Update

As unnamed child's fever spiked to about 104, we decided it was time to check out the local hospital. The end of the story, gentle reader - lest you are worried - is that all is fine. I had a very successful conversation with the taxi company, who promptly arrived at our home and 20 euros later dropped us off at the children's ER of a local hospital. Several decent conversations later, we were examined by a doctor. Strep test negative, other stuff negative. They pulled some blood and did some tests. It turns out that two of this child's 3 ailments (pink eye and high fever) are related - we had a case of adenoid virus. Took a cab home (the whole adventure took about 4 hours) and then continued the ibuprofin. Last night we had one more vomiting episode, but today unnamed child did not vomit, started to eat, and seemed more like we had turned the corner.

Other than the fact that my child was very sick and miserable, I have to confess that I found the whole adventure in the ER to be fascinating. The Spanish health system (at least based on this one experience) is excellent. We got in fast; we were seen by very high quality providers. When it was time to leave, it appeared that we could just walk out the door. Do we need to check out, I asked? Necesitamos pagar (do we need to pay)? The answer was no - everything was free. In addition, it was very interesting and exciting to try to communicate and to be somewhat successful. I had been worried about the possibility of health problems - how we would deal with them. So part of my excitement at the success of this episode was that it all worked remarkably smoothly. So if it ever needs to happen again (which I hope it won't), we are ready.

And while I'm on a roll, I had another minor victory today. It turns out that our apartment complex comes with TV service. We just needed to get a converter box (which I bought today for 20 euros) and voila we have TV! Nothing great, but certainly with a sick child this is a good thing. I'm beginning to realize that the key to navigating Spanish bureaucracy (is this true for all bureaucracies?) is to figure out the right question to ask and then determine the right person to ask this question. I got lucky on both counts today with the TV!

So, we seem to have weathered this storm with the sick child. Heather and I are just loving it here so far. Today I had the sensation (yet again) when swimming that I think is unique. It is 95 degrees here and hot but very dry. So after getting out of the swimming pool, the water evaporates so quickly off one's body that you become quite cold! But once you dry off, it is hot again. But because it is so dry, we haven't felt the need to turn on the A/C in the apartment yet - just don't need it.

Domingo 8/14/11

We were anticipating some struggles during the weekend/Spanish holiday (Monday), owing to the fact that the whole family is easily bored, and because life slows down considerably here on the weekend. But that’s hardly been the case.

Suffice to say that one of our children (name withheld to protect the innocent) is a festering mess: insomnia, lice, pinkeye, stomach flu, fever. The kid has spent two days on the couch and it doesn’t appear to be over yet. We obtained the name of a good children’s hospital and taxi company in case there’s a turn for the worse, but we’re optimistic it’ll only last another 24 hours. The child has become combative with the siblings again, which indicates we’re almost done.

Life for the other two kids (and for the festering mess while not sick) has been pretty good: Play at the park, shop at the mall, play ball in the park, take bus rides, swim. Nathan, who could barely float over the 4^th of July weekend, can now swim the width of the pool in both breast stroke and crawl. He splashes everyone else in the pool and makes various gasping sounds while doing it, alarming the life guard, but he gets across that pool (thanks Grossman Camp!). Nora is still a fish, and has found some friends to play with at the pool. Seth refuses to enter the pool (an extension of his extreme reluctance to bathe, most likely) but plays ball in a nearby basketball court. Seth is also holding up fairly well in the total absence of backhoes – we’re in a fairly new section of Madrid, and there’s no street construction to speak of.

We are still without internet, plunging us back into early 1990s (but without the good music). Apologies if one of you reading this is sitting in our in-box; we have to walk 15 minutes to the mall to get free wireless. It’s trite to say, but we really don’t know how people survived without the modern conveniences.

Nathan has been asking all sorts of interesting questions about the banking system, Euros, what happens in Spain, and whether his teachers will speak Spanish to him. Here’s some questions we made up for the blog:

What is your favorite thing about Madrid?

Nathan: My new basketball. I also like Pans’ French fries (Pans is a restaurant with fairly gross fries).

Nora: Swimming in the pool.

What’s the most surprising thing about Madrid?

Nora: There are kids at the park at 12:30 at night.

Nathan: There’s one of my favorite restaurants here!

Are you looking forward to school?

Nora: No. At first, I won’t be able to understand people.

Nathan: No, because I can’t tie my shoes.

What do you miss most about the U.S.?

Nathan: The Red Sox. The Red Sox winning. Isaac R.

Nora: Everything.

What do you NOT miss about the U.S.?

Nathan: Robbins Park.

Nora: Getting scrapes and cuts. I don’t get them here.

What do you know about Spain?

Nathan: There are a lot of parks. We get to go swimming almost every day!

