoring classes.

Wednesday night is normally 100 montaditos night, so we headed to the land of 1 euro EVERYTHING. We decided it was so nice out and didn’t want head back to the dungeon aka my apartment so we headed to my favorite bar Carmencita. Thanks to muah, Bloody Marias (It’s a Bloody Mary, but with tequila!) are on the menu—she offered to name it after me, however Bloody Kelley’s didn’t quite have the same ring to it!

Thursday:

CLUB NIGHT.

I got home from tutoring around 7:15, the boys had gone exploring on their own. We played cribbage while we responsibly sipped out beverages… and it was as if all the aunts and uncles intervened- my roommate went to pour a drink and grabbed the bottle by the cap (WHO DOES THAT?). It shattered. Everywhere. Whoops. We hung around the piso until about 11:00 pm and headed to Magister, a bar that brews their own beer (Spain, stick with wine).

Anyway we headed to a discoteca called JOY. In order to get there we had to walk through what looked like “Hooverville” in the center of the city. Elections were coming up on Sunday and plenty of Spaniards are infuriated with their government. Damn Crisis! However the crowd was calm and harmless. 

Side note: about two weeks later and these people are still set up in the city center. They have built their own small village. 

We had a HILAROUS time at the club. Gabe definitely put us all to shame with his dance moves.

We made our way back around 4:00 am, just enough time for me to get up and get to work by 9:50. We made an executive decision that the boys would not be coming to school with me BUT they would wake up and get coffee with me.

“Jake, Sean…. Gabe? Jake?” – And the snoring continued, I think it even increased in volume. I guess I’ll get coffee on my own, and school was swell- NOT.

Friday

I was exhausted. However, I knew a nap would be the end of me, so we headed east (back near the Templo de Debod) and grabbed some tapas at Maurices. We decided to wander around the park and go for a walk and we stumbled upon this magnificent garden:

We walked and walked until I knew where the closest bar was. We ended up grabbing food and drinks at the one and only Carmencita!

I went to bed at 11:30 but the boys had their own fun, I don’t know what it consisted of—but I do know they had kebabs as a post dinner “snack”.

Saturday: Segovia

Left the apartment at 9:20ish made it to the Renfe (train station) and boarded the train, easy peasy. We took the train for 42 minutes and arrived just outside of Segovia. The bus pulled into the city and dropped us off right next the aqueduct. 

We grabbed a coffee sitting in the shadow of the aqueduct while we had a lengthy discussion with Gabe, explaining to him that he would be locked up abroad if he attempted to rock climb the ancient structure. We spent the morning wandering around the city until we found signs pointing towards the cathedral. In approach to the cathedral we started oohing and ahhing at the beautiful sight, the puzzled look returned to Sean’s face:

“OHHH! The church, I thought you were looking at that gazebo.”

The Cathedral had a much more traditional/gothic look and feel to it in comparison to the Catedral Almudena in Madrid. I loved it. 

Took some time to myself to thank God for all of my blessings. I have had so many magnificent people visiting me while I’ve been here in Spain and it makes the experience so unbelievably wonderful.

We checked the cathedral off of our list and went in search of the Alcazar (castle). The infamous casle is said to have inspired the design for Beauty and the Beasts castle. This castle was at one point the main palace for the royal family until they were relocated in Madrid. The castle then transfomed into a prison, an artilary school and now a tourist attraction.

 We spent the rest of the day walking, eating and talking Gabe out of climbing things.

Quotes of the trip:

"Well at least were walking up now so when we come back it’s all downhill from here. –yep, and that’s what I say every time I climb a mountain." – Gabe

"Hey, buy me a drink… Come on I didn’t get the job." Jake

"Jake seriously it could be worse, last weekend I was let go from Park and Rec." – Jake & Gabe

Sean- why does Hermoine know everything about the room of requirements when Lord Voldemort thought it was the most secret room at Hogwarts?

Jake- Because Lord Voldemort thinks he knows everything.

Gabe- yeah, he’s like Brian.

In reference to the previous quote:

Can you repeat that while I write? I don’t know what any of those words mean. – Kelley

Farkle.

Needless to say we had a fantastic time!

New year...

January:

Back to Spain, back to Spain… I made it safely back to Spain on the 9^th of January, after a large dose of home, feeling quite rejuvenated it was time to get back to my “real world” life. After spending everyday of the past month surrounded by loved ones; adjusting to Spanish life was not my favorite thing— mind you, at this point I still had no internet in my apartment so I was feeling disconnected to say the least.

