Summer is over, but I have to start with Spring since I'm so far behind...

OK, well I had intended to update this regularly but you can see where that has gone, down the tubes. There was a lot going on and nothing going on at the same time, with Andreas in his last semester at school. So now its time for an update.

For Christmas we flew home to California to spend the week with my dad and my sister and her family. The highlight was our day in San Francisco to see Cirque de Soleil, something I’d never done before. It was a lot of fun, and the kids enjoyed it. They had a great time.

For Christmas Eve dinner, our big day at home, we like to have dungeness crab, so I drove to New Sang Chong market in downtown Oakland to get some crab, and it was an impressive place, reminded me of Chinatown in NYC. In fact, its a reminder about how much I don’t know about Oakland.

They plucked the crab out of the tank and cleaned them up beautifully. I like to consider myself an adventurous eater but I’m not usually enthusiastic about degutting whatever animal I’m going to eat that day. Dinner was delicious and I’ll definitely do the same next Christmas.

On the 30th we flew to NYC to spend a week there before returning to Madrid. I stayed with my great friends Hannah and Christian in my old stomping ground Fort Greene which was lovely. I basically spent the whole week meeting friends and eating. On the first of the year the boys and I went to visit our great friends Laetitia and Fabien, and their kids Margot and Paul, on the upper west side. On the 3rd I had an amazing lunch at Berber Street Food in the village with my dear friend Yael. I had read a great review of this place in the Times and it seemed to be my kind of place. While we were there, the owner said to me “aren’t you Markus’s father?”. I mean how small is this world? Diana, the owner, remembered Markus from when he played soccer with the Manhattan Kickers with her son. Incredible. We had an amazing meal there and this connection reminded me how much NYC is really my home.

And of course no trip to NYC would be complete for me without an obligatory stop at East Harbor Seafood Palace in Sunset Park with friends Maisa, Carlos, and Karen, plus Hannah and Christian! It was a great week but as usual all I did was eat and eat.

Spring for the three of us….

For Andreas, it was his last semester in high school, and there was a lot of hanging out, which is what I did during the last semester of my senior year as well. He had submitted all of his applications to schools like St Mary’s College in Moraga CA, University of Nevada Reno, and a couple of other places in the West. But I think it was in March where he seemed to just wake up one morning with the epiphany that he absolutely had to be in New York for college. He was desperate to return to the city, so I put him on a plane and he spent a week in April looking at schools in NYC, including Brooklyn College and St Francis College (where he and his brother had played some waterpolo as kids). When he got home he started on the applications all by himself without any prodding from me. He was accepted at St Francis College but was waiting to hear from Brooklyn College. However, he never got into Brooklyn College because he put his application in so late. Looking back I think I was more keen on Brooklyn College than he was because I wanted him to have that campus experience that I had had, and feared that he wouldn’t experience that in downtown Brooklyn, but he’s at St Francis now, happy as a clam, living in dorms at the St George Hotel believe it or not.

School ended for Andreas early May, and graduation wasn’t until the end of May, so he had a lot of time to kill. The highlight for sure was when he and some friends took the train down to Málaga and stayed there for a week. He said he had a great time and I told him that would be a week he would remember for the rest of his life, being on the road with friends and no parents, exploring the world. What a great experience for him.

We had a graduation dinner for Andreas at Arrocería Casa de Valencia in Argüelles and we had a big crowd. Great food and great friends to celebrate a great kid.

Nur, Murat and me at Andreas’s graduation dinner

For Markus, of course, it was soccer soccer soccer. Endless soccer. There is a wonderful mom on his team that takes lots of pictures (sometimes more than 600 in a single game), so I have hundreds of pictures of Markus playing. The team, which started out the season so well, fell apart at the end of the year, which was so disappointing. Markus got frustrated with the team but he kept working hard and he finished the year tied for 11th place in number of goals scored (out of his group of 16 teams). After the season ended he did some practice games with a new team, San Sebastian de los Reyes, so when we come back in the fall we are going to have to decide which team to stay with, his current team or Sanse.

School did not go so well for Markus so he will be switching schools to a much smaller American school. Hopefully he can get the individual attention he needs there to thrive. He knew he would have to switch schools if his grades didn’t improve, which they didn’t, so this will be his last year at Aquinas.

For me it was a lot of working and a lot of driving to soccer fields. Markus had soccer five times per week in the suburbs of Alcobendas so I was in the car constantly. Thankfully, there is a Carrefour and an Ikea nearby, so some days I shop at Carrefour while other days I buy El País and practice my Spanish in the Ikea café. I continued with Spanish classes once a week with Antonio. We meet once a week for 90 minutes at a coffee shop nearby and I do my best to gab about politics and what’s going on in Madrid. I kept up my swimming and also started working with a personal trainer at a nearby gym. My leg still wasn’t ship shape after my fall in the fall so I thought I need to start working out, despite the fact that it is achingly boring for me. I couldn’t possibly do squats on my own, but with a personal trainer it is tolerable, and the prices are tolerable too. I don’t know if I could rationalize such a luxury in NYC.

A highlight was when Christian and Hannah visited us from Brooklyn for their February break. We had a great time with them, and they were great guests venturing out on their own to explore the city. We ate like kings of course, and devoured a meal at La Sanabresa, my favorite menú del dia spot in Madrid.

