Conversation with Nathan (Condensed)

This conversation occurred over the course of a couple days -- sorry, I try to avoid "My kid is so cute" blog posts but this was too funny.

Nathan: Mom, when are you going to get yourself tenure?
Mom: I don't know. What is tenure, anyway?
Nathan: It's when the universe decides to keep you.

Boys' day at school (warning: Toddler content)

M: Seth, how was your day at school?

S: Good.

M: What did you do on the playground?

S: Played. I played, somebody found Clara. Noah found Clara. She was better. Coming at school, and Noah found her. I played with Noah and I played with Clara. Both.

M: What did you do inside your classroom?

S: Played.

M: What happened when you woke up from nap?

S: Cried.

M: Why?

S: Because I have to go pooh.

M: Why were you crying? You have to go pooh all the time at home.

S: My belly hurts. I pushed my pooh down. My teacher not use toilet paper, use wipes.

M: Do you have anything else to tell me about school?

S: Yes. Um....um...

M: Seth, focus.

S: I did play. I did sing on the car rug. I sang some songs. Mom, let's draw.

Nathan: Mom! We don't sing in music. We do music. We have like books.

M: Books about music?

Nathan: We do things in books. Like we do like what order is this, what color is this, what instrument is this. That's really all I did.

M: Nathan, how was your day in school?

Nathan: OK.

M: Who did you play with at recess?

Nathan: Sonia. She speaks English.

M: And what did you do in English?

Nathan: We filled out a worksheet.

M: What was your favorite part of the day?

Nathan: English.

M: Did you learn any Spanish words?

Nathan: No.

M: Did you have homework?

Nathan: Yes. We had mathematics and Lengua.

M: Why don’t you ask your own question and answer it?

Nathan: Why did the chicken cross the road? (Laughs).

M: No, about school.

Nathan: Oh! How was recess? OK.

What did you do? I watched someone make something weird. There were some people, they were like making like a dirt rock thing. You can throw the rocks and then they break apart and some little ones you could break with bare hands.

M: Is that all?

N: Yeah.

Procuring items in Spain (car-less version)

About a week ago, we realized that to facilitate lazy parenting (i.e., sending the big kids out to run around with the U.N. crowd downstairs), we’d need to buy some stuff. Like racquets for padel (a game similar to tennis), in-line skates, and a balance bike for Seth. For those of you who know Seth, you’ll appreciate that he spent the better part of the week wearing us down by pointing to the big kids’ bikes and saying “I ride that. I big enough.”

So we located a Decathlon (reputed by our Spanish friends to be a purveyor of cheap sporting goods), and set off. Here’s what happened next.

How to get there from here, Madrid version: So one thing that the savvy traveler should know about Madrid (or at least, Alcobendas) is that there is no map on which bus routes are overlaid on an actual street grid. Most bus maps look like this:

And most street maps look like this:

Which means that finding out how to go from hither to tither entails extensive cross-referencing of the bus lines with streets. An hour later, we determine that the only bus going to Decathlon is Bus 157; we’d need to walk 20 minutes to reach a stop for it, and then would only take it about 200 meters before getting to the store. We decide to walk.

The warning: On Google, the store’s one “rating” was a comment along the lines of “I drove to this address, but there is no store there!” Heather insists, however, that she saw the Decathlon sign in the approximately correct location while out on a run with Seth. We’re ready to go.

Setting out: We pick up the kids at 4:30 from school, and after a brief detour to drop off book bags, pass an eerily cheerful 15 minutes walking toward the store. Then:

· We pass a traffic circle festooned with signs pointing to the Decathlon. Good news!

· We take the wrong exit from the traffic circle. Bad news.

· We locate a street map mounted by the side of the road. Good news!

· Although they include a “you are here” dot in the legend, the map curators have neglected to place one on the actual map. Bad news!

· Three kids hanging off Heather and opining loudly about where we are (the “you are here” dot, dumb Mommie!) means she cannot correctly read the map. More bad news!

· We walk down a busy road, ask a bystander for help, and are directed to a pedestrian bridge over an arroyo. Heading in the general direction of the store. Good news!

· Notice the area is covered with an unnaturally large number of odd-looking mushrooms. Remember that Madrid is in a desert, and it hasn’t rained here in almost 3 weeks. Mushrooms probably bad news.

· Cross bridge, end up in abandoned (and possibly toxic), completely fenced-off brownfield. Very bad news.

By now we are getting some serious bad attitude from the kids. We retrace our steps and realize that it will not be possible to get to Decathlon unless we want to enter the equivalent of a 3-lane traffic circle with semi-trailers but no sidewalks. Then, Jon spots the 157 bus stop. We are saved!

