Transition

So, we've been living in a hotel for about 3.5 weeks now. The place is pretty nice, and we've gotten as comfortable as you can, living in a hotel. But tomorrow, hopefully, we'll sign the lease on our apartment! We ended up deciding to move into Sweden. The plan is to sign the lease and move in tomorrow, then head out of town again to enjoy a 5-day weekend celebrating Holy Week. It's a big deal here, and a lot of people are taking this entire week off to go on vacation.

We're heading up to the north east part of Spain, to the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona. But before we leave, I promise to provide some pictures from our last trip! See, thats the frustrating part about living in a hotel - I don't have our primary computer which has all my nifty design programs, which would make posting and writing easier. We packed most of our stuff in an air shipment, and it's been sitting in customs for about 2 weeks at the airport. We can't get our stuff until they have a location to deliver it (which is good, since it would be difficult to find space for our 2 - 4'x4'x4' boxes). Hopefully, and we're crossing our fingers, we'll get the box by next week. If not, we've been doing great without that stuff for 4 weeks, and I'm sure it won't make a difference if we need to wait another couple of weeks for it!

Here's what the Wednesday before we left looked like at our house when the movers came (when we had already moved our furniture to CF):

Weird to think about packing up your life for 2 years? We've also already decided that there were things we put in our storage unit that we probably should have just thrown away...

I'm excited to move into our place, show everyone our pictures, and get acclimated to our new neighborhood!

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International

Last week, I was invited to an awesome Bible Study with some other women from around the city. A kind woman, Sandra from Mexico, offered to help me get there. She sent me the link to the correct train station and which stop to get off of. I was so happy for her help! The morning of the study, I went to the station at 8, bought my ticket, and walked to what I thought was the appropriate platform for the train. Something didn't feel right, so I attempted to ask one guy, in Spanish, for help, and he proceeded to say "I don't know anything, I need help!" in a British accent. I asked a Spanish-looking woman for help, and she mercifully answered in English, but her answer wasn't really too helpful. So I ran up to the area where I bought the ticket, flagged a train attendant, asked him where to go, and he pointed at a train that was just pulling into the station - I had to RUN across the station, down an escalator, but I thankfully got on the train!

I got to the station where Sandra had promised to meet me, but I didn't see her car. She had my cell phone number, but I didn't have hers, so I just waited. She calls: "Kate, I'm in front of the station, where are you?" "Sandra, I'm in front of the station too, where are you?" "Oh Kate, which station are you at?" "I'm at Las Rosas" "I'm at Pozuelo! You're at the wrong station! Hold on I'll call you back." Thankfully, the station she was at was only 2 stops down on the same line from where I was, so I was able to hop back on the train. I met her at the station and the rest of the day went MUCH smoother.

At the study were a lot of awesome women, mostly from the states, and we spent some time just talking and drinking coffee before sitting down to start the study. They began a new book the day I arrived, so my timing was perfect. I made some friends, and I'm looking forward to getting to spend some time with them in the coming weeks.

What made this day so international was that after the study, Sandra, from Mexico, invited anyone who wanted to go to lunch to go with her. I accepted, as well as a woman named Alexandria from Columbia, and we dropped off our American friend who had just moved from Germany 2 weeks ago, and we proceeded to go to an Asian restaurant. We ordered sushi (Japanese), pad thai (Thai), and cashew chicken (Chinese), and proceeded to speak in Spanish, English, and I taught them some Chinese words.

After lunch, we went to Sandra’s house for coffee and Belgian chocolates (her husband is from Belgium), and Alexandra drove me home. I finally returned from my 1 hour bible study at 5 pm that day, 9 hours after leaving the hotel that morning.

Pretty fabulous.

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Little by Little

Most days, I have several ideas that come into my head that I think I want to blog about. But then I realize that they’re not complete ideas, and such fragmented pieces probably wouldn’t communicate what I really wanted it to. And then I get frustrated with the formatting of this blog. Fonts, colors, pictures, all out of order, and not up to the standards of my visual tastiness, dissuading me from wanting to go work on it when I really don’t like the look of it. Sigh, another task for another day.

Then today, I spent most of my morning today catching up on my RSS feed (I started with 276 new posts, I’m down to 125 left as of now). So then I read words that are inspirational, funny, enjoyable, challenging, and encouraging. I love checking up on my friends and their lives, as well as reading things from people I hardly know, who write to express themselves and to leave their mark on the world.

Have to post this cartoon, love it kaci.

Lately, I’ve been wanting to just re-post several hilarious/interesting/thoughtful comments of others that have left a mark with me, but the problem is, I’m inundated with so much information each day, that once I think I want to post it, I file it back in the ‘ole memory to post later that day/week/whatever, and then get sucked in by the next blog. And the next one. And the next one. Then I go check Facebook. And then I remember that I still have to live real life. But I’m still not sure what that looks like for me here, yet.

