Signing the contract

My contract, signed and ready to go!

I signed my contract today! I will contact my school within the next couple of days and hopefully they will know who I am and what I will be doing. Since my school is new to the program there is a good chance they won't know what to do with me right away. We will see.

Protests, Paperwork and Apartments

As we arrived in Madrid yesterday, there was a HUGE protest! Probably a couple thousand people waving flags, carrying signs and blowing whistles walking down and blocking traffic of one of the busiest streets in Madrid Centro. From what we could tell they were protesting suppression of the lower class and changes being made to public services. It was quite the event!

 Yesterday our goal was to find where my TESOL certificate was sent to and to open a bank account. When I got my visa and passport back, the copies of my certificate and degree were not with the packet of papers. I thought this meant that I was in the system and ready to go! After arriving, I realized there are various systems and information is not shared as easily as I thought. I was told I needed to bring a copy of my certificate when I  go to sign my contract. After three hours of being passed from building to building, office to office and person to person, someone was finally able to tell me they found my paperwork and that it was with human resources and I didn't need to bring it with me. Now all I had to do was set up a bank account. Easier said than done!

Ben and I went to the location where we were told to go and waited in line. I got to the front, filled out some preliminary paperwork and turned it in. They told my to come back Thursday (it was Monday) and I could open the account. I was a little confused why I couldn't open it then. I had everything I needed. I asked why I couldn't open it now and they said they had too many people trying to open accounts and I had to come back later. I asked if there was a different branch I could go to and they said no. After talking with a few others in my program, some had had the same problem as me and others had opened an account without a problem. Fortunately it didn't effect me signing my contract.

Ben and I looked at two apartments yesterday and although they weren't as cool as the first one, (how can you beat stairs coming down from the ceiling and a bathroom sink in the shower?!) we found a place to live!! We are signing the contract tonight! I would like to add that I figured out how to rent an apartment in Spanish. I was quite proud of myself. :)

We went in early to where the apartments were at so we could look around a little and find a place to eat. We almost got lost at one point because Ben was asking what street we were on (the street signs are very difficult to find! They aren't posted at eye level and they vary on how often they are posted on the street. They can usually be found up on the corner of a building.) I kept telling him "We are on Calle San Bernardino." He kept hearing Calle San Bernardo, which was the street we needed to be on. We finally figured out the problem when the cross streets weren't matching up with our map!

While walking around we visited Plaza de España, Monumento a Cervantes and these two buildings which used to be the tallest in Spain. Afterwards we went to a little restaurant for drinks and tapas. My new favorite drink is Fanta Limon. So yummy after walking around in the hot sun! We ended up ordering a sandwich. You could choose from a cubano, mixto y vegetera. We figured a mixto would be a mix between a cubano and vegetarian sandwich. Not so! It was a ham and cheese sandwich! Still very good though!

The protesters:

Plaza de España

What used to be the tallest buildings in Spain:

 Monumento a Cervantes

A really pretty house:

I love seeing these "statues" around the city!

Sunset from the foot bridge over the free way

Apartment hunting and thunderstorms

A girl from the program I am in had a birthday while on the plane to Madrid so last night we all got together to celebrate. We had enchiladas and various salads which was nice because Ben and I realized it'd been almost a week since we'd had some vegetables! (Sorry Mom and Susan! :) It was fun getting to know everyone better and hearing more advice about what to expect at our schools. 

While there, Ben came in from the living room to the kitchen to tell us there was a thunderstorm! At first the people who had lived in Spain the last few years laughed at him but when he said he was serious they ran to the window. It was indeed thundering and pouring rain. One of the girls said it had probably rained 6 times in the entire last year! It was pretty fun to look out and see how people were going crazy since there are very few thunderstorms in Madrid. 