40 minutes later: The bus actually comes. Kids have in the meantime eaten/drank every drop/morsel of food we brought; they are still hungry and have turned on us. We pay $6.50 for a 200-meter bus ride, upon which time we disembark and go to the sporting goods store.

The store: Enough like being in an REI to cause Mommie a hint of happiness. Look on Seth’s face upon seeing his new bike also causes great joy. General behavior of kids does not.

Retracing our steps: Another $6.50 for reverse 200-meter bus ride. Same bus driver, who gives us a knowing smile. Walk back home. Feed masses, supervise homework, put them to bed.

Elapsed time in transit: 4 hours.

Seth’s comments upon riding his new bike.

Seth: Oh I can do it!

Mommie: Yes, you just push with your feet.

(A minute elapses as Seth toddles around on the balance bike)

Seth: HOW I GO FAST ON THIS BIKE?

Mommie: You push hard with your feet! And practice!

(A minute elapses)

Seth: This bike not go fast. I want new bike go fast. All done this bike.

Quick weekend update

So we’ve passed a relatively happy week here. The kids seem to be adjusting to their school: Nora is actively trying to speak Spanish in full sentences; to our great surprise, Seth has gone from screaming "I don't want to go!" to taking a shine to after-school sports and swimming; Nathan got a glowing report from his teacher (who insisted, to our complete puzzlement, that he is quite talkative in class). We found a kick-butt park yesterday in north Alcobendas (they actually had, among other things, a kid-sized ant farm) and a good pizza place nearby. Other than the slow-motion self-immolation of the Red Sox, life is good.

Just a few random comments from me (Heather) to catch you all up:

Ham: It is possible that from Jon’s last post you might have underestimated the amount of ham in the local grocery store. To get a sense for his, imagine the meat aisle in the typical U.S. grocery store. There’s one aisle (half-aisle) laid against the back of the store, and bacon takes up a few feet, ham takes up a few feet, then hamburger, steak, and chicken take up the rest. It’s maybe 15-20 yards of meat all told.

In our Spanish grocery store, here’s the situation:

· Bacon has one side of an aisle to itself

· Across from bacon, there’s a half-aisle devoted to what I call ham-bits – processed ham of all kinds, chopped ham, salami, chorizo, etc. This is my favorite aisle.

· Next aisle over – more ham. This time, however, it’s sandwich meat ham, mixed in with some turkey (ham flavored turkey lunch meat, that is). Why there’s a need for pale square ham sandwich meat here, I do not know, as the real shavings are easy to come by and very tasty.

· Next aisle over from that – “other” pork products + rabbit and chicken. In a tiny corner, there is some sad-looking (and odd-tasting) hamburger. Other pork products include pigs’ feet and ears, all bundled up nicely for easy sale.

· Lining the back of the store, as Jon mentioned, are whole hamhocks.

In total, it’s probably 60+ yards of meat – and that’s separate from the fish section, which we’ll catch you up on some other time (think giant dead toothy grinning fish at eye-level with your toddler).

The model U.N. People who knew me in high school might remember that I briefly belonged to the “model U.N.” club. It wasn’t a good fit. I don’t much care about international relations, am not a good debater, and didn’t do well on field trips (although I have maintained a lifelong curiosity about Burkino Faso).

Ironically, 25 years later, it turns out I should have invested more in those skills. Our complex is a little U.N.: Norway, France, Great Britain, Spain, the U.S. The kids from these countries have formed what we call the “Model U.N.” in the complex – starting at about 5 PM, the place is awash in children skating, cycling, scootering, and playing hide and seek, cards, and padel (a game related to tennis). We Americans free-ride off the parenting norms in Europe, essentially shoving our big kids out the door after school and then calling them in for dinner at 7:30. On weekends, the revelry starts at 2:30 and lasts until sundown. When Seth joins in, he is more often than not “adopted” by a sweet French or British girl, leaving Mommie to only read her kindle, relax in the sun, and play amateur sociologist as she watches the kids try to communicate rules/ norms and form international treaties with one another in broken Spanish. As one of my FB friends said, “The best playdates are the ones with no parents present.”

Tomorrow: Some adventures in getting from here to there.

Nathan rocks out

Nathan was dancing to one of his favorite songs.

Food, glorious food!

New foods that are playing a more prominent role the Starhill diet in Spain

I live in a household of (generally) not very adventurous eaters. But since I’m usually the cook and the food shopper, I have had a chance to take some small steps toward diversifying the food we eat to take advantage of what is special and unique to Spain. Here are the top 10 foods that have worked their way into Starhill stomachs.

