Spring Fever

I had a lovely weekend here in Spain. My weekend began, as usual, on Thursday night with a celebration of Ida’s 23rd birthday. A small crowd –Yadira, Ida, SK, Dani, and I— ate dinner at a cool restaurant in the center of town called Ginger. Ginger is a nicer establishment, complete with white linen tablecloths and fine china, which serves higher-end cuisine but at really low prices because the chefs are in-training (or something like that). After our delightful meal of delicious food and great conversations, we moved on to the next event on the schedule: dancing. Ida loves to dance, and of course, we were all eager to indulge her birthday wishes. After a disheartening and mildly frustrating attempt to go try a new and popular discoteca, we ended up at one of our favorite bar/club called Sol y Sombra. Being five North American girls (Ida’s Canadian, so I can't refer to us as solely "Americans" in the US sense), we naturally took over the dance floor and blew the competition out of the water. I pulled out my best moves that I’ve acquired from my Furman years, and apparently, they are so strange and unique that Yadira and Dani just didn’t know what to think. Thanks, Furman friends.

Yadira and Ida sharing some roommate-birthday love at Ginger

Sarah and I owned the dance floor at Sol y Sombra

We closed down Sol y Sombra around 3 a.m., but since that’s still early for Madrid standards and we don’t work on Fridays, we ducked into another sitio to dance. However, we soon realized we were all ready to head home and made our way to Plaza Cibeles to catch our night buses home. Instead of taking the 5 like I have in the past, I took a chance with the 3… and struck gold. The 3 drops me off one block from my apartment, while the 5 drops me off 3.5 blocks away. Thank you, Ida.

Friday afternoon, I hopped on the train to Alcalá de Henares to spend the night with Shenning. She met me at the train station and we walked to her house. I had been to Alcalá twice before in September when we first got here to help move her out there. I enjoyed spending the night with her, spending time with her Spanish roommates, meeting her good American co-teacher-friend (Kim), and having some delicious tapas out in town. Alcalá de Henares prides itself on two things: being the birthplace of Cervantes (the author of Don Quijote) and being a university town. I personally enjoyed the fact that Alcalá respects the tradition of giving free tapas with drinks… and they’re good tapas, too!

Shenning and I took the train back into Madrid on Saturday in order to meet a new friend, Cliff. Cliff is a friend of one of our Furman friends, and like us, he is teaching in the bilingual program. Unlike us, he is teaching in a very small village in the province of Toledo, not even the small city of Toledo itself. We wandered all over central Madrid Saturday afternoon with Cliff. By chance, we stumbled upon El Tigre, an infamous tapas bar that is always so full of people that I’ve never been able to fit inside the doors. Hunger has no limits, and we squeezed ourselves into the slender aisles, order three cañas, and received two plates full of tantalizing tapas: paella, croquettes, patatas bravas, y jamón y pan. Later on, we found ourselves sitting on the cobblestones in the middle of a packed Plaza Mayor, eating bocadillos de calamaris and watching two street performers draw in the crowds with their sassy jokes and balancing acts. Finally, Shenning and I said “hasta luego” to Cliff after walking through Retiro for the second time that day.

Shenning and I at Madrid's "Ground Zero," the very center of Madrid, which is reportedly the very center of Spain. All roads start from this 0 KM mark

These two goons had quite an act in Plaza Mayor, and although they really didn't do much more than balance things on their bodies, they drew quite the crowd. Please note the crazy hair.

With our dogs barking (and I am referring to our worn out feet), Shenning and I rested in wicker chairs on an outdoor terrace in my neighborhood, sipping on cañas con limón and watching the people go by. The people we saw were dressed funny, and it wasn’t just the normal absurd-European-fashion funny. Most children were wearing costumes, but so were some adults. This is because it was the weekend of Carnaval.

Carnaval is a big-time festival in many of the predominantly-Catholic countries, such as Spain and Latin American (although Venice is equally infamous for its Carnaval celebrations). Madrid isn’t the best place in Spain to get the true essence of what it means to celebrate this Halloween-like festival, but the city had a small parade on Saturday evening that Shenning and I witnessed. From the creepy and scary floats, such as Frankenstein, the devil with his ork-looking minions, and giant velociraptors that terrorized the crowd, to the comical, such as clowns or silly characters, to the traditional, such as Uruguayans or Bolivians decked out in their native festival outfits, this parade was one hodgepodge of stuff. Check out my video of the random stuff that was going on down Calle Alcala.

The Spanish caballeros led the way, showing off for small children with fairy wings

Shenning and I ended our date-weekend at an Indian restaurant, where being two of the three patrons by the end of the night, we were offered more free cañas con limón than we wanted. I was very grateful to have a good solid weekend with my dear Furman friend. I see Shenning much more frequently than any other Furman friend (except Justin via Skype), but I don’t see her as often as I would like given the fact that she lives outside of Madrid. However, we’ve got some great weekend trips coming up and I will be seeing her a lot.

Speaking of weekend trips, things are about to get crazy. I’m pretty much booked for the next nine weeks. Here’s the brief overlook:
February 27-March 1: Lisbon, Portugal (with SK, Shenning, Yadira, Ida, & Kate)
March 7: Gillian and Erin (my two best friends from Dothan) arrive in Madrid!
March 13: Salamanca (with G, Erin, SK, Shenning)
March 19-22: Marseille, France (with SK and Shenning)
March 27-29: Mallorca (with Shenning, SK, and Ida)
April 2-13: Istanbul and Izmir, Turkey (with Justin and his parents)
April 14: My parents arrive in Madrid
April 16/7-19: Sevilla (with Mom and Dad)
April 23-26: Barcelona (with Mom and Dad)
May 1-3: Madrid…maybe?
May 8-10: Santiago de Compostela (northern Spain, Galicia)
May 15-17: Madrid…Budapest…?
May 22-24: London (with Shenning)

Yeah… call me crazy, but that’s my weekend forecast for the next three months. And I’m so excited! With so much running around ahead of me, I deliberately took Sunday as a day of rest and carefree-ness in Madrid. Although Pastora Cathy was sick with the flu and wasn’t at church, I still felt an incredible connection and happiness in seeing so many of my friends there. Of course, being a gorgeous sunny day, I delighted in spending several hours in the sun in Retiro, reading and writing and strolling through the throng of people also out enjoying the day. I spent the evening with Yadira and Ida (having dinner at Maoz, yay!) and met up with my long-lost friend Nikki at a cool coffee shop in the Malasaña neighborhood. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, and I feel relaxed, refreshed, and almost ready to face my favorite class of twenty-three wild and crazy 2nd graders… I think.

Spring is in the air. It is so close that in anticipation I have started refusing to wear jackets. The cherry trees in Retiro are blooming, as if to say that things are looking up. I certainly was after resting under one on Sunday afternoon!