However here I am today, so I survived. We finally got internet two weeks later and my life has been significantly easier since. One thing that made my transition back to Madrid easier was the weather!! I came back to sunny skies and 60 degree weather; who can be grumpy when it feels like springtime in January?!

The last weekend in January: AMSTERDAM

For some reason Abby and I decided to book our flights at 6am- leaving our piso’s at 3am really had us wondering what our reasons might have been…? Still wondering. We booked separate flights because the costs were different so we parted ways at the airport and I headed to terminal 3 for my departure. After the most disorganized/inefficient plane boarding debacle I found my seat in the back of the plane and slept every bit of the 2 hour 5 minute flight. After switching train platforms 4 times and illegally hopping on the tram we made it to “The Flying Pig” hostel. We checked in and were greeted with smiles, Bob Marley music, and the overbearing aroma of marijuana.

After a much needed siesta Abby and I wandered around the city for a while and found ourselves outside a Mexican food restaurant and decided it just felt right (the Spanish don’t understand flavor).  After this we headed back to the hostel, showered and headed downstairs to the bar… where we were meeting one of Abby’s roommates. We indulged ourselves with a couple of rounds of Jupiler beers and headed out on the town, unfortunately a spur of the moment thought to change from my flat boots to heels was my downfall… nonetheless we had a good time, we made a few stops at different bars and ended up at a club to finish off the night. The best part of the night was by far being taxied with three other people via bicycle, he was like superman.

Below: the girls, superman, my awful heels.

 By the way Mom and Dad Sean and Kate, one of the bars we stopped at was called Durty Nelly’s J

Below: Abby, Me and Borja

The next day we headed out to explore Amsterdam, which I quickly fell in love with. The city has something special about it, perhaps the architecture, the canals, everyone riding bikes, a mixture of all of these elements, I really enjoyed it all.

We made our way to the Van Gogh Museum with several photo breaks and one coffee stop on the way. The Museum was superb. We enjoyed the rest of the day doing touristic things downtown Amsterdam, and of course stopping in the Red Light District… a very peculiar place, where not only do you see women selling themselves in windows but your standard Saturday family outings with children of all ages; so appropriate.

One observation made while visiting Amsterdam, the ratio of men to women is ridiculous… For every woman, there were at least 10 men.

 

Sunday was my favorite day! We got up and had some coffee and made our way to Mac’s Bike Shop and rented bicycles for the day J mine was bright red, and since I was feeling a little daring I chose one that had pedal breaks instead of the fancy hand-breaks. Not only did I save myself 7 Euros but I felt like I was 7 years old, which was fantastic. We rode bikes for a couple of hours made some stops for food, shopping and random picture taking.

 

Trip to Amsterdam=success.

Back to the grind… and even more so on the grind, this week and the previous I HAD TO WORK MONDAYS. The worst… Haha.

February:

 I added three more tutoring classes so I’m now teaching a total of 9 hours of private lessons a week…

I am getting outside as much as possible! This past weekend Becca and I went for what turned into a 5 hour excursion in Madrid. We headed towards Sol and Plaza Mayor where we visited our favorite market: San Miguel Market. We had some tapas and a couple drinks, after we headed to El Meson del Champiñon and had the most wonderful mushrooms!

Below: San Miguel Market

Later that night we headed to Abby’s piso for a Superbowl get-together. Kick-off was at 12:25am… we went to Dubliners pub and watched most of the game. Monday was followed by a lovely beer headache. Luckily I was back to my regular week; which does not include working Mondays J

Otherwise my life mostly consists of school, tutoring, gym, going to 100 Montaditos (the best sandwhich/tapas place, where everything is 1 Euro on Wednesday), and enjoying fresh air. I suppose I could say that I have gotten extremely comfortable living here in Spain and my life feels somewhat normal, aside from the occasion weekend trips to other countries!

I am counting down the days for my next visitors!

Mom and Katelyn: T-minus 11 days

Katie Carlson: T-minus 16 days

Josh: T-minus 31 days

Hasta pronto,

Besos

Kelley

P.S. The girl working at Starbucks asked my name so she could write it on my cup, after responding to her question in every possible Spanish accent I could form (there are only so many ways you can pronounce Kelley)… She proceeded with this question:

“Te parece bien si escribo Ana?”

Yes, I do mind if you just write Ana.