November

Aside from my trip to Cologne, November was quite an eventful month. We went on a school field trip to a really amazing underground cave, some of Jenny's Dutch friends came and visited for a weekend, and we went to an incredible concert here in Madrid - amid other highlights!

La Cueva de los Enebralejos

In what was perhaps the coolest field trip I've ever been on, we took the niños to an amazing underground cave about an hour from Madrid. There was an interpretive center built on top of the cave access where the kids learned to make arrows - they had been learning about prehistory and hunter-gatherers in class.

Some of the kids making arrows - and trying to kill us with them!!

The cave itself was absolutely amazing - I realized I had never been into a cave before. One of the reasons we went to this particular cave is because it houses a few prehistoric cave paintings! They were hard to see and we weren't allowed to take pictures, but still pretty cool to see something left behind by our ancestors thousands of years ago!

A picture from Google of the inside of the cave

The fields and mountains outside the cave were also quite nice!

Eva & Rosa

I also got the chance to meet two of Jenny's friends from the Netherlands, Eva and Rosa, whom she met when they each studied abroad at her university in Sydney. They were really awesome people and we had a lot of interesting conversations. They also taught us a card game called Kaverjasse, which was super fun and sort of like an incredibly complicated Dutch version of Spades! Jenny and I are now trying to plan a trip to Amsterdam to visit them in May.

Jenny with Eva and Rosa

Toledo

Along with Eva, Rosa and Jenny, I went on a day trip to Toledo, one of the most touristed cities in all of Spain and one of my least favorite places. I had been there the first time I was in Madrid in 2012 and was underwhelmed - and that feeling was only reaffirmed this time.

Some pictures of Toledo

For a long time, it was the capital of Spain and a city where Muslims, Jews and Christians cohabited in peace; an intellectual, political and cultural center. Given all this, you'd think I would love it, but I really don't. I think it's a pretty enough city, but there's not THAT much to see, it's way too expensive, and I just don't get what all the hype is about. However, the highlight of the trip was getting to buy marzipan, a sweet which the city is known for, and which you can find in several monasteries around town. That's right - more nun treats!

A sign for the monastery which allegedly was the first to ever sell marzipan in Toledo

A School Get-Together

One night, Macu, the music teacher at our school, whose daughter I also give private lessons to, invited all of us over to her house for coffee and snacks. She just recently moved into a new apartment and had been meaning to throw a house-warming party for a while. 

Macu's party

We had a really lovely evening - or should I say night! We started with coffee, tea, cake and cookies at 5:30pm and ended with beer and empanadas at midnight - on a school night! The funniest part was that it wasn't just me and the other young teachers who stayed so late; in fact, the last ones to leave were the secretary and principal, who are the oldest out of all of us! There's no denying that Spanish people have a zest for life unmatched in any country I've ever seen!

Playing the piano at Macu's

At Macu's request, I also played a few songs on the piano, and everyone was very complementary. It was nice to play for them, because it's been a very long time since anyone has heard me play. The whole night was lovely - there's such a great sense of community amongst the teachers and administration at our school, and I feel really lucky to have such great coworkers!

Olöf Arnalds & tUnE-yArDs

In November we also had the great fortune to see two of our favorite singers perform in Madrid. The concert was in a really lovely theater called Teatro Lara, which was quite small and cozy, giving us the chance to see them performing fairly close.

A picture from Google of the Teatro Lara

Olöf Arnalds, a fairly obscure Icelandic singer, has been one of my favorite artists since I randomly discovered her on a blog in high school. It has always been my dream to see her in concert, but she never passed anywhere near to North Carolina the whole time I was at UNC. Tune Yards is someone I had recently started getting into and wanted to see because some other friends had said she was amazing in concert.

Neither of them disappointed, although they were very different acts. While Ólöf's songs were only accompanied by two guitars and derived their great emotive power from her enchanting voice, Tune Yards was backed up by various people playing different instruments and singing. She and all her backup singers were wackily dressed and dancing enthusiastically, which made for a truly entertaining show. In the middle of the concert, she invited us all - in her broken Spanish - to get up and dance in the aisles. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to!

Us being excited before the concert

Other Random Things

On November 24th we had a Teachers' Appreciation Day. The kitchen staff prepared an incredible spread of traditional Spanish tapas and dishes for us to enjoy after work. It was all delicious and at the end there was so much left that I was surreptitiously packing things into Ziploc bags to save for later. I've never felt more appreciated in my life!

Teachers' Appreciation Day

One day I saw a rainbow on my way to one of my lessons.

Another day, a friend and I stumbled upon a bar where they were having a craft beer festival - apparently it was "beer week" in Madrid - and so we went inside to check it out. Brewers from companies around Spain had all come to Madrid with a selection of their finest beers. We had a delicious beer from the north of Spain that was made with chestnuts and another one that was brewed by a company called SAGRA in a small town very close to Madrid. After talking for a bit with the SAGRA guy, he told us that they gave guided tours of the brewery followed by tastings and gave us some vouchers to go for free!

Molly and I at the beer festival

You'll be able to read about our trip to the brewery and more in my December blog post. Until then, ¡hasta luego!