Before the birthday party Ben and I came early to walk around and look for apartments and get phones. It almost became a failure of an afternoon because one, I forgot a pen so we couldn't write down phone numbers to call and two, every single phone store had ran out of prepaid phones! Apparently they don't stock their stores the way we are used to in the States. Once we realized we couldn't get phones we decided we NEEDED to find a pen. So we walked into stores and asked "Se vende plumas?" (Do you sell pens?) Most people gave us a weird look and said no. In one of the last stores we went to I explained we were looking for apartments and needed a pen to write the numbers down. This particular man pulled out a cup of pens and said "One euro". Perfecto! We got our pen and went off looking for apartments. I have a sneaking suspicion though that he sold us a pen he actually uses in the store. At that point though we didn't care. 

Most of the places we ended up writing down went for about 1000 euros ($1281). A little more than we want to pay. They don't write the size of the apartment down on the sign so it is hard to tell how expensive they will be. We had better luck online and actually saw one today. It was a little funky. There is a window from the kitchen that looks into the bedroom and the sink in the bathroom is actually located in the shower. Also, there are stairs you can pull out from the ceiling and up above the ceiling is another room! It is probably only 5 feet tall but there are two twin mattresses up there. I thought it was cool in a funky way but we decided to keep looking and we were going to look at two more places tomorrow. Please be praying! We are tired of living in a hotel and eating out. Although, I believe eating out here is much more common. Restaurants are always jam packed with people having little snacks. 

A few other things we have noticed:

1. There are no public restrooms to be found.

2. The metros are NOT handicap friendly at all. Stairs everywhere and very few elevators.

3. There are more people out at 11pm than at 5pm.

4. 11pm seems to be the choice of travel time. I saw more people with suitcases on the metro at 11pm than I have seen at any other time of day.

Adventures in Madrid

First a funny anecdote from 5am this morning. Ben woke up positive that we had bed bugs. I woke up to him online researching bed bugs and if they were dangerous. I realized he was half asleep and tired to tell him we didn't have bed bugs but he made me check for them and when he saw a tiny piece of lent from his sock he though it was a bed bug! I assured him it wasn't and after he put a shirt on he finally felt comfortable enough to go back to sleep. When I asked him about it this morning he said he barely remembered getting up.

And now to the rest of the day.

I had my meeting today in Madrid to find out more information about what I will be doing. My title is: Profesor Colabrador. I will be assigned to one teacher and will assist that teacher with their lessons. I still do not now which subject I will be in. I am hoping for P.E. :) After the meeting we went to a little bar/restaurant and had "tapas" For those of you who don't know, tapas are awesome! Only some restaurants have them. When you order a drink you get a free plate of appetizers. I wish the States had this!

Before going to the meeting we went in early to explore a little bit.

The foot path over the freeway.

The following photos are from La iglesia de Los Jerónimos

Ben liked this one because it has an eternal flame. :)

Just your average local post office. 

Puerta de Alcalá 

Fuente de Cibeles

Cool buildings:

The one on the right is a Rolex store.

There were tons of people dressed up in Mickey and  Minnie Mouse, Seasme Street, Smurf and Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles costumes. I went to take a picture of one and Mickey got excited but then Ben told me to put my camera away because we would have to pay for it. So I zoomed in from afar and got a picture!

Lots of shops down this road. They had shade screens up above the street.

There is graffiti EVERYWHERE! After the dictator Franco died, there weren't as many police around and people went crazy with graffiti!

El museo de jamón. There was so much meat in this one tiny shop!

Día #1

We arrived safe and sound this morning in Madrid 10 minutes early after an 8 hour flight. We had a moment of panic when our bags didn't show up right away but when we finally got them we headed off to find Rose Anne and Larry. Fortunately Rose Anne remembered my face from my facebook because I walked right past her!

Here are Larry and Rose Anne. They have been living in Spain for 41 years and do missionary work here. We plan to attend their church this Sunday. They said there are a lot of young married couples who attend the church (about 120 people) so we are looking forward to meeting some Spaniards our age.

