One Big Week

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for a week! We flew out from Des Moines International on March 5 at 5 Am (thanks to Ross for taking us to the airport), and arrived in Madrid at 9 AM on Saturday. It didn’t really seem real that we had just wrapped up a life in the States, and were beginning a new life across the ocean.

First, I want to say thanks to everyone who made it to the going away party! We were amazed at how many people were able to make it, and felt so blessed to have you all there. We truly are lucky to have such great friends – in Ames, in Iowa, and around the country. It was hard to say goodbye, but a fantastic way to spend one of our last nights in the states.

Pint night at Olde Main

This week has been busy, and great. After arriving on Saturday, we spent a little bit of time walking around the city to get our bearings, and then went to bed and slept for 16 hours! It’s amazing what your body needs when you haven’t slept in 48 hours and you experience stress like packing up your life. We took Sunday slow – mostly hanging out in our hotel – and got ready for the week. All week, we’ve had intensive language class in the mornings, followed by going out for lunch, and then a variety of afternoon activities. Monday, we rested a bit more, then went out with one of the other Deere Ex-pats for dinner, Tuesday and Wednesday we went apartment hunting, and Thursday we went to the police station to register for our residency cards. Friday, Brian visited the factory, I did a little shopping, and we went out for a huge dinner.

Finally Arriving in Spain!

I’m sure I could expand on each one of those days and explain a lot more, but for now I’ll keep it brief.

Apartment Hunting – It’s tough! We want to live in the city – more specifically in the Retiro area. Retiro is to Madrid as Central Park is to NYC. A haven in the middle of the city. We need a place that is furnished. Plus we need a place with parking for our car. Plus we want air conditioning. And a balcony. And a pool and a gym would be nice too. BUT…. I think it’s going to be impossible to find this kind of a place. But we’ll try. So far, there are 2 apartments that we like a lot – but each has a couple of fatal flaws. Piso (apartment) No. 1 (code named Sweden – the landlord is Swedish) – doesn’t have AC. But is right across from the park, is stocked with IKEA furniture (did I mention I LOVE IKEA?) and has a great floor plan. Piso No. 2 (code named Boston – the people who live there are relocating to… you guessed it, Boston) doesn’t have parking or a balcony. But it’s on the top floor with lots of natural light and has a great layout. We’ll see if our real estate agent is able to come up with some new places to visit this week. I hope so.

Language Class – It’s going well! Brian definitely has the advantage in the language because of his living in Brazil and speaking Portuguese for 6 months. It’s difficult for him sometimes to not use Portuguese words (for example, he wants to use muito instead of mucho) but he can at least put together whole sentences and communicate what he is thinking. For me, I can understand most of what is said, but when I try to say something, I usually get about 2 words into a sentence and then realize that I don’t know the rest of the words to complete my thought. Our vocabulary is growing quickly, and just being here has helped us to grasp the language quickly.

Class is just the 2 of us - we have one teacher for 2.5 hours and then another for 2.5 hours. We drink a lot of coffee :)

Food - We love food. Sometime I’ll do a post about the timetable here, but not tonight. It’s a LOT different than what we’re used to, but we’re adjusting. For now, I’ll say that we’ve eaten some amazing food, and have loved most of our meals here.

Church – Today we tried a church! Julie & Jesse gave us some great recommendations, and we’re going to make our way through some of the options prior to deciding where to land. Today we tried out Mountainview. It was a 40 minute train ride to the NE of the city, so quite a hike for us. We really didn’t know what to expect. We walked in, got some coffee, awkwardly looked around to see if there was anyone who was going to try to come and talk to the new people, but decided to just take a seat and try to make friends after the service. We quickly realized that the family sitting in front of us was someone who Brian had talked to through work – it was his assigned “buddy” in Spain, who was to help with some of the transitioning! We talked with Dan for a bit before the service, and he quickly alerted us to the fact that there were at least 4 other John Deere couples or families at the service! After the service, we ended up meeting many of them, and then heading out to a huge lunch with them, which was absolutely awesome. One of the couples we sat next to at church was a JD couple from Brazil, and they chose our lunch spot – a Brazilian churrascaria. SO DELICIOUS. Essentially there is a huge salad bar, and then a bunch of guys running around with skewers of meat, cutting off the pieces that you want. We ate a lot.

Getting Chicken Hearts - one of our favorites.

Caiprina, Brazillian Wine, Cocina, & feijoada - All Brazillian Favorites.

Brian would eat at places like this often when he lived in Brazil, and we went out to one in MN with our families a couple of times. We decided that we will definitely be returning there.

Ok, I’m impressed if you made it this far through the post :) Enough for today, I’ll try to be more consistent about posting throughout the week! I think we’re finally getting over our jetlag, but we’re each fighting off a cold, so we are pretty tired at the end of each day. But we like making sure that our friends, family, and adoring fans are kept in the loop of a life in Spain.

In Plaza De Espana this afternoon on a walk.

Buenos Noches!