when in spain...

When I left you all here, hanging on the edges of your seats, I was off to Spain. At the moment, I'm now back in Utrecht. Internet access was limited in Madrid as Miguel's parents are computerless, so I hope you'll forgive the silence of the past few weeks. Nevertheless, I'll try to sum up, as briefly as possible, my past two weeks y pico in Madrid.

After we arrived in Barajas, we took the metro back to Miguel's parents's place. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the metro in Madrid? Well, they have a new metro map and it's nothing short of a postmodernist nightmare. The stations on the map bear very little resemblance to their actual spatial arrangement in Madrid. Sure, it's pretty but I spent several minutes looking for Cuatro Caminos with no luck.

But not to worry, the metro was completely redeemed for me two days before New Year's Eve. Miguel and I were taking the escalators down and in front of us were four rather rowdy teenagers who were trying to pick up every girl that passed them by. "Feliz año, guapa!" over and over again. We all ended up in the same train car and the boys launched into a Spanish Christmas carol that sounds pretty flamenco (to a Canadian anyway). "Ande, ande, ande la Marimorena. Ande, ande, ande que es la Noche Buena!" was sung over and over again, with some pretty funny verses inbetween, by one of the guys while the other two clapped and the last one danced around the car.

The metro is actually a pretty critical part of any family dinner. It seems to be the custom, as the party is breaking up, to discuss which lines are the best or fastest to get home. Now why they don't just pull out the map and all look at it is beyond me. They prefer to do this by memory. Trouble is that their memories aren't always what they should be. "You should take Linea 9 until Plaza de Castilla, then switch to Linea 2" one would say. "Linea 2 doesn't come through Plaza de Castilla" the other replies. Such disagreements usually end with pistols at dawn in el Retiro.

We didn't spend the whole time in the metro, though. Miguel and I snuck out to the Museo Archeologico, the Museo Thyssen, and the Prado. We spent hours wandering around the Puerto del Sol, Palacio Real, and el Retiro. We went to an Improv competition that Miguel's friend Beatriz was performing in. We went for cañas and coffees and chocolates con churros. At one point we ended up in a bar in a district that Almodovar used to hang out in when he was younger. I don't think I stopped eating the whole time I was in Spain.

Christmas Eve was spent with Miguel's family, although we later went to mass with his friends. I didn't know the majority of the traditional Spanish Catholic songs or Christmas songs, but I did like the one that went "oh no, no pasaron!", which I believed was a direct reference to the Civil War Republican slogan in Madrid, but Miguel assures me that it is not the case.

I think I saw every Spaniard that I know while in Madrid. Even Marta, who we hadn't gotten in touch with but managed to run into accidently in a Gino's the night before we left Madrid. Que casualidad. We spent a lot of time with Miguel's friends who are all kinds of entertaining, although some are still battling tuberculosis.

We spent New Year's Eve with Miguel's parents, and later with Miguel's friends Dani and Maria. I still haven't managed to eat all 12 grapes during the 12 campanas, but I have another two years to practice. After the bells and the fireworks (oh those Valencians), Miguel and I went to play boardgames with Dani and Maria until 6am, when we decided that we should probably call it an early night.

But now we're back in Utrecht, after spending the night in Eindhoven with Richard, Sonia and the soon-to-be Small One/Pequeñin, crashing at Yvon's for the night. Tomorrow morning, we're going to take the train to Schiphol Airport, and then back to Canada and the -22 that awaits us. It'll be a bit of a change from the 18C we had in Madrid.

All in all, a nice long and relaxing trip. And now, the insanity of comp prep and dissertation writing...