Pounding the Pavement/Stone = Sore Foot

Turns out I'm not quite used to walking everywhere yet, and I've been covering some ground over the course of the last three weeks.  Sadly enough, it aggravated the ankle I twisted last fall, so I'd appreciate some prayer for that.

Yesterday, I ventured into southwestern Malasaña to explore a bit.  Thought you would enjoy seeing the area also :).

Someone had painted this statue's face, which I found interesting.

I found a Mexican restaurant near this street.  Perhaps they have jalapeños?

Today it was obvious the foot could use some rest.  So after spending the morning at the apartment, I crossed the street and went to a cafe nearby.  Café Comercial was founded in 1887 and is full of charm.  We walk by it every time we venture into Malasaña and notice that it's usually pretty busy.  Ashley and Nikki spent some time there the other day, so I knew it was a good place to do some reading, studying, and journaling.

After selecting a spot, I ordered some water and a little jamón treat before getting out my journal.  Turns out that I was either given free chips, or they came with my snack.  I don't know, but they were a nice surprise :).

afternoon snack in a 124 year old restaurant

jamón and tomato on toast

journaling on a rainy Sunday in Madrid

As I was finishing up, Nikki and Erin joined me for some café con leche (coffee with milk).  We had a lovely chat, then walked back to the apartment.  All in all, it was a refreshing way to spend a Sunday afternoon :).

Sometimes You Just Need Some Heat

I think other than when I was an infant, this is the longest consecutive period of time that I've gone without eating something spicy.  Oh my goodness - I LOVE spicy food!  And I'm forcing myself to wait patiently until we move into our apartment to unpack my hot sauces from their protective bubble wrap and ziplock bags.

Sooo, tonight we had to go to Taco Bell!  Also, do you know how hard it is to find a jar of jalapeños in Madrid???

jalapeños!!!

Then we had to go get dessert.  I'm glad we're walking a lot or I'd be gaining some weight because the pastries here are a-mazing and pretty stinkin' cheap.  It's kind of a great way to get rid of the heavy change in one's purse, and is therefore good for my back :).  Anyways, enjoy the pics!

Makes you want to come visit doesn't it?

Calle de Espíritu Santo & Beyond

After meeting our landlord (who is a great guy) for coffee/tea, the four of us girls walked down to Calle de Espíritu Santo, which is really close to the apartment we'll hopefully be moving into on Sunday.  I've walked down this street a few times and am really excited to be living nearby!

Allow me to show you around :).

Calle de Espíritu Santo

I think I'll buy meat from this guy!

And chicken parts from this guy :)

Totally a great place to buy herb plants and flowers for our balcony.

Art in Malasaña

Look!  A pot for herbs!  For on our balcony!!  Yessss!!!

hardware/electronic/kitchen/clothing/everything else store

Might have to get this coffee cup for Ash.

Sarah!!  Look!  This is where you got the eclair on USB!  :)

Exercise equipment in Plaza de Dos de Mayo

And this is where I will buy Spanish books!
Um, when I can actually read Spanish books...

And there's tons of other stuff in this area too!  I've become a little bit footsore exploring around Malasaña, but it's so nice to have things start to look familiar.  There's really nothing like the realization of "Hey!!  I know this area!!" after turning lots of random corners and walking down (or up) lots of random streets.  It's pretty neat :).

Luggage Train

The Spain team guys helped us move, and we really appreciated it.  I think we owe them cookies or something once we move into a place with an oven.

I didn't get any pictures of our first trip because I was pretty focused on managing the luggage I was toting.  I only had one suitcase the second trip, so I managed to click the shutter a few more times.

Ash moving the groceries, her pillow, and Betsy through the city center.

Moving is exhausting :).

Waiting in the metro, tp secured.

Luggage train on the move.

And all that's left is the trip up the elevator!

So, thanks again to the guys for helping us and to Ryan and Jenee for storing our luggage for a few hours!

After everyone left, it was time to figure out how to start the hot water heater, get the router working so we'd have internet, and locate a grocery store.  Another hilarious, exhausting day on the books :).

Temporary Apartment # 2

Well, we got successfully moved!  What a day.  We had to be out of our last apartment by 11 am and check in for our new place wasn't (technically) until 3 pm.  So, we moved everything from our place to Ryan & Jenee's.

Once the first move was done, the four of us girls headed to the office of our second place to try and check in.  This was our first extended expedition into the Chueca neighborhood.  They did let us check in and gave us directions to the apartment.  So, we hiked up there.  We got into the building (Sagasta 7) and were promptly shooed away the the lady at the front desk.  She sent us to Sagasta 11.