Today is day 16 of Spain, and day 2 of Brian being at work, and me slowly trying to figure out what to do with my days. I have a long list of things to check off my to-do list, some only taking minutes, and others taking a lifetime, but I’m ever so slowly getting started on it.

Yesterday morning, I was worried that I’d quickly fall into the blues because I was alone, really, for the first time here. So I slipped on my running shoes and headed out into the streets of Madrid, observing people and places as I ran. And what Bliss! It felt great. It was a sunny, gorgeous day, and I happened across an incredible park, about a ½ mile from our hotel, in the middle of the city. Fountains, a 1200M rubber running track, a driving range, chipping greens, futbol pitches, plants, people, and well designed open space. I ran and ran and ran and then walked and did lunges and stretched, and loved the glorious day. I even found a churros place on the way back, and stopped there later for some tasty treats as a reward for my hard work.

Too bad I forgot that I hadn’t really exercised since last September, so today, my legs feel like immovable logs, and my stomach hurts like I did 1000 sit-ups. Though I only did, I think, 4. Thus, finally the time to write, and catch up on things. Still, I’m thankful that even little lessons continue to be true. When we were taking our language classes, we would ask our teacher Adolfo numerous questions about the language, about learning faster, and how to get better at words and verbs, how to understand people, etc, and he would answer them, but usually followed with “poco a poco” - little by little. “It will come, a little bit by a little bit.” We were pretty ambitious in our classes, and were able to cover a lot of ground, mostly thanks to Brian’s previous Portuguese language mastery, as well as our background of high school and college language study. But still, we wanted to learn more. We wanted to leave class with our heads aching because there was so much information being pushed in. Usually I felt that way, but Brian didn’t always share the same mental freeze until the last few days, when we were learning verb tenses, and spending most of our class conversing in Spanish. Still, Adolfo made a good point.

It’s great to push ourselves, but it’s (life, culture, friends, language) going to come to us, little by little. I may be as ambitious as I want in trying to do photography, blogging, exercising, language learning, working, taking classes, studying, socializing – but life here moves a little slower, and sometimes things only actually come to fruition through time. So, here’s to not becoming complacent in a daily routine, but for striving for growth – knowing it may not come as quickly as I hope, but realizing that what is right will come. Little by little.

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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!

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Heading across the pond

As I write this, Brian and I sit in the Atlanta airport, having left Ross & Amber’s house at 4 am to catch our way too early flight, arriving in Atlanta with an 11 hour layover. We very productively used our time by sleeping at gate E40 for a couple of hours on the floor, and then proceeded to wrap up all the last minute things that we didn’t have time for this week.

I had planned to use some of this time to update the blog with some photos – so before we packed up our computer, I spent a lot of time transferring files. Unfortunately – I didn’t check to make sure that the files all re-saved correctly: thus – no pictures for this blog post. But we’ll get around to that sooner or later I’m sure. Our computer is now somewhere over the Atlantic (we hope), and we’ll have it once we find a permanent place to live. Until then, we’ll do our best with pictures, and I’ll continue to work on my blogging skillz (I promised I would, right Amber?)

But for now, we wanted to let everyone know that we have moved out of our house, found great renters, stored our furniture near CF and shipped the cool stuff to Spain, said some hard goodbyes to very meaningful people in our lives, and began a very exciting journey in a foreign country. Thanks for coming along for a virtual ride with us – we’ll try our best to keep it enjoyable!

We leave the states in approximately 3.5 hours from now – we’ll arrive in Madrid tomorrow morning, check into our hotel, and crash for a while, I’m sure. Next week we’ll begin our intensive language classes, search for a piso (apartment), and try our best to get a new life set up abroad. Stay tuned!

I’ll leave you with the quote of the week:

(First, let me set the scene – Saturday, we were in CF all day, Sunday, we drove back for church & house cleaning with my mom, Monday, Mom & I traveled to Fort Dodge to see some of my projects and to Rockwell City to see a cousin, and that night we were at Ross & Amber’s to crash at their place, since we have no furniture at our house)

Amber: “So, I can’t even keep track of you guys, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Brian: “Oh, we’re flying to Chicago in the morning at 6, but we’ll be back by 2.” (We had to pick up our visas from the Spanish Consulate, which took all of 10 minutes. We spent our other 3 hours in Chicago hanging out at Millennium Park)
Amber: “Wow! That is SOO Beverly Hills!” (If only I could demonstrate the inflection in her voice – think of a character from the movie Clueless and then say it again in your head. It’s funny at least to us Iowans. And funny after all the travel. And now that I read it all again, maybe it was just funny to those of us who were there. Oh well, I’ll get better at story telling someday.)

We live a crazy life.

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