1. Pan

See an earlier post for our testimonial to bread. Each day, usually about mid-morning, Heather or I take a 10-minute walk to one of several places that sell fresh baguettes. We buy two baguettes – total price a bit less than $2 – that lasts us through the day. Often as an easy dinner, we feed the kids bocadillos, which is what the Spanish call sandwiches that use baguette bread. Usually bocadillos are very simple – no lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, etc. – just bread and the filling. Popular fillings are chorizo (see #2 below), salami, tortilla (see #5 below), and US-style ham. After a day, these baguettes get very stale and are generally not useful, although it is nice to dunk stale bread into my gazpacho (see #4 below).

Right now we tend to get our bread from several different places. When we are going to the (big supermarket) Al Campo anyway, we pick up bread from them. Sometimes we go to a cafe that makes bread as well as lots of different kinds of cookies; these baguettes have an especially flaky and crunchy crust. Sometimes we go to another bakery that has a more traditional baguette with a smooth crust.

2. Chorizo

Spanish chorizo is very different from what I was used to calling chorizo in America (spicy sausage or ground meat). Chorizo here is pork sausage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorizo

It can be bought cured (no need to cook, just slide and eat or put in a bocadillo) or raw. Of the varieties that we’ve had here, right now we seem to like what is called chorizo Asturiano, which I think is popular in the north of Spain. It is pretty flavorful and spicy, but not in the same way that chili peppers are spicy. We get it at the Al Campo but also at a number of small neighborhood butcher shops near us. We recently found another type of chorizo that is native to another region of Spain called chorizo Jaen; it is supposedly a bit more mild (suave, in Spanish) and so will be worth a try.

3. Olives

I love olives, and they are abundant here in Spain. At the supermarket we buy the familiar green olives and the familiar black olives, but there are also many other varieties to try. My current favorite is called Campo Real (named after the area in Spain where they are from). They are a brighter shade of green than the familiar green olive, a bit softer, a bit larger pit, and more juicy.

It is very common, when you order a drink or a soda in a bar, to be served some sort of small munch-y snack. Potato chips are common (see ham-flavored potato chips from an earlier post). But I tend to ask for aceitunas (olives).

4. Gazpacho

Spanish gazpacho is a bit different from what one often finds in America. For one, it is smooth, not chunky. (Although it is also common to sprinkle some chopped peppers, onions, and even bread on top of a bowl of gazpacho.) But basically it is a chilled tomato soup, with cucumbers, onions, peppers, vinegar, garlic, and olive oil. I don’t remember having it much in the US, but I really love it here.

In a Spanish grocery store, it is common to find gazpacho in milk cartons (e.g., a quart size), in the chilled aisles near the vegetables. Most people just pour themselves a glass of gazpacho – it is more of a drink than it is a soup.

If anyone else in my family would drink it, I would love to make my own gazpacho. (Our apartment doesn’t have a blender, but I’d love an excuse to buy one!) So I buy the pre-made gazpacho in the milk cartons and it is very good. If I were to make my own homemade gazpacho, I would surely use the recipe of our friend Miguel from Aranjuez, which is a town just south of Madrid. His gazpacho is very yummy. Here I include his recipe (without getting his permission – I hope this is OK, Miguel!), in case anyone wants to try it at home.

Also, a word on olive oil. Although it is possible to buy other kinds of oil in Spain (vegetable, canola, sunflower, sesame, etc.), most people only use olive oil. As a result, stores sell two main kinds of olive oils. Extra virgin olive oil is what we usually buy in the states. However, the second kind (called suave, or mild) is a much milder-tasting oil. It can be used in cooking or baking where one doesn’t want to have the strong flavor of olive oil. You’ll note that in this recipe, Miguel uses suave olive oil. For cooks in the US, you’ll need to use extra virgin and perhaps add a little extra water or ice to make it a bit more mild.

Gazpacho, by Miguel Abánades

Ingredientes:

* 1200 g. tomates maduros (si la batidora es buena, no es necesario pelarlos, pero si no, necesitarás pelarlos y para ello se hierven unos segundos en agua para que la piel se separe fácilmente)

* 1/2 cebolla mediana (80 g. aprox) pelada

* 1 pepino pequeño pelado

* 1 pimiento verde pequeño sin las pepitas

* 1 manzana pelada

* 1/2 diente de ajo

* 1 taza (200 ml.) de aceite de oliva suave (NO virgen)

* 2 Cucharadas de vinagre (de vino)

* 1 Cucharadita de sal

Opcional: miga de pan a remojo en agua

Para prepararlo se lavan las verduras y se parten en trozos y se baten en la batidora hasta que quede fino. Con esta cantidad salen aproximadamente 2 litros de gazpacho. Hay que ponerlo en la nevera y servirlo muy frío.

(Hay gente que añade un poco de agua (o hielo) para que quede más suave, Y hay gente que para tomarlo añade por encima trozos pequeños de tomate, cebolla, pimiento verde, pepino y pan.)

Buen provecho!

