The start of our 2nd year in Madrid...

After a long summer in the US, we were back in Madrid to start our second year living in Spain. Almost as soon as we arrived we got together with Ana and Murat and Mateo and Nur, it had been a long summer without them! They moved to a new house in Pozuelo, not far from the boys’ school, becasue Mateo would be joining them there. The new house was awesome, close enough to public transport that the boys could get there on their own, but with plenty of space and a community swimming pool. Even though they moved out of the center of Madrid, it is easier for us to get there because the “Cercanias” line runs right near our house. It was great to catch up with them, and I bought Ana a sexy new pot for a housewarming present!

On the 2nd of September, before school got started, I ran down to Addis Ababa to see Ethiopian Airlines for work, and Ana joined me to pitch some marketing work. I really enjoy these trips to Addis, I have been with them for more than 15 years and they are doing very well. Too well! Ana and I were bumped from our flight on the way back to Madrid and we had to travel via Rome.

Ana did a lot of exploring in Addis since she really has the travel bug, while I did a lot of work at the office. We stayed at the Ramada, where I had never stayed before, and they had an outdoor bar area which was really relaxing and fun. We also had a great dinner with Rahel, one of my favorite people in Addis. A great trip.

Soon after coming back from Addis, my first house guest of the season came for a visit, Gretchen! I met Gretchen years ago when Wanda and I were doing boot-camp with Dewayne at Fort Greene Park. We really had a great time working out together, and Dewayne’s dry sense of humor was too much. I still don’t know how he made any money. I think he spent everything we paid him and more on parking tickets! It was great to have a friend visit, I was able to do adult things. Although I was a bit busy with work and the boys, we managed to go out and have some really great meals. Gretchen had done a little research and we wandered down to Calle Cava Baja, which I had never been to before, and we had some great tapas somewhere random and then a great lunch at La Perejilla (Cava Baja 25). The green color pulled me in right away and the place was kooky and fun. I will definitely be going back. We also had a great meal at La Castela in Ibiza, which I have been to before. The place is LOUD and the lighting is oppressive, but the seafood is just great.

School started on the 10th and while this is the first year of high school for Markus, it is the last year for Andreas, and next year this time he will be off to college, which is crazy. Both boys need to work harder in school so I am going to have to keep my thumb on them. Markus is going to be playing a lot of soccer and Andreas a lot of tennis, so that will keep them busy. We have found a great tennis coach for Andreas, and he will be playing at tennis courts in the north of Madrid which is just a stone’s throw from the Cercanias line near our house so it will be easy (in theory) to get there. I really couldn’t get a very good picture the first morning of school becasue the sun rises so late here in Madrid that even in September it is dark at 07.00am. Sunrise on the first day of school was 07.50am! But sunset was 08.32pm, which I’m sure contributes to everything happening later in Madrid. I’m sure I’ve brought this up before but the story goes that Franco changed the Spanish time zone to be in line with Nazi Germany. So because of Franco when the boys leave for school in the morning it is pitch black outside.

Soon after Gretchen left, I flew down to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea with my newest client, CEIBA. Equatorial Guinea is the only country in Africa where they speak Spanish, and the airline has nonstop flights to Madrid, so this will be a good fit. It was a great experience, reminding me of the time I worked in the South Pacific. Malabo is a small, lush, tranquil place. I met some very nice people and I look forward to my new work with them.

The Saturday I got back, Markus’s soccer team, Chamartin Vergara had its first league game, but Markus couldn’t play because he hadn’t been federated yet, so we came to watch and support. But, great news, a few days later Markus was federated! So on the 29th Markus played his first league game. It was so exciting seeing him out on the pitch! Soccer is serious business here in Spain as you can imagine. Markus is playing on the cadete level for kids born in 2003 and 2004. For this age group, there are five divisions. The top division has 2 groups, and each group has 16 teams, and each team probably has 18 players. Markus’s team is in tnd 2nd division, and there are 4 groups, each with 16 teams and each with probably 18 players. The third division has 8 groups, the fourth 16, and the fifth 23. So if I do my math right, there are 53 groups, each with 16 teams (each with 18 players), or more than 15,000 kids born in 2003/2004 playing soccer at the league level in Madrid. Yowza that’s a lot of kids. Once you get out of the center of Madrid there are soccer fields absolutely everywhere becasue each one of those 15,000 kids is playing soccer every Saturday.

In the middle of October my wonderful friend Wanda came for a visit. It was amazing to see her, she has been my oldest friend in Brooklyn, and it was really tough to leave NY because of this even though she lives mostly in Puerto Rico now. We had a great time together. We ate great food, drank great wine (Wanda couldn’t get over the fact that even at the nicest restaurants a glass of wine was €2.50), and did some exploring. I took Wanda to La Castela where we met Claire and had a wondrous meal (this is really my go-to place when people come from out of town). Wanda had a list of restaurants she wanted to check out, and when Ana called to meet for lunch the place Ana recommended was on the list, Fismuler. We had a great meal there. Wanda wanted to go on a littel road trip so we caught the train to Toledo which is a very easy trip. I had been there last year when Karen and Harry visited, but we brought the kids with us and there was a lot of moaning and groaning. Now it was just me and Wanda and we had a great time. We had a stupendous meal at Meson de Orza, and the weather was so great we could sit outside, chatting a bit with other people also impressed with their meals. We also enjoyed a terrific evening at Celso y Manolo, where the tomatos norteños were just stupendous.

