September/October

September was the craziness of still waiting for visas, finally getting them and flying out here, finding a place to live, getting the bank and phones set up, and getting the kids enrolled in school, all whilst moving around different airbnbs and hotels because of the uncertainty of the timeline.

October was the craziness of getting set up in our new home. The apartment came with a couch, a couple rugs, and a TV, so the rest of everything we needed we were ordering off Amazon, El Corte Inglés (giant department store), and IKEA. Later we discovered the most amazing, small all-in-one stores called a bazar mundial (world market) that are around town (think dollar store, only with even more selection but no groceries, and everything’s not a dollar), which would have been so helpful to know about before we were ordering everything online; I think we could’ve saved a lot of money. But anyway, now we know. PS. if you come here and you hear people mention going to a chino [CHEE-noh], which means a Chinese person/thing, they are talking about one of those bazar mundial stores, because supposedly the people who run the stores are all Chinese, although I’m not even sure if they are–in the ones I’ve been to, the clerks have appeared to be Asian, but they could be from a different part in Asia or the world, for all I know. I personally choose not to call the stores chinos.

Also in October, this past Friday, we finally got our empadronamiento! It’s just the appointment/certificate to register our residence in the area, and it’s pretty routine–you have to do it anytime you move anywhere in Spain–but on Friday when Jacob and I entered the government office I felt a degree of apprehension, and when we left with our certificate, I was so happy and relieved and celebratory, because of past bad experiences with Spanish government bureaucratic processes. Now we just have our immigration appointments in November to take care of…

Now a little about our apartment.

I am SOOO glad we found this place! It couldn’t have worked out better, in my opinion. I love it so much. It’s 130 square meters, which might seem small, and in fact, it was the smallest place we looked at, and we almost didn’t even bother because we thought it would be too small. But it’s been perfect.

First of all, our landlords are amazing. They are a couple maybe in their sixties, with one daughter and one new grandbaby, and they are the nicest people. They have been so accommodating and helpful for us.

Second of all, the landlords remodeled this apartment with everything brand new, intending to live here themselves to live close to her parents on the third floor who had been sick but who got better, so they put a lot of care into selecting high quality of everything–windows, appliances, surfaces, fixtures, electricity, etc, even the couch, rugs and OLED TV that they included in the apartment are all very high quality. And the remodel has such a good floorplan, making such good use of the space, that it doesn’t feel like a small apartment at all; in fact it feels very spacious.

I also love the view we get from the fifth floor! I love the skyline we can see out one side, and oddly I love the view of the construction pit out front as well. I think maybe it’s because having no building there right up against ours adds to the feeling of spaciousness.

The idea of the noise situation of living in an apartment building had me a little concerned before we moved here, but that hasn’t been a problem. When you are in the hallway you can hear people in other apartments, and from inside you can hear people when they are in the hallway (which doesn’t ever happen–in fact I am hearing someone in the hallway right now but I’m thinking it’s the first time I’ve been able to hear anyone) but from inside you can’t hear anything going on in anyone else’s apartment (unless they are doing construction in a nearby apartment, which from the hammering we’ve heard seems like has been going on in one just below us). We are also not on a busy street, so we can’t really hear traffic or city noise either.

Which brings me to another thing I love about our apartment, and that is the complex that we live in. It’s made up of three large buildings inside a gated area, with a pool area, several patios, and plenty of landscaping and trees, all very well maintained. It feels very cosy to me. A couple weeks ago we decided to do a family painting together down on one of the patios, which was very nice. Near the gated entrance near our building is the concierge booth, and the two gentleman who work there are very nice and always buzz us into our building if they see us, saving us the (very minor) trouble of getting out the keys. And right outside our complex is a small but nice park that in good weather is always packed in the late afternoon.

One curious thing about apartments here: the elevators are tiny! In all residential buildings that we’ve been to, the elevators can only fit four people like sardines, or two people comfortably. Also, in our building, the door to the elevator shaft is a manual door you pull open (although the elevator car door is automatic).

Also, important note: not having a car has not presented a problem in the slightest. Anything that we need that is bulky or in large quantities, is easy to order and have delivered. Anywhere we need to go is easily accessible by metro, bus, uber/taxi, public bike/scooter (public bikes are currently free!), or walking. And with a grocery store on every corner, and bazars in every neighborhood, all of our everyday needs are accessible without the need of a car.

Now a little about adventures outside our apartment.

