Month Two already...

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for one full month already! Even with each nook and cranny of this city that we’ve already explored, I am sure there are a million more things to see and do in Madrid alone. However, with a few upcoming weekend trips planned, we actually only have 2 more weekends where we’ll be home in Madrid before we move out of our little apartment and on to our next big departure elsewhere. Crazy!

We had an enjoyable laid-back weekend here. We settled and reserved all of our travel arrangements for next weekend in Seville and Granada. We are taking a 2-hr. bullet train straight down to Seville for 2 days, followed by another train ride to the city of Granada for the remainder of our trip. Here we will see the glorious and grandiose Alhambra, an amazing Moorish palace. Unfortunately, there is not a bullet train from Granada to Madrid, so without the 250 mph speed, it will take us 5 hours to return! Oh well- tis the joys of traveling. We look forward to blogging about our adventures next weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, we took a small afternoon trip using the light-rail trains to travel to the town of Alcara de Henarres. This is a historical, medieval town, with its claim to fame being the birthplace of the writer Cervantes (Don Quixote). It was also home to the first large university in Spain (which is now in Madrid), and many of the old buildings are still there and in use. The weather has definitely turned to autumn here, so as the rain clouds were beckoning, we experienced a cozy fall day (as my mom would say). Sunday morning brought us a little rain, followed by an evening with little sleep. As an update on the noise level here in the middle of the night, things have remained the same but we usually don’t notice it as much anymore because our window isn’t open as wide as it was (because of the colder weather). But, Saturday night was the exception. Who would have thought that doing construction at 3:00am was okay?!! Yes- we awoke at 3am to the sound of a cement drill. We looked out the window and sure enough… there were construction workers across the street in front of the Argentinean restaurant drilling away at the sidewalk. Now, being that this restaurant is closed every morning until 2pm, and closed again between 5pm to10pm, wouldn’t this be a more logical time for construction?

Sunday afternoon we experienced another curiosity of Spain at the bookstore. We’ve read that in the bookstores here, it is not appropriate to pick up a book and page through it as we do in the United States. The Barnes and Noble/Borders Books culture that the United States is accustomed to (picking up a pile of books or magazines, ordering a cup of coffee and slowly leafing through the pages) is not common here. In fact, in most stores it is not PC to pick up items, touch them, etc. This is the job of the salesperson. Even in the pharmacy I haven’t been able to pick up a product without the salesperson coming to me, taking the item and asking if I needed assistance. In fact, at the nicer grocery stores, you can’t even touch the fruit and veggies. You can only point to the fruit and they choose which pieces of it you will be purchasing. In some ways it’s nice to have this polite help, but in other ways, you really loose your sense of independence and choice. It also makes us have to use more Spanish- instead of examining a product to see if it’s what you want to buy, you have to communicate this in Spanish.

But, back to the bookstore. We were in this 8-story store here that they call cutting edge because it’s only 10 years old, very techie and modern, and it has everything you need. In the US it would be like a Borders and Best Buy combined. It is a nice store for us because they have a small English-language section, and they even have a few travel books written in English. Interestingly enough, they are the first big chain bookstore here to allow the “look and browse” policy with books. But, there is a catch- you can only do it in the reserved room for reading and browsing. The funny thing is, the room is packed, and it’s tiny! It is the shape of a very small square, and it’s like a tiny amphitheater with carpeted steps to sit on (no chairs- similar to what you’d see in the corner of some children’s school libraries). People sit straight up with no place to rest their backs and they pack in right next to each other like sardines. There is also no talking, it’s perfectly quiet. Because Travis and I didn’t want to purchase the country guidebooks we were looking at, we had to go to the reading room to do a look-through. Of course, there were no empty seats (the reading room is a popular new trendy pastime), so we had to sit on the ground amidst the stuffiness of many bodies. Don’t be picturing a cozy Borders Books coffee shop setting here- this was all about a stuffy, closed-in, 4-wall carpeted room full of serious, intense readers.

Well- it served its purpose! We did the research we needed to do and didn’t have to make a purchase. Very interesting. It’s these little things about living abroad that make us chuckle and reflect on home. You don’t realize how normal something appears in your home country until you are without it, or see it done in a different way. It really opens the mind to more creativity and possibility. It’s not just about the American way of doing something- it’s a big world out there. -Trish