Madrid, Spain

Today is Sunday, Dec 5th and we have been in Madrid now three days.  We had lots of ‘adventures’ getting here, but we are happy to be settled now.  We are trying very hard with the language and Lee’s is very good and mine is better than I thought (I feel like I’m cheating, since I’m writing and thinking in English for this post, but not many people would understand it if it was Spanish ).

We left our apartment on Tuesday, Nov 30th, stayed a night at a good friend’s house (Thank You Rachel and Jeremy!) who were to take us to the airport the next morning.  Wednesday morning we got a call that our flight from Boston the New York had been cancelled and we couldn’t make our connection to Spain.  So, frantically Lee called and they decided to have us miss the bad NY weather altogether and sent us instead to Miami, and from there to Madrid.  It would add a couple more hours, but at least we were going.  It turned out that the flight from NY to Madrid was delayed because of weather, again and again and actually arrived in Spain after we did.  So it was definitely for the best that we changed flights.

In Miami we had only 40 minutes between touch-down and take-off, so we ran to the gate and got on board with the last boarding group (whew!).  We made it just in time, but our luggage did not.  Some how that isn’t surprising, because, according to Murphy’s Law, that if we are moving across the ocean for three months, we could not go without loosing our luggage at least once.  But it caught up to us just a day and a half later – luckily I had some essentials like diapers and pjs, but alas, poor Lee didn’t have pajamas or clothes to wear to clinic.  So, he went to clinic the next day in jeans for orientation.  Our first impressions of Madrid were of only the airport, which was very futuristic looking, with lots of glass, funny lights and I have no idea what those big white structures are for.

We moved into a cute furnished 1 bedroom apartment for this first week.  Next week we will be moving somewhere larger that is closer to the clinic and downtown Madrid.  But for now, we have 3 rooms: living room/ kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.  The girls keep the bedroom and we sleep on the futon.  The kitchen has a sink, microwave, glass stove burner, teeny fridge and tiny (clothes) washer.  All in all, very compact.  But, it does have plates, bowls, cups,silverware, 2 pots and 2 pans.  On first glance, that seem complete, but then you start wondering about little things like ovens, can openers, and dish cloths.

The bathroom is great.  It has a bidet – I had to read about it on Wikipedia – which Kaela thinks is a little sink.  At first, we were thought this very strange, and wanted her to use the normal sink, but we have since decided that it is great and let her use it as such, since it’s just her height, and it’s just soap and water either way.  Eliora loves to go in and turn on the water and splash. We try and keep that door closed.

So, the first day was alright.  I mean, we only had 3 or 4 hours of sleep that night and now we are 6 time zones further ahead, so there is a bunch of adjustment.   We got in, took a taxi ride to the apartment, in which Kaela got sick and threw up.  So that was quite an expensive taxi ride.  We got here, we were all very tired, so Lee went shopping and got some essentials while us girls slept. 

That night, it was perfect, almost.  Because of the overnight plane ride, and the long nap in the middle of the day, both girls were tired just at their normal bedtime.  Oh, how easy to transfer time zones!  We put Kaela down at 8 and Eliora at 9:30.  And Kaela was up at 11 and Eliora at 12:30.  Both perfectly refreshed from long naps and wanting to be up and about.  We tried to let Eliora fall back asleep, but our neighbor downstairs came up and said that he needed to get up for work at 5 am and could we PLEASE make them be quiet.  So, we had a party on the living room floor until 4 am.   And we slept in till 10:30.  Lee was supposed to be at work at 10:00, but the doctor was very understanding.

We have been able to explore a little.  We live near Cuatro Caminos (Four Roads) which seems to be a big shopping area.  But everywhere we have walked there are tiny stores, everywhere.   I was able to go to Lee’s clinic and meet Dr. Hidalgo, we have found a couple parks and have looked for cell phones to work here in Spain.

Today we went to church and it was nice to find somewhere where we fit in without much problem.  There are even 3 or 4 American families here for one reason or another, so they have Sunday School and Relief Society in both Spanish and English (but we attended the Spanish).  Kaela had to be carried out of nursery for the very first time to find Mom and Dad, but after Lee was there for 15 minutes, she was ok and we stayed in our meetings too.

I hope we have enough pictures, and I hope to post something new every few days!