Carnival!

Today Colegio Sagrada Corazon de Jesus celebrates Carnival by allowing the 3-year olds to attend school in full costume. Even though Brodie already has a pretty spectacular princess costume, my mother saw this as an opportunity to fulfill Brodie's every fairy dream. I give you Brodie Rodemacher: Spanish Snow Queen. What you can't see are the gold leather heels (flamenco shoes) underneath. My mom keeps saying,"Just like Suri Cruise!" and this really creeps me out. Did anyone else see those startling photos? Maybe it's a Scientologist thing. Anyway, Brodie continues to be less than dazzled by school and continues to plead to stay home with "[her] family" but I'm hoping today's Carnival celebration and tomorrow's trip to a farm will convince her that school isn't so bad. One thing we've figured out over the last few weeks is that either Brodie is a guy's girl or just plain boy crazy. She only ever talks about boys in her class, namely "Tiso", Jorge "Pepinosa" (should be pronouced "Espinosa") and Jaime. I can't tell you how much this reminds me of myself. From kindergarten to 5th grade of my four best friends only one of them was a girl. Tiso appears to be her best friend, Jaime seems to be the crush and Jorge Pepinosa is her frienemy. She likes him some days and others not at all, but all signs point to a crush on both their parts. She's very conscious of her upcoming birthday, but we're not going to throw a big party. We don't know any of the parents and without a yard, it just seems like a bad idea. Instead we'll take a cake to school, party hats and goodie bags for the kids. Last night when I suggested this to Brodie, her only complaint was that Jaime wouldn't be able to participate because he's in the other class. Definitely a crush. I'll leave you with the three things this week I love about Madrid: 1) On the weekends when you purchase your movie tickets in advance, you get to select your seat. Anyone who has arrived at the Alamo Drafthouse an hour in advance just to ensure a good seat will appreciate this. 2) ANOTHER cervezeria opened two doors down from our building and they have an excellent beer selection. Its first two nights of business, the beer was free. FREE! 3) We can buy Cuban coffee!

Kyle's Mother-in-law visit: Day 3 of 35

And now for the exciting conclusion of "Is Ana in the house?" Oh is she ever. After all of our fears that Kyle would be unable to find her in the airport, it ended up being moot. At around 10:00 a.m., I received a call from Kyle saying that her plane had arrived early, but that he still hadn't seen her so we both assumed she was just held up in customs. Well as it turns out, he didn't find her because after 30 minutes of waiting (says she) she hopped in a cab and headed over to our place. You can imagine my surprise when less than 10 minutes after hanging up with Kyle I hear my mom's voice (she was one floor below us and and our door was closed, by the way) asking for the Americans. Poor Kyle! He has the patience of a saint, I must say. If he was irritated he didn't show it and came straight home to say hello. Also, it's hard to be mad at someone who has packed pancake mix, Easy Mac and your Christmas Kindle in their luggage for you. We've taken the first few days slowly so that she can acclimate to the time change and have mainly just strolled and shopped a bit. After taking Brodie to school the three of us, including Sabine, went to Cafe Comercial for a coffee and pan con tomate. Right as my coffee arrived, Sabine woke up and I realized that to maximize the day we were going to have to ditch the baby. Luckily our friend Touria who babysits on demand also provides pick up service. I know I've gone on and on about our amazing nanny, but every time she sits for us I still can't believe our luck. We need a babysitter at odd hours and sometimes only just for an hour and as a college student she needs to earn money. Because she lives directly beneath us and has a very light schedule we have a babysitter virtually whenever we need it! I can't imagine Madrid without this kind of flexibility - I think I'd feel horribly deprived. Anyway, she met us at the Cafe and then we were on our way. Today we went to Mercado San Miguel where we drank cava, ate various types of foods and watched the fur coat parade. Madrilenos are not afraid to break out the fur, that's for sure. On the way back we discovered an amazing litte shop called El Ganso, which I will force all of our guests to visit. This is my new favorite shop and all the clothes are made right here in Madrid. Tonight dinner and a movie!

Ana's in the House, maybe.