5. Tortilla

Here I mean what sometimes is called “Spanish Tortilla” or tortilla Española, not the flat bread that is common in Mexican food. Tortilla is served in a variety of ways here – as tapas, in a bocadillo, as part of a big meal. I have always loved eggs, potatoes, and onion concoctions, of which this is another variety.

I’ve been ordering and eating tortillas a lot in various cafes, trying to reverse engineer how it is made. In my few attempts to make it at home, I think I am getting better. Basically, you fry up lots of potatoes in lots of olive oil. Then you mix the potatoes with egg and cook as you would an omelet. However, most tortillas are not quite done on the inside, so watching for how the egg is cooking is key. Flipping the tortilla is also a challenge, especially since you need to flip it when the egg is not quite set. They make special pans for this, but a trick that a Spaniard told me about was to use a plate. You put the plate on top of the egg/pan, flip the tortilla so that it is on the plate instead of the pan, and then slide the tortilla off of the plate back in the pan.

6. Rioja

What we’ve most enjoyed about Spanish wine so far is that you can get pretty good Riojas for amazingly cheap. At Al Campo, we’ve been sampling the selection of Riojas in the 2 to 4 euros range. Perhaps we don’t have the most refined wine tastes ever, but we really like these wines. In the US, it seems that one might want to spend $10 to get a half-decent bottle of wine, but here it is possible to spend considerably less and do just fine.

7. Nutella

Nutella on good bread is a common snack for the kids at school and one that I’ve come to love as well. If you don’t know what Nutella is, here is some info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutella

It is available in the states but is more ubiquitous and cheap here. Yum!

8. Fruit (melons, pears, plums)

Seth is in a banana stage right now, which means that we go through a ton of bananas. But we’ve been trying to sample other fruits that seem to be in season here. Our favorites so far are a variety of pear that seems to be peaking right about now and that is very tasty, some pretty and very sweet plums that are yellow, and melon. Apparently Spain is the world’s largest exporter of melons, and right now there is a variety that is green with white/yellow flesh that is sweet and very yummy. So we are eating lots of melon now.

From our Spanish friends we learned a new way to cut melon that makes so much sense that it is a wonder that we haven’t seen it or thought of it before. It is hard to explain in writing, but perhaps I can get Nora to draw a picture so that I can include it in another post.

On the subject of fruit, we also like that we can go to one of countless little fruit stores (fruiterias) in our neighborhood and buy an enormous amount of fruit for quite cheap.

9. Cheese

We were really looking forward to Spanish cheeses and had spent the past year sampling every kind of Spanish cheese that we could find at Whole Foods. It has been harder to find good cheese here than we anticipated. The grocery store has lots of cheese, but they aren’t labeled in ways that make it easy for us to figure out which ones we might like. In the US, we loved Manchego cheese. But here, since Manchego is a region, there are dozens of Manchego cheeses, with no easy way to figure out which ones we would like. The situation is perhaps akin to cheddar cheese in the US. Imagine a whole aisle of cheddar cheese, but instead of adjectives that are familiar (sharp, very sharp, mild, aged, Cabot, Vermont, etc.) there are adjectives that are more difficult to interpret (curado, semi-curado, or no adjective at all). We know the difference between oveja (sheep), cabra (goat), and vaca (cow) cheese. But even though we’ve tried a bunch, we haven’t been able to find the perfect cheeses yet.

We have recently been going to some of the local meat markets, which also have some cheese. We ask for cheese that is “fuerte” (strong) and then get some samples. So we’ve made some progress. But we think that we need to take a field trip to downtown Madrid, where there are some more well stocked cheese stories. So more on this in the future.

I will say, however, that we did find a little stall in a food market that specialized in feta cheese. They had about 10 varieties of fresh feta. I bought one and have been enjoying it on (you guessed it) a baguette. And soon I’m going to see if I can sneak in some feta cheese into our regular pasta with sun dried tomato meal and see if anyone other than me will eat it.

10. Membrillo

Just a brief note on this one. Membrillo is a kind of homemade Spanish jelly that is made out of quince. It is (yet another food item that is) yummy on good bread. You can find it in the US at Whole Foods – go to the cheese section near the Spanish cheeses and ask if you don’t see it. It is a bit more solid than typical jelly and thus is somewhat hard to spread. But a very nice taste combination is to take some cream cheese (or other soft cheese), spread on bread, and then put membrillo on top.

Two other food items that we are worth discussing here. First, those with knowledge of Spanish food might be surprised not to see ham on this list. Ham is a big deal over here. When you go into the grocery store, there is an entire section where there are (no kidding) hundreds of hams for sale, including 50 whole legs of ham hanging from the ceiling. There is also a chain of cafes and stores here called Museo del Jamón. Spaniards are extremely serious about their ham. In fact, there really isn’t a “foodie” culture here (that we have encountered) about anything other than ham. Most of the ham that people eat here would be called prosciutto in the US. We have been overwhelmed by the options for buying this kind of ham so far. We’ve had some that is probably rather cheap – it was rather chewy and almost like ham jerky – not a big hit. But we’ve been told that the better hams are very different and wonderful to eat. But does “better” mean buying a few grams of ham that costs 10 euros per kilo? 20 euros? 100 euros? 500 euros? Stay tuned.