Nora: That there are no backhoes.

Stay tuned for details of sick child's Monday visit to the ER (sick child is fine, just has the mother of all Spanish viruses)

Heather y Seth in Madrid.

We (Seth and I) made it to Spain. Google has courteously started speaking Spanish, the weather is hot, and we spend most of our time shopping. To accomplish the latter, we are getting pretty good at asking the sales force things like "We have mop clean in store?", "Do you need dried tomatoes?" and "I don't need a purse" but the result has been relatively satisfactory -- we ended up with cleaning supplies and sun-dried tomatoes but no plastic shopping bag.

No internet in the casa, so we're pretty hamstrung. Sneaking off to the local grocery store/mall which does have internet, but then we spend all our time googling things like the Spanish version of nit-pickers and trying to find train schedules for the dreaded Sunday, the day when NOTHING (save IKEA) is open. We've discovered that 3 crabby kids in 100 square meters does not equal fun.

More after yet another grocery run....

First entry from Madrid

Today (Sunday/Monday August 7/8) was such an eventful day – I feel I need to write about it while it is still fresh. Not sure when I’ll get to post this, as I don’t have Internet access yet. But is 10:15 pm Madrid time on Monday, and I’ve been up since 8:30 am Boston time on Sunday.

The trip to the airport did not appear to start well. First of all, it was pouring rain in Arlington, making packing of the car a somewhat wet endeavor. Second, due to weather, US Air significantly our flight from Boston to Philadelphia, making it impossible to catch our connection from Philadelphia to Madrid. However, the US Air representatives were incredibly helpful and put us on a non-stop Boston Madrid Iberia flight. With out 5 big bags to check, 2 smaller but very heavy carry-ons, and two kid backpacks, Nora, Nathan, and I pushed two heaping luggage carts from one terminal in Logan, through the parking lot, to the international terminal. The Iberia reps were also very helpful and didn’t make us pay for our extra checked baggage – we had already paid online with US Air.

The flight was surprisingly short. Nora and Nathan did a wonderful job of being good travelers. My only complaint is that they didn’t sleep (this was a red-eye flight). When sleep time came, Nathan rested for a bit but then needed to go back to using his iPhone. Nora couldn’t stop watching (even without sound) a movie on the cabin TV. I probably had about 2 hours with my eyes closed, but no sleep. Nathan did fall asleep as he was listening to his iPhone and ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep. Nora did not really even rest.

Madrid’s airport is very easy to navigate; customs was smooth sailing. We bought some euros, checked email (boingo wireless at the airport), and ate a bit. We then loaded our huge mound of luggage into a taxi (it wasn’t easy finding a taxi that could hold all of our luggage and us as well) and went to near Nuevos Ministerios and the Real Madrid stadium to meet with the relocation office.

As seems to be typical of the way things are done in Spain, everything was happening at the last minute with our apartment rental. The relocation agency was on the phone and email with the bank to set up a bank account, with the rental agency to set up the lease paperwork, etc. We waited for about 90 minutes at the relocation agency for everything to be ready – Nora and Nathan were amazingly good and even energetic, listening to music and dancing. We left our luggage at the relocation place and then took a cab to the rental agency headquarters which was somewhat near the Prado. Paperwork was signed (imagine a 10 page legal-ese seeming lease but in Spanish) and keys were exchanged. (They handed me two sets of keys, with (no kidding) about 10 keys in each ring. I don’t yet know what all of the keys are for, but there is one for the main entrance to the urbanizacion, one for the entrance to my ‘portal’ or building, one to our apartment, one to the mailbox, one to the paddle ball court, a garage-door opener for the parking garage (which we don’t need), and a few more keys that I’m not yet sure what they do.)

Back to the relocation agency, picked up our luggage, and took a cab up to our apartment. (By the time, Nora was having trouble staying conscious.) Lugged our huge mound of luggage from the curb through and up to the apartment. Our flight landed at 7:15 am, and we were in the apartment by noon. All told, this was remarkable progress.

The relocation agent and the rental agent went through a checklist of what was in the (furnished) apartment – the lease had a long list (e.g., 10 forks, etc.). Nora fell asleep and Nathan did for a short bit. The apartment is really nice – very clean and new feeling, small but just the right size for us. Small kitchen, pretty big living/dining area, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a nice porch. This place is a good bargain and just what we were looking for.

After letting Nora sleep for a couple of hours, I worked hard to rouse her. We then went in search of food (on foot). The weather was typical for Madrid right now – hot (low 90’s) but very dry. Very bright and intense sun. We walked about 15 minutes to an area where there are a ton of restaurants. It was about 2:30 pm, which happens to be when Spaniards eat lunch. Typically you get a daily menu (at these places, for about 10 euros) with a 2 course meal and dessert. The kids had hamburgers off a kids’ meal. My meal really wasn’t good at all.

