Man, I have A LOT to catch you up on…  I promise that I haven’t forgotten about you! This summer has been UNBELIEVABLE and its not over yet.  😊

So I don’t overwhelm you, Dan and I did a metro stop last week that I can’t wait to share.  We traveled to Chueca, an alternative area of Madrid and finally found a great pizza.  Pizza is a love of mine and Madrid, well, doesn’t have good pizza at all.  In fact, our real estate agent bragged that the best pizza in town was Dominoes.    Not exactly exotic.

My appreciation of Instagram continues for leading us to Roostiq, recently named best pizza in Madrid.  Wanting to get out of the house for an evening, I coaxed the hubster into pizza for dinner and a Flamenco show for dessert.  Neither disappointed. The pizza was cooked in a wood burning oven.  The ingredients were from a local farm.  Dan had pork cracklings for an appetizer and they were amazing.  And for dessert, apple pie that tasted like home.  This may be my favorite date night so far in Madrid.

The Flamenco show was in a brick-walled cellar.  The stage was just big enough for five chairs and two dancers.  It was authentic Spanish flamenco.  Beautiful and loud.  I didn’t know that much about Flamenco before this evening and I exited the show with a desire to know more.  Expect more Flamenco shows in the future 🙂

June and July updates to follow…

Today, on our 4 month Madrid anniversary, we have decided to profess our love for Madrid and celebrate with a planned Metro Challenge to the Anton Martin stop. How in the world has it been four months already? Apparently, we blinked.

As you have probably noticed, a lot of the metro stops here in Madrid are named after historical European figures. Anton Martin was the immediate successor of Saint John of God. He lived from 1500-1553.  In all of the metro stops we have visited (so far), there is a wall that pays homage to its namesake.

Spain has such a rich and unique culture, we can’t seem to soak it up fast enough. And what is more Spanish than tapas? So, I signed us up for a four hour long tapas cooking class. On the menu: Sangria, Catalan cream (think crème brule), garlic shrimp, chorizo in cider, Spanish tortilla, and potato bravas. The class size was small. There were a group of four Parisian girls here for the weekend and a couple from California and our teacher. We had hands on instruction and when we left, our bellies were full.

The tapas tradition started when King Alfonso XIII (who also has a metro station named after him), insisted that bars serve food along with alcohol because workers were coming back from “lunch” drunk. And boy, did it catch on… Now, whenever you go into a bar, you are served a small dish of food (for free) before you order your drink or meal or both. Although now, they are consumed mostly between the long lunch (2-4pm) and dinner (10pm and on).

We love tapas. Most nights, we only eat tapas for dinner because they are quick, easy and healthy-ish.  Our favorite are chorizo stuffed mushrooms and pan tomate. Somehow, the Spanish have taken something so simple and made it into a lifestyle. It’s certainly a lifestyle change that is permanent in our house.

 

Our life in Madrid has started to rev its engines a bit. Dan’s first class is starting in a few weeks and I started Spanish school. With all of the walking required to get from A to B and back, Dan and I are exhausted at the end of the day. The last thing we want to do is walk more, so our Metro Challenge has taken a back burner. That being said, we know one of the things about a challenge like this is that it’s going to be a burden at times and stretch us to fight our laziness.

Last night, we pried ourselves off the couch and away from Netflix and pulled a metro stop from the jar. Our hopes were that what we found around the San Bernardo metro stop would be infinitely more interesting than another episode of a Gilmore Girls.

Verdict is still out. (We do LOVE the Gilmore Girls!)

When you emerge from the San Bernardo station, a giant fountain is there to greet you. And also lots and lots of traffic. Madrid loves her fountains. You can find majestic ones in parks and the “must see” sections of Madrid, but you can actually find one on most streets. There is a pretty one in the intersection by a gas station caddy corner to our house. Beautiful, but not necessarily note-worthy.

We took the route around the station that had a florist spilling out on the street. I just can’t seem to help myself. Dan jokes with me that visiting garden centers does not appear to be making spring arrive any faster. He is right. I just have to be patient. Spring will arrive soon enough and I now have the skinny on all the good places to get plants and flowers.

We walked for quite a while on a cobblestone street with street vendors, shopping and TWO movie theaters. It’s amazing how easily we are reminded that we are in Spain when we see cobblestone streets and buildings covered in tile. Check out this one… the city sanitation department, for goodness sakes.

Finally, we found a truly PERFECT spot for dinner. La Canadienese. In full disclosure, we had heard of this restaurant before, but sneaking up on it was a wonderful surprise.

We feasted on poutine, falafels and pork ribs. All in all, the restaurant was good, just not overly Canadian. Dan could not forgive that no Canadian beer was offered and the last I checked, tuna poke bowls didn’t originate from the Great North. But, when we left, our tummies were full and spirits were high.

But not so full, that we could make room for a raspberry gelato 🙂

As far as Metro stops go, this was a fun night out, no doubt. But the area felt too familiar and predictable.

As I am sure you have seen on the news, Europe is having some temperamental weather.  A little storm they call Emma has decided to wreak havoc on the north.  And while Spain is south of all that destructive drivel, it is unfortunately not completely exempt.  Last week, we had five straight days of rain.  And Spanish rain is unpredictable.  Sometimes it’s a light mist, sometimes it’s a normal spring shower and without warning will turn into a downpour with exceptionally strong wind.  Our poor olive tree was uprooted, and the belongings of our upstairs neighbors littered our porch.   