And second, the fish here is amazing. Even run of the mill grocery stores have an incredible selection of very fresh fish of all sorts. Yes, we are smack in the middle of a large country – hours and hours from the ocean. But people here really like their fish and buy lots of it. Unfortunately the more adventurous fish that I might want to try (e.g., there are dozens of types of small whole fish that could crudely be called sardines that people eat here; there are lots of different types of mussels, octopus, and squid) wouldn’t fly on our dinner table. So I will have to continue eating fish when we eat out.

Lazy Sunday

We had a fairly lazy Sunday. It was a beautiful day -- mid-80s with a strong breeze. Fall has finally come to Madrid! It feels odd that mid-80s would mean fall, but that's really what it feels like after weeks of mid-90s; it even set off my (Heather's) craving for apple picking.

While it was nice to have warm weather this far into fall, by the end it was getting to us; when one is in the shade (or pool) the mid-90s in Madrid are not bad at all. But when one is walking to fetch the kids after school (4:00) under the beating sun, the mid-90s are pretty awful.

In any case, after pancakes and apartment clean-up, Nora and Nathan went with Jon to a soccer match; Seth and I took the bus around the Alcobendas loop. Such is Seth's dedication to buses that he waited patiently almost 40 minutes for the bus to arrive, never complaining once. After regrouping for lunch, Nora went down to the courtyard and spent the next 5 hours running around the complex with friends; Seth napped and then went downstairs to run around with Nora's friends, whom he adores; Nathan went to a friend's birthday party, at which Jon gathered all sorts of good intelligence about the Jewish community in Madrid.

Also, Seth threw a pretty good tantrum at breakfast today -- it brought back memories at Nora at her toddler best. This one was triggered by something so small it wasn't noticable by the rest of the family; the content mainly included Seth writhing on the floor, screaming "I can't get up! I can't get up! Help me!" for about 20 minutes. Occasionally he'd rise to his knees and then fall back down only to writhe and scream some more. I can only imagine what our Norwegian bachelor neighbor must be thinking.

Finally, since we've been here, Seth's gotten in the habit of saying the same thing to us at bedtime. Based on similar data from our older children, one might imagine he'd say something like "I love you to the moon and back" or "Come back to check on me and leave the light on and the door open" or even a plain "Night night Mommie." But here's what Seth actually says:

"When I wake up, I want tiny money, and more tiny money, and more tiny money, and more tiny money. And breakfast."

Every night, like clockwork. The tiny money is actually a centavo -- 1/100th of a Euro. The EU learned its lesson from the penny (which costs far more than one cent to produce) and the centavos are indeed tiny.

Shopping lists

So this morning we did a shopping run to Al Campo. As Jon made the weekly family shopping list, the kids decided they wanted to do the same. Here's what they came up with. The one below left is Seth's.

Key:
Wheatabix: Charming European cereal with cardboard-esque taste.



Ham-flavored chips: Yes, they make ham-flavored chips here in Spain, and we can attest that they are VERY good.

Swimsuit: Nora and Nathan are now signed up for swim lessons.

Sweater: The kids at school all wear blue sweaters on cool days -- thus our kids put them on the list.

I believe that the hamburgers, hot dogs, fries and cheese puffs are self-explanatory.

Adjusting....

So this week is our second week of school, and it’s caught up a bit with us and the kids. This week we also began the round of "after-school" (i.e., 5:00-7:00) activities that seem like they are a standard part of Madrid life. Currently, the kids have a Spanish tutor Tuesday and Thursday; after-school sports on Wednesday; and swimming on Fridays. On top of that there’s about a half-hour of parentally-assisted homework for Nora each night, and a coterie of kids who demand her presence downstairs at about 7 PM. We are still working out the schedule, but we seem headed to the typical Madrileño situation (dinner at 8, bedtime about 9:30 for the older kids). Here’s the family update by person:

Nora: Seems mostly unfazed by the new school, city, and language. She is eager to learn Spanish (last night proposing we all speak only Spanish at dinner some nights) and is trying out new words and sentences. As her teacher explained, “children who like to talk a lot learn the language the fastest, because they have the biggest incentive to do so.”

Nathan: Not as sure that living in Madrid is the best idea. The thing about Nathan, as the gentle reader may not know from his sweet demeanor, is that if he’s having a hard time, you’re having a hard time. So far he’s been neutral with regard to school and after-school activities, but there’s signs we may be in for a rough road ahead.