The gentleman at the desk there promptly sent us up to the 7th floor, where we discovered our keys didn't work.  And we scared the lady living in the apartment we were trying to get into!  We tried the floor we thought we were supposed to be on, but then decided to call the rental office for help.

Where do we live??  We don't know!!

They told us to go back to the first place, and gave us some more specific instructions.

This time the lady let us in and we were able to get to the apartment!  We had some trouble with the lock, but our nice neighbor guy helped us.

In the elevator of our new apartment building!

tricky lock

Yay!  Shortly after exploring, an elderly lady knocked on our door.  She walked in and started chatting with us (in Spanish).  She walked through the living room and out on the patio, telling us all about it :).  I thought Nikki and Ashley handled this odd occurrence quite well.  I was just confused the whole time - is this typical?  After she left, we decided she probably just wanted some company :).

Ash and my room is just big enough for these two beds.

As Nikki is demonstrating, the kitchen is huge!

Our lovely animal skin rug.

living room

After touring the apartment and saying adios to our visitor, we grabbed some lunch and went to collect our bags.

Exploring the City

The laundry post didn't really lend itself well to pictures, so I thought I would make up for that in this one!

Here's the street that our current temporary apartment (until tomorrow) is on:  Calle Atocha.

Today we:
- Put the deposit down on our new apartment!  Two weeks of renovations and we'll be in!
- Went to the airport and bought tickets to Malaga.  It felt a little Amazing Race-ish to be buying plane tickets at an airport in a foreign language.  The Malaga trip is required for us to apply for residency.
- Went out exploring on our own, so I decided to take you on a little tour.  Excited? :)

This is a random plaza I found while kinda lost on some random streets.  Nothing is in a grid here, so it feels a little like you're following cow trails.

Then I walked down Calle Mayor to the palace, which has a botanical garden on the north side.

After walking through the garden, I made my way to the Plaza de España.  My feet hurt at that point, so I took a few pictures of the Don Quixote statue and the fountain.  Then I sat down and wrote in my journal for a while.

I took the metro back to the Plaza Mayor area to met up with the team, and we went out together for some lovely Spanish treats!  Always my favorite part :).

And then we called it a night!  Hope you enjoyed the little tour :).  And now I must go pack so we can move to our next temporary apartment bright and early tomorrow morning.

Please pray for our backs and our attitudes - hoping for hilarity during the process of carting our tons of luggage across Madrid :).

Laundry

It's amazing sometimes how the simplest tasks can be so stress inducing when trying to do them in a different country.  Take laundry, for example.  

When I did laundry in the states it would maybe take me a few hours to finish it.  Eventually, you come to the point where you can successfully follow those steps without expending much, if any, brain power whatsoever.

We're not at that point here yet.  Also remember that I wasn't the only one working on this.  Here's how it went down:

1.  Realize we have a washing machine in our temporary apartment.  Much rejoicing.

2.  Determine which soap tablets go to the dishwasher and which ones go to the washing machine. 

3.  Come to the conclusion that the four tablets may not be enough for all our clothes.  Walk to the supermarket and try to find the laundry detergent aisle.  Finally find the detergent, but none of the brands are recognizable.  Using our sketchy Spanish, try to determine which detergent is most appropriate by reading the bottles and boxes.  After a thorough review, decide that the four tablets you have will work for now.  Leave store with a headache and walk back to apartment.

4.  A few days later, it becomes clear that laundry HAS to get done.

5.  Sort laundry.

6.  Crouch down beside washer (with a flashlight because the lighting isn't great in this part of the apartment).  Have a discussion about what the symbols on the buttons and knobs might mean, and make an educated guess on where the soap tablet goes.  Get on the Internet and do a Google search for a user manual - find nothing.  Continue discussion.

7.  Determine which clothes can be sacrificed to the first load, guess on the settings and press start.

8.  Watch and pray.

9.  So far everything looks ok...

10.  Walk away for a bit.  Breathe.

11.  Come back a few minutes later.  Everything still looks ok...

(repeat steps 8-11 until...)

12.  Cycle completes successfully!!  YES!!!  We just did a load of laundry in Spain!!!!!

13.  Remove clothes from washer.  Discuss whether the machine also doubles as a dryer based on a few buttons you see.

14.  Abandon that idea for the moment.  Peruse the apartment for places to hang clothes to dry (railings to the loft, chairs, vases, use your imagination).

