Googly Eyes and Picnics

 

 I started off this week by adding googly eyes everywhere.  Its quite amazing how ridiculously cute they can make anything.  They have increased my love for my previously normal cellphone

 a hundred fold. 

You may have noticed my lack of pictures of the children. Problematically, they hate having pictures taken of them, but Jose was quite happy with the one with my hat.  He allowed me to keep it. My friend Mati left to work as a chef on a cruise ship, and we make meatballs for a goodbye dinner before he left, delicious. Take note of my John Deere apron.

 In my opinion, picnicking is an art form that I have mastered.  Let me specify, cheap picnicking is an art form I have mastered. only three items are required, four if you want to get Fancy.

1. Nutella

2. Bananas

3. Baguette

(4). 2 euro Red Wine

When I travelled Europe for 9 months two years ago, I can safely tell you that this constituted about half of my diet. Yum! Today was a lovely day, I picnicked in beautiful Retiro Park with a number of other au pairs, and met some new people!  There were an incredible number of Finnish au pairs, considering the population of Finland is about 5 million. We then rented some boats, and went out on the small lake in the park. A lovely Saturday. 

We made quite a sight as a bunch of foreign young women

Retiro Park

I really love the colors of this building. Europe!

Castillos

Its a three day weekend here in Spain, Friday was Hispania day, celebrating Columbus discovering America.  Like Columbus day in the US, its not celebrated much, but everyone gets the day off which is nice, there is also a military parade, but I didn't make it to that.  Actually, we tried, but I discovered that riding a motorcycle in the rain is extremely exciting only for

the first 10 minutes while you can still feel your fingers.  Last weekend I visited the countryside!  Its not to far from here, we went by car and visited a number of castles.  Let me tell you, castles here are about a dime a dozen,  you can hardly turn a corner and there will be some 2000 year old fort.  Jeepers.  It was fantastic to get out for a while, and the countryside is lovely here.  

There are acres and acres of olive trees, which are beautiful and sculptural, also crocuses grow wild everywhere! They are beautiful flowers. These are the flowers whose stigmas are used to make saffron, the most expensive spice. I didn't pick any to roast, for you are supposed to gather in the morning, when its the least oily, then you have to dry it and its allowed to ferment slightly.  I would like to try to make it sometime. 

By this castle there were a dozen 500 year old windmills that they used to make flour.  In Don Quixote he thinks that windmills are enemy nights, and he attacks them. 

I made Spanish Tortilla!

Mati in a Castle

  I have made plans to go to Oslo for 4 days!  Its relatively easy to travel within Europe, and I want to take advantage of the opportunity while I can!  I have a friend studying in Norway, another who lives in Oslo, and hopefully I will be able to visit a few of our distant relatives.  I am also looking forward to the cold.  Who knew I would miss it so much?  When it rained yesterday I was over the moon.  Its October, but it doesn't feel like it here.        

Parks and Squid!

 Today I drove the car 6 times, I repeat, 6 times, without stalling.  !  I think I deserve chocolate con churros tomorrow for that.  Churros have quickly become my reward for just about everything. 

   In other news I tried squid this morning! Way better than I expected.  My friend Mati and I explored the botanical gardens, and concluded all of the prettiest plants are from japan.  

Mati at the Botanical Gardens

 I didn't have classes for a couple of days so I got to do some exploring.  I went to Casa del Campo, Madrid's enormous park.  Its huge.  6.6 square miles. 

It used to be the royal hunting grounds and then was converted to an urban park.  This provided a much-needed break from the endless noise of traffic that most people are oblivious to, but it drives me insane. 

Casa del Campo

Madrid has a good number of really great parks, and I spend lots of time in them.  During the nights the parks are a very very popular place to meet up with friends and get drunk on (mostly)cheap wine mixed with cola. They call this tradition Botellon. You get drunk here first, then go to discos, etc. There is no end to the nightlife here.  Incredible.  Some friends and I tried to go to a techno party the other night, but it was already full with 10,000 people.  No joke.  There was another 5,000 partying outside the club. 

I want to live here!  Gardener's shack in one of the gardens

 

 Spain is going through a unbalanced time, unemployment is very high (25%), the national banks need to be bailed out, and the government itself may  need to ask the EU to bail them out as well.  There is a rather right-wing government at the moment, and to budget they are trimming many social services.  Due to many of these factors, there have been many protests around the congress lately, some becoming violent.  Students and young people (whose unemployment is at about 50%) have been protesting off and on for quite a while. There are also metro strikes often, the three weeks I've been here there have been 4 separate days of metro strikes.  Lots of unrest, and its very apparent here.  

 

Last but not least!  This one is a disco.