Friday I hosted a dinner at home and invited a bunch of people over. I made Thai food and we had a really good time. At the beginning of September in Spanish class I met Quionda, from Chicago, and we had a perfect class for a week. It was just Quionda and me and Antonio, my favorite instructor at the school. We spent every day just talking for three hours and hardly spent any time with grammar lessons. The most telling part of that week was the discussion of courtesy. “What should you do if an old lady cuts in front of you at the supermarket?” My answer: “Excuse me, did you see the line?” The correct answer here in Madrid is do nothing and grumble about it. This definitely isn’t New York.

I was really getting bogged down with work, and after that week the class was cancelled because there were just two of us. I tried another class but it wasn’t a great fit. I’ll try to start classes again when work cools down a bit, but it was great meeting Quionda and she came to the party.

The Sunday Wanda was in town we went over the El Rastro to visit the massive flea market. The market has some great furniture places where I have found some nice things, and a chaotic side which reminds me of the socks-and-funnel-cakes street fairs in New York. I had heard about a restaurant so we met Ana for lunch at El Brote and had another great meal here. We just had great meals wherever we turned. It was so great having Wanda visit, and I can’t wait for her to return.

I’m still swimming regularly, and still annoyed with the swimmers in Madrid. I mean my Spanish is lousy but even I know what rapido means. On Halloween I was at the pool and got so annoyed. Two fast lanes with one old lady swimming breaststroke in each lane slowing everyone down. I tried talking to the lifeguard but she was determined to see me suffer. I was so annoyed I jumped out the pool and marched down the director’s office. I prompty slipped on the floor, nearly hitting the ground, pulling some muscle in the process, and managed to get entangled in spider web decorations for Halloween. Here I am wrihing in agony, dripping wet in just a bathing suit, covered in spider webs. Not my finest moment. Dayo told me I need to keep walking and moving around even in pain, but the very next day I was headed to California to visit my dad. I was in agony and by the time I arrived in Piedmont my leg was black and blue. Gruesome!

I had a great week with my dad, just the two of us and the dog. I cooked a lot, we watched a lot of Jeopardy (I spent much of each episode trying to figure out how to change the channel before the dreaded Wheel of Fortune came on), and played dominos.

Jhubie took a few days off but came back in time to do her best to fatten us up with meals like this.

The day before Thanksgiving, more friends from New York visited, this time Yael and Mookie. I’m getting really good at hosting friends, and it is great to have enthusiastic friends visit. Even our very first meal, a place just around the corner El 26, we had a great lunch and they were oohing and aahing about it. It is the best to have enthusiastic visitors, they were just so positive and adventurous!

The next day was Thanksgiving and we had I think 22 for dinner. Lots of wonderful people were there, including Teda who I just met this year and her daughters Bella and Angelica who are at the same school at Andreas and Markus. There was an insane amount of food, and even though I completely forgot to make the mashed potatoes we were all stuffed by the end of the evening. Teda, Nur and Lola even gave us a little Sevillana dance performance!

Yael and Mookie and I hit the regular places: La Castela, Celso y Manolo, and El Brote. We spent a Sunday afternoon in the Rastro which was fun. I just love these people and it makes being outside of NYC much better when my friends visit.

November ended with a couple of birthdays. Andreas turned 18 on the 28th and me 50-something on the 30th. We celebrated Andreas birthday by ordering burritos and the three of us just sitting at the dining table, talking. It was a nice evening. Dayo arrived from BK on the 1st and Ana had us over for dinner and baked a cake for us which was so nice.

We had a nice time when Dayo visited, again going out to eat a lot. He came to see Andreas play in a tennis tournament and Markus play in a soccer game. We went back to La Castela where i had to learn a little lesson. When we arrived the place was packed and I found a little space at a table where we could set down our food and eat. A few minutes later the ladies at the table passed me a note saying that in Spain one should ask if it is ok to share a table. I was really annoyed and it took me a few days to realize that I was really mad at myself for doing that, not at them for writing the note. I needed to be called out and I was. It was a lesson and taught me that in the heat of the moment maybe I didn’t handle things well but I have learned and won’t be such a jerk next time.

The following weeked we were REALLY busy. First, Markus and I took the train to Ana’s house and we left Andreas at home. He had convinced me somehow to allow him to have a party to celebrate his birthday with a lot of frieds. I keep saying this but I was really hoping that “he has turned a corner” and that I can trust him now. So I crossed my fingers and headed out to Ana’s. We had a great lunch then and then headed out to Getafe to see Mateo play a soccer game. We met Teda and Angelica there, and Mateo had his own rooting section! The game was great and although Getafe lost Mateo played fantastic. After that game, we all piled into our cars and headed to Alcobendas to watch Markus play his soccer game. Markus didn’t come out until near the very end of the first half which was a bummer, and the game wasn’t good at all. Chamartin Vergara lost 5-1, and it was the first loss they had since Markus started playing. Markus was really annoyed but I think it was because he had his fans there and didn’t want to disappoint. Chamartin Vergara is still doing well, and they sit in 2nd place.

Markus and I spent the night at Ana’s house and it was a great little sleepover with friends. Ana made another cake, this time for Markus who turned 15 on the 11th. Ana is getting a lot of practice and her cakes are getting better and better!

For lunch the next day we headed out to Teda’s stomping ground and had a great meal in a loud boisterous place for of families. It was LOUD but fun to hang out. A spectacular weekend, and I am proud to report that upon arriving at home the apartment had not been burnt to the ground.

So tomorrow we are off to California to visit my dad for the holidays. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2019!