Madrid does have a beach!

I've been here for over 7 weeks now and feel like I'm starting to know the city quite well, gradually turning into a madrileña, but the city never ceases to amaze. A common thing for people to say is "Madrid's got everything but it needs a beach" so on Sunday I met up with a friend who took me to one. I had no idea where he was taking me but at the door there was this sign...

... to which I didn't think much - "Oh, it must be a beach-themed bar". It did help prepare me for when we walked in and the whole floor was covered in sand though! The bar's called Areia and is near Alonso Martinez metro station if anyone fancies going along. They do do really good cocktails and it's quite surreal to be walking in sand inside a bar miles and miles away from the sea. 

Loads of comfy cushions lower down to the floor too!

We also went to San Antón market round the corner where there's a rooftop terrace with a bar. This is also a very nice place made even more entertaining by the drunken Irish girls we ended up talking to!

Roof terrace bar

Not really sure what the coloured pigs were for!

It was nice to go along to these places and relax after a busy Saturday. I have recently made friends with the other au pairs in the complex as well as a babysitter and an au pair in another area of Madrid so we all met up for a wander around the city on Saturday. It was so nice to not be doing solo sightseeing for once and I felt so knowledgeable taking them to places they'd never been before like inside the cathedral and the Campo del Moro gardens. Because of being with people, there were probably more photos taken of me on Saturday than the rest of my time in Madrid! In the evening we went to intercambio, as I'd been raving about it so much, before heading onto an "Irish" pub/club for the rest of the night and dancing to reggaeton (yes, definitely Irish). 

My friend Maryn and I in front of the cathedral

Maryn and I in front of the Madrid bear (taken with Maryn's phone)

Me, Dyanna and Lavinia in front of the Royal Palace in El Campo del Moro (taken with Dyanna's camera)

Maria Jesus, me, Dyanna, Sarah and Lavinia in Star Studio 54 (taken with Dyanna's camera)

Santander

Just got back to a boiling hot Madrid (the car said 38 degrees when we arrived) from a lovely few days away with the family in Santander. 

On Wednesday we had a bit of drama at lunchtime. The girls were arguing and fighting, as they often do, but Mónica still had her knife and fork in her hands and her fork somehow managed to end up deep inside Carlota's arm. This was followed by lots of screaming from both girls before the fork was taken out and I became first-aider cleaning up blood and putting ice on the four holes in Carlota's arm! The girls then tried to stir up more panic by ringing their mother saying "Mama, don't get angry. Where are you? Get back here as quick as you can!" without telling her what had happened. After I encouraged her, Carlota did eventually tell her mum what was up, imagine what she would have been thinking otherwise?! Thankfully, despite Carlota complaining that her hand (not her arm) hurt and that she needed to go to hospital, we decided that the injury wasn't too serious and that we could proceed with our plan to go to Santander that evening.

We left at about 5.30pm in the end and, after getting lost (they don't seem to own a sat-nav) and stopping off to eat sandwiches outside a church in a tiny little town, we arrived at our destination at about 10pm. When I was told that we were going to stay in Uncle Toño's house in Santander, I wasn't expecting much. I thought it would be a little holiday home with maybe a couple of bedrooms and one of us sleeping on the sofa. However, I was wrong. The Santander house was, of course, a flat as because so many people live in flats here they call them houses. The flat wasn't small either - three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and large lounge/dining area in a complex with swimming pool, playground and padel-tennis court - it was about the same size as the flat in Madrid! Uncle Toño must have quite a bit of money.

We spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday on the beach so there was lots of sandcastles, football, catch, paddling in the freezing cold sea, sunbathing... etc. We were fairly lucky with the weather in that it was sunny the whole time we were there. Unfortunately, the first couple of days were quite windy so not so warm! I managed to burn quite a bit though whilst the family tanned with their Spanish skin. On Friday night we went to La Magdalena, a peninsula where there's a royal palace, as there was a horse show-jumping event on. We watched the horses for a bit before the girls went off to play in a playground and I had a drink with the parents. We then went to see the seals and old boats on one part of the peninsula. 

Thursday's beach: El Sardinero

El Sardinero's other beach

Horseys

Seals. Got confused when they were going on about focas before we went so had to look it up!

The beach we went to on Friday and Saturday

Beach on La Magdalena

This morning the plan had been to spend a last couple of hours on the beach but Carlota changed them by falling off her skateboard at the park yesterday and getting some nasty friction burns on her hand, elbow and side. Instead, we went into the centre of Santander as we hadn't been there yet. I was glad that we had a chance to go as I was curious to have a little wander round after seeing a big banner saying that it had one of the most beautiful bays in the world (according to who?). From what little I saw of it, it seemed like a very nice place and, admittedly, the bay is stunning. It's a shame I couldn't stay there for a bit longer!