What was left of our meal at La Sanabresa — What was left of our meal at *La Sanabresa*

In April I went to California to spend a week with my dad, and it is always great to see him. He continues to do well, and seems to wake up every morning with a smile on his face, which is such a blessing.

Me, piggy the dog (hard to see!) and my dad in Piedmont

In May we were lucky to have Dayo, Jeff and Liz visit for Andreas´s graduation. I end up doing the same thing with my guests which is basically letting them explore and eating out with them, at the same set of restaurants which I love. There are really great restaurants in Madrid as I have said before. Adventurous friends are always welcome to visit!

Jeff and Liz did bring me to an exhibit at the Reina Sofia museum of art. It was the art of David Wojnarowicz and it was just spectacular. And the Reina Sofia just a short walk from the apartment, as is the Thyssen and the Prado. I have to be better about taking advantage of the culture that Madrid has to offer. What a great show.

Liz and Jeff at La Sanabresa, with salmorejo and drinking some delicious tinto de verano — Liz and Jeff at *La Sanabresa*, with *salmorejo* and drinking some delicious *tinto de verano*

Liz and I at the spectacular Wojnarowicz exhibit at the Reina Sofia

In June, out of the clear blue sky I got a message from Olivier, a friend from France. When I was in high school I spent the summer living with their family to try to improve my French (and perhaps for my parents to get rid of me for a while). I believe I was in the outskirts of Paris for a couple of weeks, and 4 weeks at a place near the sea in Ste Maxime. We did a lot of beaching and windsurfing although Olivier was far more sportif than me. Well now Olivier and his wife Nathalie have a son who was graduating from college so they were going to be in Madrid. The 7 of us met for lunch in Plaza Paja and it was wild to catch up with someone I hadn’t seen in like 35 years.

Olivier, myself, and Nathalie in Plaza Paja

My circle is starting to get slightly larger, and I´m going out more. We often meet Ana and Murat at their place in Pozuelo. And now and then I have really nice meals with Claire; we went to a play and although I hardly understood a word (seeing the play “Copenhagen” even in English isn’t that easy to follow, much less Spanish). My neighbor Julia and I meet for wine or lunch sometimes, always great to have a glass of wine with her after a challenging day. My friends David and Ed had an 80s themed party at their apartment where I went as LL Cool J (red Kangol hat and everything), and met some nice people. And I have lunch maybe once a month with Laura, an American living nearby in Goya.

Now its mid-June and Andreas hasn’t really done anything except take a one-week trip to Malaga since school ended. He’s climbing the walls with boredom, and going out now and then at night. The great thing about Madrid is that I don’t have to worry about my kids’ safety. Andreas would go out and come home at 07.30am and I didn’t have to worry at all. I couldn’t have possibly done that in Brooklyn. We did go to a few photo exhibits as part of the FotoEspaña festival which is held every year, and we had lunch every now and then, but he was anxious to start the next phase of his life.

So he’s counting down the hours to return to NYC. He traveled on 13JUN, leaving Markus and me in Madrid until the 23rd when Markus would be done with school. It was of course sad to see him go, but at the same time it was time for him to leave. He needed to get on with his life and be a man. He was desperate for it, and of course I was desperate for it too.

Markus and I had a bit more than a week left before flying to NYC. We had a great meal with Ana and Mateo at Grosso Napoletano in Gaztambide. Like a snotty Brooklynite I had been bemoaning the dearth of decent pizzerias in Madrid, but this place was really great. We´ll have to go back in the fall.

Markus and I flew back to JFK on the 23rd and Dayo picked up Markus and JFK and drove him directly to the Red Bulls Camp in the Bronx. Markus was shaking with anticipation at going to camp, even though he didn’t know anyone going. I think he was really excited to show off his skills, which I understand. He is working so hard at soccer that he has the right to be proud about his accomplishments. We all want to feel proud now and then. Markus spent 4 weeks in NYC, three of them at Red Bulls Camp in the Bronx. He was so happy to be there.

I spent one week in Brooklyn at Yael’s apartment on 4th Avenue. I love Yael to death but she left for Paris the day I arrived and it was secretly luxurious to have her place on my own, terrace and everything. Her apartment is just incredible. As usual I did a lot of eating with friends. The morning I arrived, and before Yael left for Paris, we had brunch at Chez Olivier on 4th Ave which was really nice, and in the evening I went to Fort Greene to catch up with Andreas at Black Forest on Fulton Street. I met Hannah at L’Antangoniste in Bed Stuy which seems to have lost a bit of its shine but still a great meal. I took the train out to Long Island for a day visit with my friends Shoki & Sam which was amazing, such wonderful people. That same evening I met Mookie in Prospect Park for the Chucho Valdes concert and it was so great to see that side of Brooklyn again, I really miss that energy. I had dinner at Drew & Erika’s house where it seems like their children are suddenly as tall as redwood trees. I met Joe for coffee at Celi Cela downtown, absolutely love Joe. And that evening I met Karen on the Upper West Side (of all places) for dinner at Jacob’s Pickles which was very loud and way too trendy for me, but the food was great and I would bring the boys here if there was a reason to be uptown. Good thing I’ve been swimming regularly to make room for all that food for the week.

So now that I’m done with spring I’ll be back in a few days with a summer update… Love to all.

Recovering from jet-lag at Yael’s apartment