Seth: Is probably having the hardest time. And, he’s highly verbal, so the second a negative thought pops into his head (typically starting about 30 minutes before school), he is quick to report “I’m upset. I don’t want to go to school.” – and he repeats frequently. He still sobs at drop-off, but his teachers do report that he has a good time at school once there. This was confirmed by Jon, who ran an errand in the school office one morning (nearby his classroom) and heard the screaming stop after about a minute. Seth has been requesting information about how to say things in Spanish (crane, car, leaf) so there’s some hope he’ll come away with the basics of language.

We thought for a brief moment that Spain might’ve turned Seth into an omnivore – he was eating chorizo and hot dog last week. But this week he seems back on the wagon.

Mommie: Spent the last week hibernating with a 25-page grant proposal. It was mostly written by the end of last week, so mainly I spent 4 days reading it, re-reading it, editing it, and whatnot. Luckily I have great collaborators who helped a ton, but it was still a total drag to read the same thing over and over and over (and to realize how many errors still remained even after the previous read….). Am looking forward next week to the “real” start of my sabbatical, and trying to figure out what to do first (clean up my hard-drive? Clear email? Start in on my reading list?).

Jon: Somewhat beleaguered by coping with family logistics during Mommie’s grant-related leave of absence from household life. I’ll let him add his own embellishment on this topic.

In other news, we are starting to plan for some trips around over the Jewish holidays. If anyone has suggestions, please let us know! We are limited by not being able to travel outside of Spain (no residency cards yet) or by plane or train (Heather and Nathan’s passports are being renewed) for the first trip, at the end of September.

Thoughts from Nora (9/8/11)

Today was no different than than the last few days of school, because the average number of classes a day that are in Spanish is (gets out calendario, counts the number of Spanish-language classes each day) are about 5 a day. On Fridays we only have four Spanish-language classes because we have one period less. It's Shabbat, so we get out early.

The average number of English classes is about 2 a day. And on Fridays there's still 2.

I do not understand the Spanish language classes.

M: Are you understanding any more since you started school?

N: Un poquito.

N: We got this little notebook that says the name of our school. You open it up and it has personal information (datos personales) and then you can either glue your schedule on the back of the page that says the name of the school, or you can glue it somewhere else. And on the agenda, you write your homework and the day that it's due. And the agenda is cool because when you get to the end of the month, say when it's March and April, when it ends you put notas, and on the next page it shows a few pictures of kids from the school from the year before. And after that it says words to know at the bottom.

M: It's almost bedtime. Condense your thoughts.

N: Fine. At the pool today, I didn't really do anything except at the first, Bella my friend wasn't there. And so I just swam a bit and came out. And later she rang our intercom and then I came down and didn't swim so much except to get our ball. And then we just played a few games and then I went up because it was dinnertime.

What we love about Madrid (Heather and Jon version)

1. The people. Whether it be our new friends who take a day to show off their city, or the cashiers at Al Campo, the people of Madrid are uniformly warm and tolerant of our terrible Spanish (and aren’t horrified at our at-times ill-mannered children).

2. The weather. Sun, sun, sun, sun. Madrileños tell us that by November, the weather will drop off this “favorites” list, but for now, it’s been wonderful. Even the heat of August – which caused most of Madrid to flee for the north – didn’t feel that bad compared to the hot, humid New England summers we’re used to. 95 degrees and no humidity = no sweat (no pun intended). In addition, no matter how hot is gets during the day, the evenings and nights are wonderfully cool.

3. The landscape. Madrid is physically quite beautiful, with gorgeous 18^th-century architecture downtown, desert ranches on the outskirts of the city, and mountains in the distance.

4. San Sebastian de Los Reyes. While we live right on a beautiful park that stretches on for blocks (complete with multiple playgrounds, flowering trees, fountains, rose gardens) our real love is the little city to the north. There, streets are filled with butchers, jewelers, clothiers, chinos (convenience stores), bakeries, fabric stores, cervecerias (beer-erias), cafes, fruit stands, magazine sellers and of course, banks; there’s everything from upscale evening gowns to 2-Euro t-shirts. This goes on and on for blocks – we’ve only just started exploring.

5. Spanish language. There’s just a lot of words that are better in Spanish than English – e.g., “paraguas,” which, as our friend Miguel explained, can be strictly translated as “for water” or “stop water.”

6. Our urbanizacion. So we got lucky with quite a nice apartment, but we got even luckier with the set of buildings we’re in. There’s a pool and, more importantly, a lifeguard who serves as the social coordinator of the complex, getting kids to play together, introducing parents, and whatnot. Most days we’ve been able to send Nora down to the pool by herself to swim and run around with her friends before dinner; Nathan’s a bit too shy to do so, but perhaps next summer.