We then walked 10 minutes or so back to our local grocery store and got some minimum supplies for dinner and breakfast. The kids were very good about walking the 15 minutes back from the store carrying groceries. It is nice that this walk is through a very nice park with good shade.

Once back, we went down to the swimming pool in our complex. It was a hot, clear day, and the pool was wonderfully cool. There we met the English-speaking lifeguard and our first neighbors – Brits with 3 girls, the two youngest of which are Nora’s and Nathan’s age. Instant playmates and very friendly parents – we hung out by the pool for several hours. In addition to a nice pool (which is 1-2 meters deep) there is a kiddie pool, a small basketball hoop, and a slide in a sandbox. It is a very nice hangout for this small urbanizacion – there probably are only 32 apartments in this complex.

A quick and lite dinner of pasta, read a few pages to the kids, and then they collapsed at about 8:45 pm. I did some unpacking and now am ready for bed! As we flew into Madrid, we saw a gorgeous sunrise, and the sunset was just as wonderful. A good beginning to this year!

Update: Had some jet lag issues with the kids sleeping last night. Nora woke up at midnight and was up and needed some company until 1:45, and then Nathan was up at 2 and needed some hand holding until about 3. But the good news is that everyone then slept until 11 am! So at least we are rested....

Things to know, from Nora

This is from Nora. We are in Spain now. It is very different here. I feel weird being one of the few people who speak English. Almost everybody is speaking Spanish. I’m so tired because the Eastern time is 6 hours different from Madrid. I miss America already. I slept until 11 today!!!!! That is the latest that I ever slept. My apartment has a pool and I made two friends at the pool. They speak English. Their names are Bella and something I don’t remember. The pool is 7 feet deep. I can touch in the shallow end because it is 3 feet deep and I am 4 feet. There is a little baby pool that is warm and only a foot deep. When you go in the shallow pool you swim around a bit and then you jump in the deep pool the deep end because it is really cold. If you get in the deep pool first on hot days, it feels really good. Yesterday was the first day that we swam in it and I went to the deep pool first. So I don’t know what it feels like to go in the little warm pool first on hot days. We missed breakfast today! We got a grocery shopping cart today.

Heather’s first blog entry.

I feel a little self-conscious blogging – I’m not sure how much to “share” (being a good New Englander) and it also feels like a guilty pleasure to take time away and write about my own goings-on (another blessing from my New England heritage). But here goes.

For my first post, I thought I’d answer the top 5 commonly asked questions about our sabbatical.

1. Why Spain?

I wanted Spanish-speaking, Jon wanted Europe, Spain was the intersection of the two sets.

2. Why Madrid?

We considered both Barcelona and Madrid, but two reasons led to the latter: Catalan is spoken in Barcelona (see #1 above) and because I have a cousin, Mary Prendergast, in Madrid. Mary is married to Manolo and they have twin almost-3-year-olds, Liam and Gabriel. All to say, good playmates for our kids and someone to counsel us about Spanish bureaucracy.

3. What are your goals for the sabbatical?

Here’s what I wrote on my “Reasons for sabbatical” form at work: “My work has me watching hundreds of hours of U.S. math lessons. Invariably, some of the instruction is conducted in Spanish. I’d like to learn enough Spanish to allow me to watch and understand the mathematics instruction in those tapes.”

What I didn’t say on the form is that if I stayed in Cambridge, my life would’ve continued pretty much as is (meeting, email, meeting, email, email, daycare pickup). The beauty of Spain is that I’ll have no meetings until about 2:00 Madrid time (8 AM US time), and email traffic should also be slow during the day as well.

Finally, we’d also like the kids to learn some Spanish and live in a different culture. If they know Spanish, then when they decide to take French in high school I won’t have to convince them that French is fairly useless.

There’s a longer set of personal goals for the year, but I’ll write about them later.

4. Do you have a place to live yet?

Yes! Exactly 6 days before leaving, we procured a place to live. 100 square meters of love, about a 20 minute walk from Seth’s school. We’ll send the address/photos when available. Given that Jon and I have a habit of being, um, over-prepared, the Spanish housing schedule was a little bit of a shock.

5. Do you speak Spanish?

I took 6 years of Spanish in high school/college and never became competent in the language – I speak toddler-level Spanish (Porque? Porque? Porque?) and can read only at about a K level (“El oso come el pez.”). Jon does a little better than I – he did the high school coursework, and has been taking classes all year to brush up on the pluperfect tense of “eat good tapas” “drink sangria” and “take a long mid-day nap.”

More later!

Suitcases are packed!

Just finished packing 6 suitcases, each one is about 48 pounds. This is what we'll be living from for a year!