My mother arrives from McAllen today. We've been in a frenzy preparing the extra room for her and generally just anticipating the whirlwind of Central American loco that is Ana Bergh. I use loco affectionately, truly. It will be so nice to have her company and to do all the things I've been holding off on doing knowing that when she arrives I'd have to do them all over again. The first time I visited Madrid and all of its amazing art museums was more than 10 years ago with my mom and my sister and I'm looking forward to returning. All visiting friends don't have to worry because I'll gladly revisit them with all of you, too! Anyway, Kyle has just left to meet my mom at the airport. This is the exact flight information I received from Ana about a week ago: "I will arrive in Madrid at 9:45 A.M. on the second of February, I will have three suitcases, one of them huge, and a carryon, so I will need a full size cab. Bye now, Mom." Last night when Kyle starts pressing me for additional details, I realize how absurd this flight information is and even more absurd is that in my mind this was plenty of detail. Once my mom and I attended a wedding at the Pebble Beach Resort (where we were hosting a bridal brunch no less) and only when we were in the rental car almost there did we realize that neither of us had bothered to make room reservations thinking that the other had taken care of it. As charming a trait as this may sound, I sense that Kyle wonders how either of us functioned in this big world before his little detail-oriented self married into the family. To add insult to Kyle's injury, I griped that he was keeping me up with his online research of international flights arriving at 9:45 today. I'll end up paying for that somehow. Update on how the airport pick up goes to follow....

TV and Near-starvation

We gave in yesterday and bought a TV. We've lived without a television for three months, but when the opportunity to buy a great TV for cheap presented itself we took it. Even though we haven't had an actual TV in the house, we/I haven't lived entirely without television shows. I've still been able to keep up with a few of my favorite shows via Casttv.com and Brodie watches some videos on PBS.org, but I definitely don't do the kind of mindless television (computer) watching that occupied WAY too much of my time prior to moving to Madrid. While cooking, folding laundry, washing dishes I'd turn on the TV just for noise to fill the quiet and make mundane chores bearable. I really don't want to go back to that kind of robotic TV watching - it crowds the brain. Our main hope is to watch Spanish TV to help reinforce our Spanish, improve our vocabulary and of course to watch DVDs that we aren't able to watch on our lemon of a MacBook Pro. Moving on....one thing I still cannot get used to are the restaurant hours here. Restaurants open at 1:00 p.m. for lunch (at the earliest) and then close again at 4:00 p.m.; they re-open at 8:00 p.m. and then close again around 11 or midnight. This generally isn't a problem unless it's a Sunday when EVERYTHING but restaurants are closed and you want to eat between 4 and 8 p.m. Well, this is exactly what happened to us yesterday. Our schedule was off because I ate some bad mussels that woke me up at 6:00 a.m. After getting sick, Kyle had to get up with the girls while I tried to sleep. Anyway, we finally made it to coffee and breakfast at around 11:00 a.m. so we didn't even think about eating again until 4:30 when we realized that all the markets and restaurants were closed. For this family of hungry hippos few things are more terrifying than the thought of not being able to eat anything for an entire four-hour window and no clear options at the house. Seriously, we were in a full panic when Kyle pulled out the peanut butter at the back of the cupboard and we made do. I'll note that the reason the peanut butter was at the back of the cupboard is because this stuff is like gold for us Americans here in Madrid and I like to hog it all to myself. We have to buy it at a shop that specializes in American foods and it costs - are you ready? - NINE DOLLARS. Luckily Brodie isn't a fan! This week I plan to stock the pantry with enough food to feed a small family of hippos. The posted picture is how I found Sabine in her crib on Friday night. Too cute.

Westies

This little dog has got to be the most popular breed of dog in Madrid. I see at least 2-3 Westies a day just walking to and from school or the market. Isn't he cute? On a side note, this is also the breed of dog the Austonian uses in some of its collateral - classy dog! Anyway, today I pulled the Haiti card. After the earthquake I felt it was important to explain to Brodie what was happening there. I wasn't graphic, but I think it's important that she understand that bad things happen. Anyway, today she decided to throw a tantrum because I wouldn't buy her a treat. It was ugly and I was angry so I went on to explain how children in Haiti are suffering and in need of basic needs and that she should be grateful for all her blessings, which I then went on to list. I'm not sure if this is good or bad parenting (and I don't want to know) but I do know that I don't want to raise an entitled child, oblivious to the state of the rest of the world. So here's where it gets weird. After I went on and on explaining all of the above this is what she said to me, "But mommy, candy is how I celebrate the world." Are you kidding me? I don't know if this is strangely charming or sociopathic and I'm kinda scared.

