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 18th-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.
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