Since we have been focusing on getting settled, we have opted not to do much site-seeing yet. However, we have had a couple adventures so far.

On October 12 is the National Day of Spain, so we all had the day off (and the following day) from school. We watched the ceremony and some of the parade on TV in the morning, which included some participation and plenty of footage of the king of Spain and the Princess of Asturias; the best part, however, was that when the fighter jets and helicopters flew overhead, not only could we see them on the TV, but also we had a good view of them out our window. Grace was probably the most excited about that.

Also on that day we made a fun discovery. Jacob and I headed out shopping for a bit, and while we were out we noticed that crowds of people with Spanish flags etc were heading to the Plaza de Toros (Plaza of Bulls), which is near our home and the metro we frequently use. We decided that when we got back home we would have to take the kids to the plaza. When we took the kids there, we discovered that there was going to be a bullfight that afternoon at 6! National Day of Spain, makes sense.

Someone at a booth was handing out free Spanish flags, so we grabbed one for each of us, and there were several other souvenir booths set up, so we milled around and bought some Spanish fans (a very traditional thing to have) and other stuff. For different Spain events, we’ve noticed that many people like to wear a Spanish flag as a cape, so we bought a giant flag as well, which Hazel wore as a cape on the way home.

Another adventure we went on was a rooftop bus tour of Madrid, which we considered matched the level of effort we were willing to spend on site-seeing in our current situation: just sit back, relax, and enjoy the view, while someone tells you about everything you’re passing by. Natalie opted not to come, and Tyrus was done before we were halfway through the first leg, but overall it was a decent experience. The narration was simply a recording and they gave you headphones as you got onboard, which you plugged in at your seat and turned the dial to the language you wanted. The recording didn’t always coincide with what we were seeing, because of traffic and whatnot, and the narration was monotonous and hard to follow, but the view and fresh air was still cool. The point was to spend time together, and also discover a couple things we might want to visit in person later, and we accomplished that.

Yesterday Jacob and I had an inadvertent adventure. When I googled events going on this weekend, an organ concert for 12:30 Saturday popped up, which we thought would be cool, especially because we’d recently had a conversation with our kids about fugues, and the organ concert included a Bach fugue. The kids didn’t want to go, however, so we just decided to make a date of it. When we got to the National Auditorium of Music and asked about going to see the concert, however, the lady at the information desk was like, Ummmm it’s all sold out, and it’s been sold out since January. Apparently it is part of a concert series that is a bigger deal than we realized (the 5 euros cost made us think it was low-key), and people get season tickets way in advance.

So anyway, after getting some better info on the artistic productions of the year, we turned to deciding what to do next. Well, what’s something else we can do, that takes an hour, that the kids wouldn’t want to do?

We decided to visit Puerta del Sol, a popular tourist plaza in a pedestrian area of town that also includes the presidential headquarters of the Community of Madrid (Community=think province or state, not just the city). I had been there previously when I had gone to a store on an errand, and the experience of coming out of the metro into the plaza for the first time is awe-inspiring, probably like being in Times Square for the first time. People walking in all directions in a huge open plaza, buildings and shops rising up on every side.

This time, even though I’d been there before, it was still a surprising experience. Instead of stepping out into the sunlit plaza with the normal hustle and bustle of tourists and other people, we stepped headlong into a full-on political demonstration–a parade of people with flags and signs and banners and vests with messages, someone shouting over loudspeakers, police vehicles, security personnel everywhere. It was something to do about pensions and retirement. Even though everything seemed controlled and calm (as much as it could be with the noise and commotion), and many people were continuing their business as usual and weren’t part of the demonstrations, and I felt very safe, I still had the vague notion cross my mind wondering, what if someone suddenly started shooting here?

Nothing happened, of course, and we just walked around for a bit and then went home, picking up some delicious napoletano (think square croissant sandwiches, of either ham and cheese or seasoned tuna) for 80 cents from a grocery store bakery on our way back.

That reminds me, this week on Thursday I got to school and there were less than 10 students in the first class I went to, and it was like that in my other classes the rest of the day as well. Turns out there was a strike, which students would be excused from school for if they wanted, which strike was pro-Palestine, anti-Israel at the same plaza where Jacob and I went yesterday, Puerta del Sol. Interestingly, since we subscribe to messages from the State Department, recently they’ve sent communications to be careful going around town, given some anti-American sentiment regarding the war in Israel. We haven’t encountered any problems, though.