7. Pan. The bread here is just amazing. Every day we pick up a baguette or two, and it feels like we could live on bread alone. Pan with nice olive oil, pan with good butter, pan with chorizo (yummy Spanish sausage), and (it is hard to top this) pan with Nutella.

Things we don't miss about the US:

1. Driving. We love love love that we don't have to drive (and park!) and can walk everywhere.

2. US Election news. We are voting for Obama anyway, so it sure is nice to be able to ignore all of the shouting, posturing, and news coverage of US politics. (HCH: It’s just nice to avoid the GOP altogether).

3. Making school lunches every day. The kids' school feeds them a 'real' Spanish lunch every day, which is a 3 course meal (first course is usually some salad or beans or pasta; second course is a meat or fish; third course is fruit) as well as snacks during the day. We send in a very small snack that they eat in the late morning. But it is a joy not to have to make full-fledged lunches each day.

4. Meetings. Our work lives were generally consumed by meetings. It was rare that we had days or even hours when we could work without going to lots of meetings. Being on sabbatical, and being 6 hours ahead of east coast time, means that we hardly have meetings, and rarely have any email until the late afternoon! What a treat.

Today’s thoughts, from Jon

1. In search of...

We were given a very specific list of school supplies to be bought for each child, and of course the list was in Spanish. Even with Google Translate, it was very difficult to figure out what we were supposed to buy. For example, one item was listed as 2 sobres de plástico tamaño A4 para deberes. According to Google, this translates to 2 plastic bags for homework size A4. Plastic bags?

With the help of a very nice clerk at our favorite grocery store (a la Target), I was able to get just about everything. Even the items that I thought would be very difficult, such as 4 cuadernos franceses milimetrados, marca Claire Fontaine de 96 hojas, tamaño cuartilla (a very specialized notebook) and Flauta dulce Höhner (a musical instrument – a recorder) was right there, in huge bins, waiting to be bought at the store.

But there was one special notebook that Nathan was supposed to get for math that eluded me: 1 cuaderno de cuadrícula grande (8x8 mm), con margen, tamaño cuartilla (matemáticas). Basically this is a small notebook (size cuartilla) of grid paper (cuadricula), but with pretty large (grande) grids, 8 by 8 mm. We tried grocery stores – several large chains – no luck. We  went searching for speciality stores that carry school supplies and paper products (papeleria). ¿Hay papeleria cerca de aqui? We tried to call papelerias that we found on the Internet or in a phone book, but of course this is Spain and no one answers the phone when you call.

So today I set out on an expedition to find this cuaderno. Put on my backpack, provisioned myself with water and food and a sturdy pair of shoes, printed a google map of papelerias, and hit the road. cuaderno de cuadrícula grande (8x8 mm), con margen, tamaño cuartilla or bust. Nathan’s teacher had told me this morning that other parents were having trouble finding this notebook as well, but I was up for the challenge.

To my surprise, I was able to find this notebook at the first store I went to – our local Al Campo grocery store! Somehow they either had resupplied since I was last there two days ago and/or they had heard from parents that this was something that they needed to have. Mission accomplished!

2. ¿Está usted en la línea?

In what I hope (somewhat skeptically) will be my last paperwork/bureaucracy errand for a while, I had to go today to an office to officially sign my children up for school. The way things work here is that all kids have to sign up to attend a school during the official school sign up period (which is usually in January for private schools and March for all other schools). Forms are submitted indicating students’ preferences for schools, and students are placed based on such things as proximity to the school, siblings in a school, where the parent works, etc.

Even though we had already chosen our school by March, we were not allowed to sign up during this enrollment period, since we were not yet legal residents of Madrid. So now that we are legal residents, we had to sign up for schools in what is called the ‘extraofficial’ enrollment period, which is now. Everyone who has moved to Madrid since March or who has had a chance in circumstances had to enroll at this time. So with passports and our empadronamento (residency document) in hand, I went to this office. Note that this office is only open from 12 to 2 pm each day, by the way. I arrived a few minutes after 12 to find a group of people loosely clustered around an unmarked door. Every so often, someone would come out of the office and someone would go in. I stood watching for about 15 minutes, trying to discern what was going on. Was there a line or an order? It did not seem that there was. Some of the people who were close to the door didn’t make a move when there was an opening – yet they seemed to be waiting for go into this office? And others who seemed to be a few feet away from the office made a break for the office when there was an opening, and no one seemed to be upset. I also noticed, in the 15 minutes of observing, that there were now a LOT of people ‘behind’ me in the hallway, seemingly waiting to get into this office.

