Mission: Hairscut.

When we left Lincoln, it was obviously so difficult leaving our family and friends behind.  But, it was also tough leaving some of the professional relationships behind.  

For example, my dentist is not here, my doctor is not here, and my hairstylist is not here.  Fortunately, none of us have required the service of a dentist or doctor at this point.  But the hair just keeps on growing.

Thankfully, Jenee had located a stylist by the time I was really needing a cut.  So I scheduled an appointment with her guy.  

When I arrived, we managed to communicate the basics with my limited Spanish and his limited English.  I watched him like a hawk for a while, then when he started asking questions I told him, "Eres el profesional."  Which he seemed to like :).

And it worked out.  I've never seen my hair this straight, but it's kinda fun.  And when I'm feeling lazy I can always let it be it's naturally curly self.  So yeah, found a stylist in Spain.  

Mission: Accomplished.

Mercado de la Paz & Plaza de Colón

I was checking out the Mercado de la Paz this morning and couldn't remember if I had shown you all what a market looks like yet.  So, I started snapping some pictures.

entering the market

beans & dried goods

gorgeous shellfish

fruit & vegetable stand

cheese!

Then I explored the neighborhood a little before ending up at Plaza de Colón, which is named in honor of Christopher Columbus.  Apparently, his name in Spanish is Cristóbal Colón.  Who knew?  The national library is south of here as is the archeology museum.

The huge Spanish flag caught my eye.

Sadly, the gardens were being renovated.

the national library

the Christopher Columbus monument

Life. Recently.

Last week, we had the honor of hosting some fun visitors from LBC.  This year's USB team experienced a glimpse of our lives here and they brought goodies and encouragement from home, which was super sweet!  I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we loved having them here and getting to spend some good times with them :).

From our team's perspective, it was also really neat to experience the process of preparing for them to come.  We got to see a lot of our strengths in action, some areas where we can improve, and it was just really neat to watch God show up in our lives as well as in the lives of our visitors.

It's been pretty rough trying to get back into the swing of things though.  My first meeting with my tutor post USB was brutal.  I started trying to speak Spanish to her and she looked at me with complete and utter horror :).  It's funny now, but those were a tough couple of hours!  In order to not have a repeat of that today, I tried to get some intense studying in this weekend.

It was so hard to focus though!  On studying, that is.  I could easily focus on anything else.

For example, I was obsessing about getting some flowers to put on my desk.  I don't know, apparently it's easier to study when pretty flowers are present?  I finally just hopped on the metro and went down to Plaza de Tirso de Molina.  There's a big plant/flower market there where the prices are extremely reasonable.  So, I picked up some flowers, a rosemary plant, and a couple other plants for Nikki.

At home, I got the flowers happy and settled in some water.  Then I tried to hit the books and flash cards again.  Next thing I know, my mind is drifting off into dreamy visions of Chinese food.  What?  Really?  Yes.  Really.  I expressed my frustrations to Ashley, and we headed over to Plaza de España for some Chinese food.

Unfortunately, it got devoured before a picture could be taken, but here's a picture of the menu :).

Then I was able to study for a while, and my tutoring session today went much better.

We'd still be thankful for prayers though.  It'll be interesting to see how life looks different after USB, now that we don't have that to prepare for and look forward to.

Also pray for the USB folks.  They're home now and probably not having much fun with jetlag.  Hang in there guys!

Residency Card = Attained

On Wednesday, four of us took the train down to Malaga in order to pick up our residency cards.  Nikki and I had been wanting to take the train rather than fly, mostly just for the experience.  Turns out the price for tickets was about the same and it doesn't take that much longer from a cumulative standpoint.

Here's the deal.  I love taking the train!  

- You wouldn't believe how much legroom there is.

- There are no violent takeoffs and landings.

- There are no restrictions on the fluids you bring on board.  I carried a water bottle and had my hairspray with me!

- You can watch the lovely views of the countryside going by :).

The train is moving so fast that it was tough to get a good picture of the scenery.  It just turned out to be a blur.  However, the video turned out ok, so I thought some of you might enjoy seeing Spain from a train window :).

I was able to get off the train feeling all relaxed, which I haven't experienced probably ever when flying.  It was quite nice.  Pretty much I'm taking the train anytime I need to travel in Europe unless there are significant price or time considerations in effect. 

And, we have our residency cards!  So, we're official now!  Therefore, it was a pretty successful trip, in my opinion :).

Protest March on Fuencarral

Yesterday, I was out and about when I heard some noise that sounded intriguing.  Now, I know that I live in a city and it's pretty much always noisy.  But, you kind of get used to typical city noise and you don't really notice it much after a while.

This, however, was not typical city noise.  It turned out to be some kind of a huge protest that had shut traffic down on Fuencarral, which is the street that serves as the line between the Malasaña and Chueca barrios (neighborhoods).  Fuencarral is always pretty busy, so I guess it's one of the logical choices if you want to hold a protest march.

I think this one was about jobs and the economy, based on some of the signs people were carrying.  Don't quote me on that though.  We haven't covered protests in language study yet :).

Plants!

One of the things I was kind of hoping for when we moved to Spain was that we would have a balcony in our apartment where I could score a little space to plant some herbs.

Little did I know that we would have four balconies, one for each of us!  Yesssss!!!

Nikki was the first one of us to plant something in her balcony, which inspired me to start searching out plants of my own.

Here's what I've got so far!

basil, some type of pretty flower, oregano, and thyme

This is what my balcony currently looks like.  I know, pretty sad.  It'll be a process, but I'm excited for when it's filled with happy, tasty plants!

So, I'll probably put these guys in pots later today.  Sounds like a nice Sunday project doesn't it?

Carnival Video

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I only had videos of the Carnival parade.  So, I decided to try my hand at some [extremely] amateur video editing.  Enjoy!

Ten Lanes of No Traffic

One of the things we're doing to learn more about Madrid and the people here is exploring the various barrios (neighborhoods) at different times of the day during different days of the week.  So, as part of this, last Saturday evening I was wandering around Chueca, which is the barrio east of where we live in Malasaña.

As I came to the eastern side of Chueca, I noticed there were quite a few police around.  So, obviously I have to check this kind of stuff out :).  Therefore, I walked south to the Plaza de Cibeles and found the street shut down!  Which rocks, because I could take neat pictures without the risk of getting hit by cars or buses or scooters.

Palacio de Comunicaciones

Fuente de Cibeles

Standing in the middle of the street - not getting run over!
Kids, don't do this at home :)

Puerta de Alcalá

Here's what traffic usually looks like in this area.

Streets are clear for the Carnival parade!

People lined up to watch the parade.  

It got too dark for me to take parade pictures, but I did get a few videos so I'll see if I can figure out how to get those posted.  Until then, I leave you with a picture of the fountain at night.  Madrid certainly knows how to turn on the charm sometimes.

Impressive in the daytime, possibly even more so at night.