Sunday, for the first time in a week, we got sunshine and Dan and I took advantage.  Our metro stop took us to Banco de Espana, a block south of the famous Prado museum.  Dan and I have toured the first floor of the Prado and still have another floor to go, but today wasn’t the day.  Who wants to spend a day of sunshine in a museum?  However, some of the best art can be purchased from local artists in booths outside the Prado.  This was the purpose of our trip. We have some bare walls in our apartment and I love Spanish art. It was a productive trip too.  I am happy to announce that Dan and I are now the proud owners of an oil painted rooster.  😊

Not far from the Prado, we walked through the popular Retiro park.  Its hard to believe that we have been in Madrid for almost two months and never made it to Retiro.  I guess we can blame it on arriving in the winter.   Retiro is Madrid’s version of Central Park.  It is full of joggers, dogs, vendors, tourists, statues, topiaries and in the middle, a sweet pond where you can rent a boat by the hour.  It was the perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon in Madrid.

 

Now…back to another forecasted week of rain 😊

Dan and I decided to tackle the mother of all tourist traps on Valentine’s Day… Gran Via.  From the moment you walk out of the metro, it feels more like the United States than Madrid.  All of the surrounding buildings are the ones that you see on postcards, the people were speaking English and dressed just like Dan and me, and the store fronts were familiar. 

 

I say that it feels like the United States, but the reality is that it doesn’t feel anything like Indiana.  It is the Spanish version of Broadway in New York City.  There are brightly lit marquees advertising plays and productions, movies, variety shows and concerts.  The Lion King or El Rey Leon is currently playing. Clothing stores and fast food restaurants line the street, including the first McDonalds in Spain.  (As a general rule, the Spanish don’t eat fast food and the availability is nothing like it is in America).  More than that though, there was a hustle and hurriedness that we aren’t used to anymore.  The Spanish simply don’t move that fast.   Americans that are trying to check everything off a to-do list before they catch their flight the next morning, however, move quickly. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Spanish, while not warm and fuzzy people, celebrate Valentine’s Day with enthusiasm.  The little street outside our apartment that leads to the metro was covered with hearts on every tree.  The restaurant where we had tapas had the ceiling covered in heart shaped balloons.  The metro was even full of couples loving each other more noticeably than usual 🙂 

Dan and I had a delicious perch ceviche for tapas.  It was so tasty and so fresh.  The music was loud and Latin and we found that our spirits were high just from the ambience.  Check out the sights from the rooftop terrace!  That’s our city 😊 

We then moved venues (like true Madrilinos) and had the BEST cheese fondue ever (Sorry, family, its true).  There was even a rose on my place setting when we arrived at the restaurant.  Love was certainly in the air on Valentine’s Day.  My favorite day here so far.

I have a love-hate relationship with social media. Most of the time, I appreciate it for what it is… a way to keep in contact with friends and a source for recipes, events and news articles that I would otherwise miss. Last Sunday, while scrolling through Instagram, I found the address of a bakery here in Madrid. The treats looked exotic, but there was one in particular that I thought my husband would love for Valentine’s Day. Those delicacies led us to Alonso Martinez…

 

Yes… you are seeing that correct. Macaroons flavored with Bombay gin. They are just as unique and delicious as they sound.

 

We also got a raspberry mousse and a carrot cake. I wasn’t a fan of the carrot cake, but could have devoured fifty of the raspberry mousse without a break. They were that good.

 

The evening took us on a long walk through the Alonso Martinez area, which was a cool, hipster area with a mix of funk and grunge. Incredible street art, beautiful gardens, a pop-up bookstore and a road that led us to a movie theatre that had American films. We spent two and a half hours in a bubble with popcorn and Tom Hanks. Alonso Martinez did not disappoint. And we would say that it is our favorite stop to date, but that may not be the case anymore 😊

Life in Madrid is not boring.  Since my last post, we have had a 48 hour snowfall, our shipping container was FINALLY delivered, and we have completed several metro stops.  Our Spanish doesn’t seem to be improving much, but we are feeling more comfortable with our surroundings and navigating the city.  The Metro Challenge seems to be accomplishing its intended goal… we are getting off our bums and exploring our new city. 😊

Make no mistake… this is a gut-checking adventure at times.  There are days when the four walls of our apartment seem to hold the only friendliness in the city.  So, last weekend we decided to seek out the other English speakers.  (Side note:  One of the quirks of Spain is that they don’t really eat breakfast.  A coffee and cigarette will get them through until mid-afternoon when they will have their three-hour lunch).  I, however, love breakfast.  It is, by far, my favorite meal of the day.  My marvelous, intuitive husband realized that I needed comfort and found us a Bagel Brunch in a second-hand bookstore that was run by Americans.  It was a lively, popular place that was full of people who also seemed to crave speaking English as much as we did.  The bagels were good, and the mimosas were delicious.  It’s funny how just an hour of familiarity fills the tank.

As we walked around Madrid, we watched Madrilinos enjoying their Saturday.  We watched a father and son play “futbol” in a square.  We took lots of pictures of Madrid’s street art.  Our observation is that Spaniards have figured out how to keep time slow.  They seem to savor life in a much different way than we Americans do.  What we didn’t notice until later was that, in just a month, we have also adopted this pace of life.  Our day was spent walking, talking, taking pictures and just being with each other.  When we returned home, we felt that Noviciado might be our favorite stop.  That was…until Tuesday 😊