April 12th Update

Hi! I'm posting both the April 12th and April 10th updates today (so scroll down). I've had some bad internet connection luck over the past few days...

We have our first and second European trips booked! We got a book for Christmas called "1000 Places to See before You Die" - we're hoping to cross a few more things off the list over the next several months. We are only allowing ourselves to cross something off if we've both done it - either together or separately. We have a very long way to go!

We're going to Rome the last weekend in April. May 1st is a holiday here, so we're taking advantage of the long weekend. Juan has a cousin who lives in Rome with her husband and baby, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up with them.

We're also going to Madrid for Juan's birthday weekend (May 7th). We're going to just go out and tour around. A friend from college, Rachel, is also going to be in Madrid that weekend. Hopefully we'll meet up with her!

There are several more places that we plan on visiting. Let me know if any of you are going to be over in Europe over the summer and maybe we can meet up. Any soccer fans want to go to Germany for the World Cup?? ;)

Juan has off work tomorrow and Friday. His parents and grandfather are coming to visit for a few days, so I'm sure we'll have some fun adventures! I also think that the PwC offices here are going to have a workspace for me after Easter. It will be nice to be around some other people during the day!

(Side note: I found an antenna for the TV in the house. I still only have like 3 channels. One of them is showing that early 90's show, Sweet Valley High - dubbed of course. I thought that was funny.)

Oh! One more funny thing about the apartment. Last night, we were getting ready to go to sleep and heard a faint noise. It got louder and louder… It was the guy in the apartment above us SNORING! Ha! Talk about thin walls/floors (or maybe he is just a really really loud snorer).


April 10th Update

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything for a few days. We just got moved in to our new apartment and do not have phone or internet connections yet. Luckily, someone nearby has a unprotected wireless network that we can jump on for a few minutes a night, when we're lucky! So, it's now 7pm and I'm staring at my wireless connection icon waiting for it to say that it has a signal - as I type my blog in Microsoft Word.

The move from the hotel to the apartment was pretty uneventful. It was, by far, the easiest move I've made over the past few years. The apartment is good, but there are several things that I am still adjusting to.

1) We have to dry our clothes on a clothes line that dangles outside my third floor kitchen window. Eek! Both the washer and the clothes line are big enough for about two days worth of clothes - and it takes most of a day for each load to dry! So, doing the math - that means you have to wash laundry at least every other day… I am also totally afraid that I'm going to drop the clothes into the courtyard as I'm leaning out the window trying to clip them onto the line. I have been trying to learn the correct technique by watching my neighbors (I'm sure they think I'm crazy… oh well).

2) Our bed is from about 1810 and was built to accommodate a people that are about 4'11" and 80 lbs. Although, by the size of the crater in the middle of the bed, I think an elephant has been sleeping in the bed for the last 200 years. Juan and I thought we had it rough when we were in Dallas and had to sleep in the full size bed - little did we know that the full sized bed was only the transition from our queen-sized pillow top to our tiny 19th century bed. Also, here most of the double beds (and I use "double" very loosely in my case) have only one long pillow that you both share! I like moving around and moving my pillow during the night. I can't exactly do that anymore.

3) Grocery shopping... There is a grocery store right across the street from our apartment. I'm just having a little trouble figuring out what to buy. I never had problems in the U.S. with just buying chicken, fish, ground beef, and vegetables. It's not so easy here. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon, but if anyone has any good Spanish food recipes please send them my way!

Other than those few things everything is great! Juan entrusted me to go to the bank to deposit money into our account today. He wrote me a script and made me practice with him last night. I also practiced the script on my walk to the bank. Again, people probably thought I was crazy as I walked down the street talking to myself about depositing money in my account…

I also walked to the big mega-department store, Corte Ingles, and bought a new hair dryer. I tried to use my American one with a power adapter, but it blew out the fuse in the adapter. I've had some really bad hair for the past 2 days.

Saturday we shopped all day for various things. We needed a bunch of odds and ends from the apartment. Juan also got a few suits and shirts from Zara (no, we don't get a discount :) ). The normal employees don't really even get much of a discount. Booooooo.

Juan and I went to the aquarium over the weekend. It was pretty fun. I'm usually not too terribly impressed by aquariums after going scuba diving - they make me a little sad for the fish, but this one was cool. It's right on the coast and there is one section where you walk downstairs and through some tunnels, it's like you're walking out under the ocean. At the end of the tunnels there is a dark room with windows all the way around and fish everywhere. It is still part of the aquarium (the fish are in a huge circular tank), but it totally feels like you're just out in the ocean.

We didn't do too much else yesterday. It was very cold and windy outside, so we kinda camped out inside. Juan and I have become totally addicted to the TV show "Lost" (on DVD, 1st season). Thank you to my Boston co-workers for their very nice "moving to a foreign country with no English on TV" present :)