Notable

We are winding down the school year as well as our stay here. Jon and I are both in denial -- I convinced him that we could easily pack and clean the entire apartment the day before we leave, so that we don't have to disturb our otherwise perfect lifestyle with suitcases and the like. I STILL owe our loyal readers (i.e., the grandparents) a long story about the local marching oboe section. However, before getting to that, here's some more scattered thoughts about our last couple weeks/last week here. Sort of organized by theme....

Things I am proud of:

- I managed to memorize neither my cell phone number nor my home number this year. Little slips of paper with these things written on them = wave of the future.

- Our kids speak Hebrew with a Spanish accent

- Our kids speak Spanish. It is like a miracle to me, I swear, every time I hear them chattering on with their friends. Seth can't conjugate a verb to save his life and has a Texas accent, but he can at least get by and the other two are regular locals. Our Spanish friends have in fact gleefully commented "No accent!" about the older ones. Which I take to mean "Not only no American accent, but none of that terrible South American accent either!"

Part of the miracle is that our kids now know how to do something that we have had very little hand in teaching them, and they are in fact far better at speaking/reading Spanish than either Jon or I. I feel lucky to have reached this point so early on in our kids' lives.


Things I will miss
- Montes bread. And the occasional verbal brawling that take place between the owners and clientele.

- Being able to order beer with breakfast. Not that I do, but it's just strange to me that neither Dunkin Donuts nor Starbuck's has beer on tap. All the similar institutions in Alcobendas do.

- Loooonnng social gatherings. Some friends organized a picnic for us a couple weekends ago, and it was just a lovely day -- feed kids, watch them play in mud, sit in shade, talk, eat, talk some more. No wonder Americans never feel like they never get a chance to know people -- we don't spend enough time together doing nothing.

- The generous and wonderful Jewish school community. Especially upon leaving, it's become even more clear that we've been so lucky this year to land in a fabulous school, one where everyone (teachers, aides, office staff, principal, parents) have been so kind and thoughtful toward our family and children. Just as an example, Nora was sick for 4 days last week, and she received numerous emails and phone calls from friends and teachers. There's also been many parties and presents for kids leaving the school, which is very touching.

- We've also been impressed by the quality of instruction at the school. There's nothing like reading the Torah (or listening to oral stories) to get your kids thinking and talking (and occasionally debating) about important issues. The math, as well, has been particularly strong -- Nora's book is well-designed, conceptually grounded, and even (I think) challenging for her, in terms of requiring some out-of-the-box thinking. Nathan has flourished as well, we think because the teachers have seen that he's far ahead in some subjects (especially math, where he occasionally likes to try Nora's homework) and met him where he's at.

Miscellaneous

- Seth can't seem to keep his girlfriend straight. There's a few blonde preschoolers at the pool, so it's easy to see how difficult a task this would be for a 3-year-old. Carolina, the object of his affection last Friday, appeared at the pool a few days later. Jon pointed her out but Seth shrugged, commenting "That's not Carolina, that's Olivia." Carolina speaks Spanish and Olivia speaks French, so they're kind of hard to confuse, but oh well.  Seth went back to playing with the boys, ignoring Carolina even when she came over to talk to him. Maybe this is how he's chosen to mend his broken heart (see last Seth-related post).

- So upon hearing some friends talk about scheduling something for the "afternoon" -- and it being already 3:00 PM, I finally inquired about what constitutes morning and afternoon here in Madrid. Morning = before 2; afternoon = what my parents could call a Late Dinner -- perhaps 6 PM.

- We have a new observation to place in the sociological/phenomenological category titled "Why plan ahead?" School lets out on a Wednesday--tomorrow, in fact. Our kids have after-school sports on Wednesdays. For weeks, we asked the kids' after school teachers what the last day of after-school would be, and for weeks, they replied "The last day of school, of course." Last week I thought I'd give it one more shot, and asked the director whether we'd have class on the last day of school. Here's what transpired:

Me: Do we have class next week?
Andy: Of course!
Me: But it's the last....
Andy: Oh wait. Wait here.
[Goes into office, comes out 5 minutes later]
Andy: No after-school sports next week

This was decided, by the way, AFTER Seth and Nora's classes had let out. So there was no proper picture-taking or whatnot [though Nathan got one done for his class].

- In a similar vein, we got the graduation notice about 2 weeks ago. Just a note saying there'd be graduation, where it would be held, and that's pretty much it. Jon went up and engaged in extensive intelligence-gathering ("are we supposed to come?" "What goes on at these things?"), which led to the conclusion that the whole school is supposed to show up at said graduation. If we'd been better at writing on the blog this year, there'd be a whole entry on city- or school-based social events organized on the premise that "things are the same this year as they were last year, so we're not providing details because you should already know." This seems to be a common occurrence here. 

- As an aside, a few days ago the graduation time was actually moved to a bit earlier -- Spain is playing in the semi-finals of the EuroCopa, can't have anyone missing that.

- Speaking of the EuroCopa, I mostly haven't been watching the broadcast, but can always tell when Spain scores, because for a few minutes it sounds like I'm sitting in the middle of a soccer stadium. A loud cheer rises in unison from the city, followed by honking horns, hollering, fireworks. Why pay the big bucks for a ticket when you can watch on your large-screen TV and get pretty much the total experience at home?