Larry and Rose Anne took us to Rose Anne's favorite cafe in their neighborhood and we had some yummy pastries while we got to know each other. After eating, they drove us around and showed us where they live and where the church is and which metros to take to get there.

Then we all headed to Alcorcón. Rose Anne helped us get checked in and then they drove us to where we could catch a train into Madrid. They also showed us Hipercor, a huge shopping center where we can basically buy whatever we need.

After saying goodbye to Larry and Rose Anne and resting for a bit in our hotel, we headed over the footpath that goes over the freeway to check out Hipercor and the bus station.

Our hotel room.

We were a little worried we would have to buy something to be able to leave Hipercor because every time we tried to exit someone told us we couldn't go out that way. Finally Ben saw a sign that said "Salida sin compra". He recognized "salida" for exit and that is when I realized there was a specific exit for people who didn't buy anything.

When we finally got out we headed back to our room and researched a good place to eat and where to find an ATM. After getting a little turned around a few times we finally found the ATM and headed off to find the restaurant we had picked only to find out it is closed for renovation until the 11th.

We ended up in another little restaurant and when asked what we wanted to drink we both said "Agua por favor". However, our waiter came back with Cokes. Maybe they don't serve water? I don't know! We waited almost 30 minutes for someone to come back and take our order. I was thinking I have heard that Spain is a little more laid back but there is only one other customer and Ben has given the waiter the nod a couple times by now. Finally I went up and ordered and we had a good ol' fashion ham and cheese sandwich and a hamburger. I need to review my food vocabulary before going to another restaurant because Ben kept asking me what stuff was and I didn't know a lot of it. :)

After dinner we proceeded to do some shopping at Hipercor. You are supposed to wear gloves when you pick out your produce and I kept forgetting and kept touching the fruit and Ben had to keep reminding me to not touch it! Oops. That will take a couple of trips to the grocery store to remember.

Tomorrow we head into Madrid for my meeting to sign contracts and learn more about the job and to do some exploring.

Buenas noches.

And we're off!

When we got to the Spokane airport we had to move things around in our suitcases to get them each down to 50 pounds. After giving a couple of things to my Mom and Dad and moving things around each of our suit weighed in at exactly 50 pounds! With a short wait in Spokane, we flew out to Chicago where we have been waiting now for 9 hours now to leave for Madrid. Only two more hours to go! I will have the chance to meet another one of the teachers who has the same flight as us. I just need to find someone with purple luggage; shouldn’t be too hard since most people have black luggage. J We are starting to get pretty excited and it is finally starting to feel real!

Our plane to Spain, it was HUGE! The rows went up to 50 and there were 8 seats in each aisle. 

Next post will be from Spain! 

God is good Part 2

Keep in mind while reading this that we leave the 3rd.

We finally got our passports, two days before we leave! On the 31st Ben and I were in town running errands and we were supposed to get our passports that day but when we got back they weren't in the mailbox. I thought to myself, "Ok, no worries, we can still get them tomorrow."

Well tomorrow rolls around and we go to Bowl and Pitcher with my family in Spokane to hike around near the Spokane River. We leave a note on our door with our signature saying to leave all mail and or packages for Benjamin and Kristin Carlson with our signatures. We got back later that afternoon and found a note saying "Sorry we missed you, your package will be available for pick up Sept. 4th at 8:30am."

Well....that's not going to work, we leave the 3rd!! So we call the 800 number on the back of the note as we drive to a friend that lives near by who works at the post office. She wasn't there and the lady at the 800 number wasn't helpful. We then decided to drive into Cheney to the post office. Even though we knew it was closed we were praying that someone might be there. As we pull into the parking lot there is our friend standing outside getting ready to leave on an errand. We asked her about the package and she told us she had seen it earlier that morning and she would get it from the mail carrier when she came back from her route. Then she offered to bring the package out to us.

Praise God for answered prayers and small towns. :)

We leave for Seattle today at 5:30pm and from Seattle we go to Chicago and then to Madrid. We should be landing in Madrid at 7:40am on the 5th.