December in Madrid

December was a busy month! We spent the first week in Germany & Vienna - I'm working on those posts right now, sorry to make you wait, but I'm pretty sure no one is holding their breath.  After returning from that 10 day trip, we hit the ground running for the holidays.

My friend Tep, on the left, asked us if we would host a benefit concert at our house.  She invited about 25 of her Spanish & international friends, and we had a great evening drinking hot cider, eating christmas cookies, and listening to some amazing music that she performed!  (btw, we purposely did not dress to match... guess it's just the colors of the season)

I spent a full day preparing, it was great fun.

 We thought it would feel more "cozy" with a fire in the background - see it on our computer?

The next weekend, we had a celebration dinner & white elephant gift exchange with several of our friends from church.

This was the best surprise of the month!  A college friend & sorority sister, Meg, flew into Madrid for the day.  She had some interviews in town, and we got to enjoy lunch together before she flew back to Asturias, en route to Korea.  This girl is a world traveler.

We had a really quick drink with an old family friend, Hellen, who has been studying in Madrid for the semester.  Her dad visited for the week, and it was fun to meet him as well :)  It was an interesting dinner language mix of English, Spanish & Portuguese. I'm sad to see her go, and bummed we didn't get to spend more time together!
During December, I also had a couple of cookie exchanges, brunches with friends, and christmas parties, but no photos from those - just good memories and a few extra pounds...

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Noche de Sushi

Tonight, our landlady, Catherine, and her daughter, Sophia invited us over to learn how to make sushi. Thankfully, she lives next door, so the trip to her house was a short one! For the last couple of months, we've been trying to find a night that works, and after all the craziness of the holidays and our travel schedule, we finally got around to it tonight.  Here's a few photos of the fun we had this evening learning how to make sushi :)  We thought it was pretty hilarious that we had a Swede, and Swede/Spaniard teaching japanese cuisine to a couple of americans.

 Sophia teaching me how to stuff & roll the sushi.

Today, I spent a bunch of time re-organizing all of our photos - it was quite the trip down memory lane!  I plan on doing several posts from the last month - New years, our anniversary, Christmas, and trips to Germany & Austria!  With all my cookie baking (and lets be serious, cookie eating), I've been too busy in the kitchen to keep up with the posts.  Things are slowing down again, so I'll write up another batch of things for you to read and edit some pictures for you to enjoy in the new year.

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Monday Humor

We just got back from a week traveling - 2 days each in Munich, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Salzburg & Vienna.  Blog updates to come on that, as well as our trip to Berlin before Thanksgiving.  But for now, a little something to help you smile this Monday morning.

From 22 Words

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Kate-ism

Just in case there are any folks who only read the blog and avoid or dont use Facebook, I thought I'd repost this note that Brian wrote up on FB. excuse our poor grammar or spelling; these were written on our iPhones. "So Kate keeps my life interesting and I just experienced a Kate-ism that none of you will be surprised in the slightest to hear. We're currently touring Bavaria and last night we went to possibly the most famous beer hall in Germany, the hofbrauhaus, which is nothing short of sensory overload with more that 500 patrons, live brass band and overserved locals in lederhosen. At the HB haus you share your table with whoever happened to be there at the time and you drink the night away with beer that comes 1 liter at a time. Next day we train to garmisch, a quaint ski town 1.5 hours away, and while in route to our hotel we happened to pass German couple that was sharing our table the night before. As we pass the couple Kate erupts into a excited slew of words consisting of "beir" and "HB haus" and "table" while pointing at us and them repeatedly until they too remember us despite the copious amounts of beer we all had. At that point we all realize that we didnt share a common language and really did have much to say to one another and I realized that no matter what corner of the world I travel to, Kate will invariably run into someone she knows."

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FYI - Hotel Reservations

When we went to Berlin last week, we arrived at our hotel in the central part of the city, eager to check in and begin some sightseeing.  Unfortunately, we were treated rudely from the moment that we asked to check in, and were told that the hotel was overbooked and that we would have to go to another hotel, which was outside of the central part of the city.  I will not go into how poorly we were treated, or the pathetic offerings and lies that they told us, but suffice it to say I was livid.

I emailed my wonderful mother that night after we were checked into our second, not-very-nice hotel that was outside the city center, after I was about ready to cry from our treatment.  She has been in the hotel industry for a very long time, and I asked her what we could do about the situation.  I'm writing this post as an informative one for all my readers, because if I had known what my rights were, as a guest with a confirmed reservation, I would have acted much differently.  I know that this list references the US hotel market, but I would assume that there are several items which would be relevant internationally.


From Jeri T, hotelier extraordinaire:

The standard in the hotel industry is if they overbook you: 

*       The hotel will arrange for accommodations at a comparable hotel

*       The hotel will pay for one night's room and tax at a comparable 

*       The hotel will provide transportation to a comparable hotel *       The hotel will pay/reimburse guest for at least one phone call to guest's   home/office  

This is what we have to do if we walk someone - typically we have a "walk rate" with a nearby hotel but sometimes we have to pay more to walk a room and we accept that because we overbooked the hotel.  You should not have to pay for both nights - they should pay for one of the evenings as they are the ones that caused the problem and especially since you have a booking confirmation. They should {also} arrange for you to stay at a hotel nearby especially since you anticipated walking to most of your attractions.

I hope this helps some of you - I know that I always feel better when I am informed about things like this!

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