I just about called Heather’s cousin at this point, seeking an explanation for cultural norms around this type of ill-structured line. For example, was everyone doing as I was, looking around and keeping a mental list of where he/she stood in the line? For example, I knew that I arrived after the guy in the suit and the guy in the izod shirt, but I arrived before the young guy in the t-shirt and the blond woman. Is this what we were all supposed to do – keep track of where we were in the ‘line’ and proceed in the proper order? Or was this just a free for all? I also almost asked someone, Are you in the line? Where is the end of the line? etc. But I didn’t think that revealing my ignorance would work to my advantage in this situation.

My theory after this event is that Spaniards have trouble with unstructured lines and are unwilling or unable to spontaneously impose structure on a line. Whenever you go anyplace that might involve a line, it is highly structured. In the post office, the bank, the deli counter of the supermarket, and all municipal offices, when you walk in, you immediately see a machine that dispenses numbers and a video screen that shows which desk one should go to when a number is called. Everyone congregates around the video screen, waiting for the magic ding dong sound that indicates that a new number is about to be posted.

Back to the school office situation, in the absence of one of these ding dong number machines, it seemed like people just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t see any aggressive jockeying for position, surprisingly – no one was trying to take advantage of this unstructured and rather lax scrum. Except for me, that is. I noticed that a man next to me had taken a position within striking distance of the door, so that when it next opened, he was able to get in first (not by rushing in, but a very casual stroll toward the door). When he did so, no one seemed to be upset or miffed at all, and no one tried to casually stroll a bit faster than he did and beat him to the door. So once he was in, I took up his position in this ‘on deck circle’, waiting for an opening. When the door opened, I casually strolled to the door, noticed that no one was casually racing me there, and went in. Paperwork was completed; all seemed to be in order. And when I left the office, no one seemed miffed at my move, and the ‘line’ seemed to be even longer.

3.  Immigration update

On Monday we went to an Immigration Office and successfully applied for our residence visa. We are not supposed to leave Spain for the next 45 days or so, until our card is ready for us to pick up. If we need to/want to leave, we have to get a special letter that allows us to re-enter the country. I really don’t know how people navigate this immigration bureaucracy on their own. Without our high priced immigration ‘specialist’, I don’t think we would be able to figure any of this out. Even simple things – which office to go for, for what – are completely opaque here. Perhaps this is the rest of the world seeking revenge on the US, for (what I’ve heard are) incredibly tedious and byzantine immigration procedures. Or perhaps this is just very normal Spanish bureaucracy.

4. Other minor successes

a. We are now on the email list for each grade at the school! Everyone seemed to know information that we didn’t, somehow. (For example, there is some sort of barbeque/fundraiser on this Sunday at the school, but we’ve been having a hard time finding out what it is and when it is happening. But I did manage to find a parent in the know today and get the scoop. The event is called a kermes – an interesting word that I couldn’t find in the Spanish dictionaries but Google again came through.) But now we receive the all-important news from the school, such as the lunch menu and an invitation to (what appears to be) a back-to-school night in a couple of weeks.

b. Nathan and Nora had very good days today at school and seem to be adjusting quite well. Seth had another difficult drop-off today and then had a rough afternoon. But based on my drop-offs at the school, Seth is currently one of 3-4 problem children in the class in terms of drop-offs. At least he is not the only one screaming for his Mommie when I leave (although he is the only one who is screaming for his Mommie in English).

c. We had another wonderful, glorious late afternoon/evening at the pool - Seth playing very nicely (even self-sufficiently for about 5 minutes), Nathan swimming and kicking the ball around, and Nora running around with her buddies. I even had time to have some brief grown-up conversations with Heather and with some of the other parents. We will be sad when the pool closes for the season after this weekend.

Seth's first full day of school

M: Seth, what did you do today at school?

S: I played with Hannah. And we played a game. A long game. I drank juice in the afternoon. And do Skype because it's the afternoon.

M: Wait, I have some more questions. What did you NOT do at school today?

S: I didn't do sunscreen at school.

M: And what else?

S: That's enough questions.

M: Can I have one more question? Did you take a nap at school?

S: I didn't take a nap?

M: And were you happy?

S: No, I was sad. I was happy at 6:00 and then sad after nap nap time.

M: So should you take a nap tomorrow?

S: A SMALL nap tomorrow. A LITTLE nap afternoon.

M: OK, it's time for bed, buddy.

School uniforms!

Above (or below, or wherever BlogSpot puts them) are some pictures of the kids in their uniforms. Note Nathan's little-boy model stance, and Seth's unusually cooperative attitude toward camera (no funny face, no screaming about Nora touching him).

The uniforms are cute, but Mommie already had to repair the stitching on a pair of pants -- and then subsequently, while trying to "iron" the pants with a pot (you see, we have no iron, and a heated pot seemed like a good substitute), melted it back into the molten gray plastic heap from whence it sprung. Jon is at Al Campo procuring its replacement now....