Madrid to Ikea

Last week went smoothly. I spent most of the day teaching and that’s about it. I’m now teaching 2^nd grade math twice a week, which is different. The kids are crazy, and I don’t speak the language to calm them down very well. It’s getting better though and I think eventually I’ll invoke the same respect that the other teachers get.

On Friday after school was out, Lola took me to the bus station in her car. We found my bus and then I was off on a four hour bus ride to Madrid. When I bought my ticket I chose the widow seat, but when I got on the bus a girl was already asleep in my seat so I had the aisle. The trip wasn’t bad, I got through all of animal farm and still had time for nap before arriving in Madrid. The only interesting part of the ride was that as our bus pulled into the station it hit another bus. I think we knocked the mirror off of the bus but no one was hurt.

At the station Jairo picked me up and took me to the congress. I didn’t know what congress was exactly but I figured, and packed clothes for, that I would be seeing the political party in action for a couple hours. As it turns out congress is a meeting and I was got to see Mark Finely talk. After the meeting we went back to the bus station picked up Melani and drove out to Jairo’s house. Saturday we went to see Mark Finely again, ate lunch at Jairo’s and then hit the town. They showed me all of the cool buildings and statues and we walked through the main streets and plaza’s.  There was tons of really neat architecture to see and I tried to take a lot of pictures but my camera was going dead. In one of the main squares I saw a kfc and a starbucks. I wasn’t hungry but I decided to get a latte. Unfortunately they don’t have those in Zaragoza.

When we got hungry we stopped at a bar (it’s what every restaurant here is) and got some very tasty food. It was cod covered in cheese and then deep fried, it wasn’t healthy at all but it was delicious. Apparently back in the 1800’s the current president’s political party was started in that bar so that was interesting.

Sunday we slept in some and had crepes for breakfast. Then we drove out and I got to see my first castle! It was very cool to walk the ramparts and get to look out of the arrow slits. After the castle is was off to the bus station and back to Zaragoza.

Another good thing about going to Madrid was that I got to meet Carrie the SM from Southern who will be working in Madrid. It’s always good to know more people in different places!

Monday was a good school day. Lola was sick so I sat in and supervised her classes, the kids behaved and all was well. After school I need to go to Ikea and get a pillow and some clothes hangers. Last week Lola had told me what bus to take and where it generally was. I think I forgot part of the instructions though because my bus made everyone get off at the cemetery. “No problem,” I thought, “she said it was just past the cemetery. I’ll just walk through.” This was my bad decision of the night. I walked and walked and walked and thought I was done with the cemetery when it started again. Then I noticed the wall that ran all the way around the cemetery. I could see the Ikea sign floating in the distance but there was a 12 ft wall blocking my way. I had already come so far I decided to find a way over the wall. After another half mile of walking I came to a metal gate. I used the hinges to crawl up and then walked like a cat burglar on top of the wall until I found a place where it was low enough to jump down. A brisk 2 mile walk through a random forest, a run across the freeway and I was there! I bought what I needed and some Arizona tea. J The bus ride back took a quarter of the time that the walk over had.