How does time fly by so quickly???
It seems like I blink and 6 weeks has flown by.
Dayo came to visit the first week of December. We spent a few days in Madrid, showing him a few of the sights, and we took Respiro to tour the school where the boys spend their day. We had a nice chat with both the principal of the upper school and lower school. We are very happy with the school situation, and the boys are happy as well. It is small and intimate, the kids are nice, and it isn't terribly expensive. The problem with New York City is that the school system is just so massive. My favorite statistic about NYC is that there are more kids in the public school system than there are people in Washington DC. The system is unwieldy. I was thinking about sending Markus to Poly Prep private school in Brooklyn because it has such an amazing sports program, but here in Madrid I can put both boys in a great private school for half the price of sending just Markus to Poly Prep. Everything in NYC is nuts, but I love it still.
The boys were off for some random holiday 6-8DEC so we were invited to spend a long weekend in Peñarubbia with Ana and Murat. We rented a hot car and zoomed down there, unfortunately the speed cameras got me so I had to shell out €50, but it was fun to be on the open road in a sporty BMW. I have little fantasies about buying a car here, which logically is ridiculous, but they have nice cars here that we don't have in the US. Maybe one day..., although I'm sure I'll regret it immediately.
Peñarubbia was glorious as it was last year when we were here. When we arrived Ana and Murat were decorating the tree in front of their house. Ana's mom and stepdad were visiting from South Carolina and it was really fun hanging out with them. We had great meals, and lots of laughs and nice walks. Because of the holiday, Ana's house was full, so the boys and I were invited to stay at Lola and Carlos's house which was fantastic, we had the attic to ourselves and although it was freezing at night all the heat went right up to our aerie; we were snug like bugs in a rug. Dayo stayed at the local inn, Delfin's, and that worked out great too!
I wanted to cook one night so Ana sent me on a quest to get some lamb chops which we would barbecue. I drove through all sorts of twisty roads until I found the butcher and the barbecue turned out great.
I would never have the opportunity to go to such a small place and I am so thankful that Ana is such a good friend. I mean look at how gorgeous this place is!
We drove back to Madrid on Sunday morning, dropping Dayo and the car off at the airport on the way home. The next weeks flew by with the normal chaos. I'm studying Spanish 3 hours a day, and I'm trying to swim 3 times a week, and I have to work of course, and I'm shuttling the boys to and from activities on Mondays and Wednesdays. I could alleviate some of the insanity by dropping Spanish, but I am really enjoying the class, the time out of the house and learning aobut the language. I have had great teachers since September, but unfortunately one teacher wasn't so great and by Tuesday I was bored. I decided I didn't need this so I just didn't go back the rest of the week. It is one thing to squeeze 30 hours of activity into each 24-hour day, but why sit in class and be bored? I sent a note to the school saying I wouldn't come back with if that instructor were to return to my group, and Monday I was back with Isabel, who is just outstanding.
Our visas were expiring on 16DEC so on the 13th I went to the local administrative office with a slew of paperwork to have the visas renewed. In retrospect I should have done this earlier, but to find the time to do these things is a challenge. I had read online that I would need all sorts of stuff for the renewal, including 2 copies of every page of all the passports, even the blank pages. I got to the office early and sat down with someone who immediately told me I had done everything completely wrong, that I needed residency cards for all of us and we would have to be fingerprinted. I would need to go to an obscure website and make an appointment right away to be fingerprinted. I left there dejected to say the least, but I was worried about timing. We were leaving for California on the 23rd and I was worried if our visas expired we wouldn't be able to get back into Spain - we had already been here more than 90 days. Of course, the first appointment available for being fingerprinted was 6 weeks away, so there is a risk, albeit small, that when we come back to Spain we won't be let in.
At the crack of dawn on the 23rd we headed to the airport for our flight to San Francisco. We had a connection in Paris and when we passed through passport control the immigration guy saw that we had been in Europe more than 90 days and asked us for our residency cards. I said we had an appointment to be fingerprinted in January, and I showed him the paperwork, which, of course, was in Spanish. He looked at the paperwork, and the thousands of people behind us in line 2 days before Christmas, and waved us through. OK, one hurdle overcome. Now we just have to get back in.
We spent a week with my dad. It was great to be there, and my sister and her boys came down from Truckee, but a lot of us ended up with the flu, with my dad spending a day in the emergency room, which, for lack of a better word, sucked. I spent most of my time in bed. Anya and Dave came over for a visit which was great, but we all looked like hell. Only family and very close friends can get together under such circumstances.
New Year's Eve we flew to JFK. We actually got to SFO early and I don't know what is going on with these boys; they are eating like horses. We had steak and eggs for breakfast at home, but at 10.30am at the airport they were hungry so they each had eggs benedict, but even that didn't fill them up, so they split another eggs benedict. Good god.
Our amazing friends from Brooklyn, Shoki and Sam, invited us to ring in the New Year with them in Oyster Bay so we headed straight there from JFK. They were so sweet they even picked us up at the Syosset station, despite the insane cold. They were having a fete and we had just a lovely evening with them and their friends. Such a great way to be welcomed back home to New York.
We took the LIRR to Brooklyn on the 1st and stayed at Shoki and Sam's house, next door to our place in Brooklyn, for a week. Again, amazing to be in a place that feels like home.
Remember in an earlier post I said I have one boy who hogs the limelight, and another who runs from it? Case in point, our trip from Syosset to Brooklyn::
Most of our time in NYC was spent running around to doctors appointments. We had some great meals - Ganso, Not Rays, Walters. We had an AMAZING brunch at my friend Hannah's - my god it was a feast. I also had a great evening with Wanda and Lisa chez elles, a fun breakfast with Nina and her boys, and a great dinner with my friend Yael at her amazing new apartment. That is the thing I miss, just being able to hang out with friends and have a casual glass of wine. But of course I have been in Spain less than 4 months so this isn't surprising.
Our trip back JFK-MAD was crazy. Flight was supposed to leave at 07.37pm but the weather was downright glacial, 5F/-15C, and it hadn't been above freezing in two weeks. I received a text from Delta that the flight would be delayed until 09.30pm, so we arrived later at the airport, and charmed our way into the lounge. We went downstairs to board, but flight kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. We finally boarded at 11.30pm, but they announced that we had a problem: the lines that normally feed water to the aircraft had frozen. So we sat in the aircraft on the tarmac until 02.30am when we finally took off. There was no water in the lavatory sinks, and no coffee or tea were offered due to lack of water, but we were happy to finally take off. I spent much of the flight watching Patti Cake$ over and over. I can't get this song out of my head now, but just loved the movie:
When we arrived at Madrid I was concerned about our expired visas, so I had all sorts of paperwork ready to show the guy at immigration. He took one look at Markus and the Atletico de Madrid jacket Santa had given him for Christmas (pictured above - he practically sleeps with it), and they had some male bonding over the team, showing each other their phones with their Atleti screen savers blah blah blah blah blah. The guy didn't even scan our passports, he just stamped the pages and sent us on our way. ¡Fenomenal! I was thrilled we weren't connecting through Paris to get back to Madrid. ¡Viva southern Europe!
We had checked in 5 bags but only 4 came with us on the flight. There was a line of people to fill out forms at the baggage desk, but we were deliriously tired and we didn't really have any urgent need for the missing bag, so I just bailed on the line; the boys and I jumped in a taxi and headed home to Chueca. It was a great vacation but time for reality.