More on the Hood

I know some of my observations about life in Madrid must seem rather obvious to people who live or have lived in major metro cities like San Francisco and NYC, but every day I still find myself marveling at the convenience of living in an urban environment. I can't think of anything we might want to consume, purchase, experience or imbibe that can't be done or found within a 15 minute walking radius of our apartment. On our plaza alone there are eight cervezerias, 1 shoe store (we bought Brodie's school shoes there), a music school (Brodie takes movement and music here), an English language book store, a shop specializing in tea, a wine store, a flower vendor and a natural food shop. That's a lot of life just right there. I realize that upon returning to Austin or wherever, the biggest adjustment will be driving everywhere. Even in Austin where we lived walking distance from a park, shops and restaurants I often found myself driving just because of the heat and humidity. Ah! Another thing I love about Madrid - NO HUMIDITY. But back to convenience: last Saturday night we met some friends out who now live in our neighborhood so we decided to first hit a cervezeria that specializes in German beer. Before I knew it we were eating dinner at the Chinese restaurant just down the street (at 11:00 p.m. mind you) and then headed home. Our big night out was spent just one block around the corner from our piso - I love this. It's also nice to feel as though you're contributing to the financial stability of your neighborhood. It's clear by the many shuttered windows and for lease signs that lots of small businesses have not survived Spain's financial crisis. I try to shop in the neighborhood mercado as much as possible (instead of the big chain grocery store also just up the street) but I worry for these little guys. Every time I go in I seem to be one of maybe 5 shoppers in the entire market. You can tell that at one time this was a major market because of the number of stalls, but I'd say at least half of them are now closed. There's one man who is SO nice that sometimes I buy stuff we don't need just to buy something. On a totally different subject, we have a new baby! Well, it's actually the same baby (Sabine) but seemingly overnight she's developed a different personality. Not that she wasn't lovable and adorable before, but when she was cranky and super needy it was more of a disposition that only a mother could love. Just in the last few days she's like sunshine on a stick. She sleeps through the night, rarely fusses, is trying to walk, babbling all the time and really experimenting with communication and signing. Putting her down for the night has also become this miraculously easy process. We used to have to time it perfectly, rock her, then lay her on her side while patting her, and so and so on. Now she takes a bottle, we brush her teeth and then lay her down and that's it. THAT'S IT. So needless to say, we've decided she can stay.

Brother Trucking Neighbors

In many of my posts I've made mention of the "mean neighbors" without much detail, but today I'll give the blow by blow because we've reached an absolutely absurd level of incivility. It started right before the holidays when we were letting Sabine cry it out instead of tending to her in the middle of the night. I'm the first to admit that this is a form of hell I'd rather not go through again, but there's no way it was worse on the neighbors than it was on us. Anyway, at least on three or four separate occasions the neighbor from across the hall (his bedroom must share a wall with Sabine's) let his displeasure be known by banging on the wall. The last time this happened about 3 weeks ago, Kyle was standing in her room with Sabine in his arms and he instinctively banged right back and yelled out an expletive that rhymes with "brother trucker" and "other sucker" - you get the picture. Before then on Jan. 6th, we had the misfortune of locking ourselves out of the apartment as we were headed out to a parade. We realized it immediately and as we were standing in the lobby trying to figure out our next move, our neighbor Fatima came to our rescue once again. She insisted on walking me to a place that she thought could get it open, but no one was there. We headed back to our place and she said she knew a way to get in. She whipped out a huge X-ray film of her back and with the help of Paco our porter and a lovely neighbor I had never seen before or since we all tried to jimmmy the door with the x-ray. No luck. Lucky for us our next door neighbor (not the mean ones) arrived right as we were about to make the call to the locksmith and let Kyle use her window to get into our kitchen window. We're only one story up, but he was at least 20 feet up and it was a dangerous operation. Anyway, we got in and were so grateful to the FOUR people who came to our rescue. The next day I learned from Paco that the mean neighbors complained that we were too loud. TOO LOUD. It was 7:00 at night - most people are still at work for God's sake and they were complaining that our personal crisis was an inconvenience to their a-hole ear holes! The next day I saw the son in the hall and he said hello, but I ignored him. I've never been so deliberately rude to anyone - it was hard, but I had been stewing. Since then I've seen the father and mother a few times and we exchange mumbled "holas". Based on what happened this morning, I'm guessing it's been decided that we are to be avoided. We had just stepped off the elevator and and I stopped to put Sabine's hat on. Right away I heard footsteps on the stairwell and then I heard them stop. I looked over to see who was coming but there was no one there and then it hit me. It had to be a member of the mean neighbor family and they were waiting for us to leave so they wouldn't have to mumble hola. I didn't even try to conceal that I knew he was there, I strained my neck forward and could clearly see him (the dad) through the elevator grating looking down on us. I took my time before finally leaving. When I got about 10 paces away I turned around and there he was walking out the door. What a wuss! I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I so want to prank them. Like in a huge high school way. In my best robot voice I keep telling myself: MUST TAKE HIGH ROAD, MUST TAKE HIGH ROAD.