Week three in Madrid

Hola a todos!

Blair and Eimear here. We have finally created a blog so that you can live vicariously through us, experience the ups and downs , but mainly the ups, of living in Espana! By the end of the year (or, mejor, by the end of this blog entry), you'll all be buying tickets to come visit us here in glorious Spain.

We arrived about 3 weeks ago, with no place to live, no money, and no real idea of what we're doing here. So who wants to visit? After a week of searching for apartments (the most hilarious being a semi-crooked, hacienda-like little number on the back side of the train station), two days of a very Spanish-run orientation (meaning totally unorganized and slow-moving, but with wine at lunch), Eimear's two stolen passports (damn you, Ikea!), an LSAT for Blair (it was in English, but it might as well have been in Spanish), and two weeks of work (where to begin?) we're settled in, mas o menos.

We are working in opposite ends of the city, so we take the metro every morning to work from our piso (apartment, for all you non-Spanish speaking people). The metro in Madrid, like the subway in New York, is quite an interesting place. You can see many strange and unexpected things (Ecuadorian flute players, people selling bootleg dvds, and my fave the Romanian accordian players). However, immigration is a relatively new thing in Spain since Franco wasn't a fan of non-Spaniards, that whole dictatorarship thing. However, now there is a huge influx of immigrants from Latin America and Africa. Well obviously the best way to check their papers and whether they are legal is to have frequent raids in the metro station with dogs and 20 police officers and rope to create a corral/holding pin in the corner. We have witnessed this multiple times, and while it was somewhat amusing (like a weird movie), it's also kind of scary and troubling. Spain definitely has some things it needs to work on! Don't even get us started on the bureaucracy and lack of organization of the Comunidad de Madrid, oh to work for the Spanish government! It really makes you appreciate the efficiency of the States.

That's enough ranting for now. Tomorrow's blog (gross word) will be more exciting, promise! We are going to bed so we can be fresh and cheery for the wee ones in the morning, even though half the time they don't understand a word we are saying!

Buenas noches y hasta luego!

Bleamer