15.  Let clothes dry overnight or until done, then gather them up from all over the apartment.

16.  Fold clothes and pack back into suitcases.

There you go.  I'm just really thankful that we all have a sense of humor.  Not all the time, because that would be unrealistic.  Things that are simple and automatic at home are unmapped mountains for us here, and it can be discouraging. But often enough so far, we can laugh and celebrate the small victories.  Ryan told us this morning to try and celebrate the failures as well, because at least we learned that route didn't work and it brings us closer to success next time.

Definitely learning about how much faith I don't have and how much we need the Lord to show up on a moment by moment basis.

Extremely thankful to have clean clothes again though!  Also for this team :).

Jamón Potato Chips!!

Prior to our apartment visits this afternoon, I was out exploring an area of Madrid that I heard had a supermarket with cheaper prices than what we had already found.  I figured I wouldn't remember the prices to use for comparison if I didn't write them down.  So, as I'm browsing through the market, taking notes, I come upon these a-mazing and delightful treats!

What!?  Jamón flavored potato chips??  Oh my goodness gracious yeesssss!!!  For those of you who don't know, one of the iconic foods of Spain is cured ham, specifically jamón ibérico, and I am crazy about the stuff!  So, I had to get these and race back to the temporary apartment with great excitement to show them off :).  We cracked these guys open tonight and I'm happy to report that everyone really liked them!  They taste like potato chips (obviously) flavored with the most amazing bacon you've ever considered imagining.

How great is that?  A newly discovered place to find good, inexpensive food - and meat flavored chips!

Thanks to Erin (my sister) for the hint about meat flavored potato chips, and Erin (Spain Team) for taking the picture :).

Apartment Hunting

Today we looked at two potential apartments and fell in love with the second one.  There are still some good sized details to work out, so don't stop praying.  We're really excited though - this is a great place in a great location for a very nice price.  We didn't get pictures of the apartment, but here's a picture of our street :).

An update on the rest of the team's search:  

- Ryan and Jenee have a place, but are waiting to sign papers and move in.

- Blake and Nick thought they had a place, but it fell through so their hunt continues.

Also, I admit that I've completely forgotten to take many pictures.  So, I'll try to be better about that.  Finding an apartment is a massive load off our minds though and I got some good sleep last night, so hopefully that improves my memory and state of mind.  We shall see :).

Oh the Joys of Jetlag.

It's 3:31 in the morning, Madrid time.  Turns out that neither Erin or I have the ability to sleep right now, which is frustrating but that's just the reality of jetlag.  Soon enough it'll be a distant memory (hopefully anyways!).

What does one do while unable to sleep due to jetlag, you ask?  Good question, here you go:

1.  Get irritated and get out of bed.  Chat briefly with flatmate who is also unable to sleep.
2.  Take a benedryl - hopefully it'll knock you out for a few hours once it kicks in.
3.  Break open the new journal and write a few pages.  Determine that some time with Jesus would be extremely valuable right now.
4.  Pray.
5.  Google "bible verse of the day" because your computer is closer in proximity than your bible and you're curious as to what you'll find.  Verse of the day turns out to be Mark 11:24.
6.  Recognize the verse was taken out of context,  read and pray through the whole chapter.
7.  Find yourself comforted and reminded that:
     - The Lord knew ahead of time where the colt was.
     - He equips, empowers, and guides His disciples to do His work.
     - God is powerful.  So is authentic trust, prayer, and faith coming from a heart whose desire is to see the Lord be glorified and His will be done.
8.  Decide to make a list of neat ways the Lord has provided over the last few days.  This ends up being really encouraging - the list is long.
9.  Write a blog post - sorry if it doesn't end up making as much sense as I think it does :).
10.  Feel the benedryl kicking in, decide to try sleeping again.

But before I do that, I just wanted to let you know that Madrid is beautiful, God is good, and I'm excited to be here even if I'm not excited about the jetlag.  It turned out to be a blessing tonight and a sweet time with Jesus.

I'd still encourage you to pray that we'll get good rest soon though :).

Snow? What??

Yes.  I realize that it is January.  I also realize that I am still in Nebraska.

Regardless, it would be highly advisable to pray about this particular forecast.  Specifically that we would be able to get to the airport.  Also that our plane will be able to take off {and fly, obviously}.  Then that our families would make it home safely.

Assignment:  Trust + Pray.

This is good practice.

Shirts!

You've waited patiently with great anticipation for this moment, and now the shirts are available!  Cruise on over to my sister's Etsy page to score one of your very own:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/65161661/holla-spain.

Oh also, there are only five available at this time, just so you know and can plan accordingly :).