Skiing in the Mountains of Madrid

For our one year anniversary of living in Madrid, I ditched Brian and headed into the mountains with a couple of gal pals (don't worry, Brian and I went out for a nice dinner that evening to celebrate).  The place we girls headed to had gotten a meter of snow in the past week, and Tep was itching to get away from the city and into the mountains.

I can't begin to tell you how gorgeous it was.  I'll let the photos speak.

Hopefully you can tell we had fun on our skiing excursion!  Thanks for a fun day chicas :)

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Thoughts from Brian....One year later

This weekend marked our one year anniversary of arriving in Madrid.  I'm not sure I could sum up our last year in one post (hence the last 70 some odd posts) but I can say for sure that it has been a blur.  Life shifted from an already blistering pace straight into warp speed.  

 Sitting in the Atlanta airport, ready to leave for our big adventure to Spain - March 5, 2010

Baggage Claim and arrival in Spain, March 6, 2010 (sorry for the blurriness) 

We've come a long way in one year.  We arrived in Madrid after packing up our lives in Iowa and not sleeping for our last 48+ hours in the US, not speaking a lick of Spanish, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.  Now, city life and apartment living seems like the norm, speaking Spanish is a part of life rather that a constant looming disaster, and the correct time for lunch and dinner is 2 and 10, respectively.

Kate asked me to do an anniversary post and seeing as she is currently cooking banana bread (of which I will eat most of it) I had no grounds to say no.  I came up short when trying to think of something real profound or heartfelt or funny or insightful to write about so I decided to make a brief list of one or none of those things regarding our last year in Spain.

1. Despite the illogical and chaotic appearance of the round-about (1-5 lanes wide), once you've learned how to use them, they may be one of the best ideas any civil engineer has ever had.

2. Have coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast, eat 2 large plates of food with dessert and coffee for lunch and finish the day with copious amounts of alcohol and fried foods between the hours of 10-1 and you can still drop weight as long as walk EVERYWHERE, substitute your beef for fish and smoke a pack a cigarettes a day (kidding, on the smoking part anyway).

3. Living in a place where the winters aren't mind-numbingly cold for 3 months straight actually does make sense.

4. The one thing you can absolutely count on when learning a new language in a different country is that you WILL sound like (and possibly look like) an idiot on a daily basis, that's part of the deal apparently.

5. The next time you encounter a customer service agent in the US, thank them.  You don't know what you've got until you've lost it.....customer service is not a standard feature in all countries.

6. We really are the only country that cares about American football.......and I miss it.

7. Spain's Two-buck-chuck is AMAZING! The Spanish apparently save all of the best wines for themselves.

8. Sangria amplifies the Kez and Mollie party factor by at least 10x.  It has no effect on Brad.

9. Regardless of where you're traveling or where you live, a lazy day at home still feels like a million bucks.

10. A year away in Europe still feels like a long year away from family and friends.  We miss everyone back home (or wherever you are these days).

I think I'll leave the next year's worth of posts up to Kate so until 2012, all the best.

(Last weekend, after going out to celebrate our wedding anniversary)

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Chamonix: part deux

Because the snow wasn't great, we decided that instead of a third day of so-so skiing (for me) and snowboarding (for Brian) that he would teach me how to snowboard.  He has wanted me to learn ever since we got married, but I was hesitant after growing up & learning how to ski.  When I'd pay 50 bucks or more to get on the slopes, I'd want to take full advantage of paying for that, and spending the day on my butt or with my face in the snow was a less than appealing option.  

This is the gondola that we took the second day to get us up to the top of one of the mountains.  It fit 60+ people, and was a bit scary for me, but very cool!

But, since we had the time, and the snow wasn't nice enough to really feel like I was missing out on a great day of skiing, I set to work to learn.  Thankfully, there aren't photos that exist of my more embarrassing moments... falling down right when I got off the lift, doing a crab crawl because I couldn't get to standing up, aerial 360's as I spectacularly fell down, and the time I did a huge face plant on my way to the lift that knocked all the wind out of me and made me feel like I had run into a brick wall.  

But, lucky for me, I had a great, and very patient teacher, who talked me through it all, and after about 3 hours, I pretty much had it down!  I was turning like a pro (ok, maybe not a pro, but I wasn't falling down) and making my way down the hill while using both edges, front and back.  There was this moment, all of a sudden, when I just 'got' it, which actually surprised me, but was really exciting!  I'm looking forward to trying it again, hopefully when there is better snow, and getting to enjoy it with Brian.

Notice how excited I am that I'm not doing a face plant?

That afternoon, we took some time to head up a different mountian for a bit of sightseeing.  We were close to Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe & the entire European Union.  In this photo, it's the big one to the right.






Here's a little map about our trip to the top of Europe:

I could honestly tell that the air was thinner up there, and it was c-o-l-d.

Here's the view of the Chamonix Valley, with the building that we took that gondola to. 

 Liiiiiitle bridge.  See the mountaineers in the background?

I think this was taken right after I stopped myself from saying "I'm on top of the world!"  That would have been nerdy.  But almost true.  I do have a completely new respect for people who do mountaineering... I just took a couple of gondolas and an elevator to a really high point, though we saw people trekking below us.  That would take a lot of strength, fortitude and effort, and for this trip, I was happy with the easy way up :)

And, after spending an hour or so looking around, taking pictures, and having a snack, we headed back to town.  And ended the day in the best way possible :) Enjoying dinner with my love while listening to live music pouring out of the bar across the street, and soaking in everything around us.

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