Banco de Santander

Santander bay

Tourist boat in Santander bay

Santander's port. The Plymouth - Santander ferry probably gets in there somewhere. Didn't see that many brits though

Santander bay

Statues of poor people who used to jump/dive for coins that were thrown at them

School's out for Summer!

The girls have now been on school holidays for a week and we've got used to our new routine. They celebrated their last day at school last Tuesday by having a water party - went to school dressed in their swimming costumes and had what sounds like a two-hour water fight! After school we sang the Alice Cooper classic "School's out for Summer" as I always used to sing that song when I had school holidays. Later on that evening the equivalent of the PTA put on a bit of a party with bouncy castles, soft drinks, crisps and music which was a bit of fun for them and a way of saying goodbye to friends they won't see much over the summer.

Now I'm with the girls all morning until 3-4pm when Mónica madre comes back from work. Mónica and Jose have composed, typed a printed a set of instructions for me to follow to make sure I do everything exactly how they want. I now have to wake the girls up at 10am and do the usual morning routine - breakfast, make sure they get dressed, brush teeth, brush hair, make beds etc. After this I then do a couple of pages from Mónica's Trinity English book with her, spend half an hour on her school's blog which has loads of games, videos etc. for learning English or go on starfall.com - a website with games for children to help them learn to read English. With Carlota we translate a story a day from English to Spanish, made easier by the fact that they've got a couple of bilingual story books with exercises at the back to check the comprehension of new words and expressions in the story. At about 12 we go down to the pool where I sometimes give them swimming lessons (in Spanish as it's a more dangerous environment with the chance of drowning) before drying off in the sunshine playing various games in English. We go back upstairs at 2:15pm for lunch and watch TV at 3pm, it's banned any time before that. I think the girls have enjoyed it so far and I have too, I only wish I'd made more use of my free mornings whilst they were at school! 

Tomorrow we're off to Santander for a long weekend by the beach which everyone's quite excited about. Mónica and Jose have booked Thursday and Friday off work so that we can go and stay in Mónica's brother's house up there for a few days. The plan is to leave at about 4pm tomorrow when the parents are back from work as it's a 4-hour drive up to the north coast from here. Yesterday I was chatting to Mónica madre who asked me if I actually wanted to go with them as before they'd just assumed I did. Apparently they'd thought that I might fancy staying in Madrid to go to intercambios, go out at night, be fully independent and use the WiFi (there isn't any internet at the house in Santander), but of course I said that I wanted to go with them having never been to that part of Spain before. This may mean that there won't be another blog post for a while unless I go to an internet cafe or something! I'll probably post about my time in Santander when we get back though.

Hasta luego!

Dogsitting

So, I now seem to be looking after a dog as well as two little girls, not something I expected to be doing! She belongs to the girls' uncle's family (mum's brother) but she's going to be with us until Friday. Her name's India and she's a brown and white Spaniel. She arrived last night but as I was out with friends I didn't see her until this morning. I soon found out that she's scared of pretty much everything, she stared at me and ran away when she first saw me! Carlota explained that her previous owner was a hunter who mistreated her which is why she's now scared of all people she doesn't know and loud noises. 

As this was my last free morning while the girls are at school, my plan had been to go into the city centre and make the most of it. However, India had other ideas! She refused to go anywhere near the kitchen where she has to stay when alone in the flat and the girls begged me to bring her with us on the school run so, in the end, that's what happened. The suburb where we live, Montecarmelo, is quite a long way out so by the time I get into the city centre I don't have much time there as it is and India seemed to be full of energy, so I decided to change my plans for the morning and go for a walk with her instead. 

The only place you can really go with a dog here is the bike track so that's where we went. India seemed to enjoy exploring somewhere new and we got lots of comments from passers-by. We stopped to talk to a couple of gentlemen who were trying to be friendly to her, but of course she was scared of them too! We walked for about an hour an a half before returning home where she drank a full bowl of water. The walk seems to have worked as she's warmed to me now and allowed me to stroke her! She also let me shut her in the kitchen for a bit so that I could go to the post office to send some cards.

It seems that Mónica madre is more worried about the dog than her two girls. She left me a note with a load of instructions and rang me to confirm this morning. She's also been texting me to check up on us! This is the first time the family have looked after the dog for more than a day so she's quite nervous about it as they've never owned a dog themselves.

The only worrying thing right now is that I have either developed a cold or am allergic to her... 

India

A well-behaved dog!

The bike trail - it would be quite nice without the motorway and pylons spoiling the view!

Not entirely sure how far it goes as we stopped when we hit a motorway

Back to school!

Yesterday was not only back to school for Carlota after being ill, but I went to school too. Mónica had told her English teachers about me and they had invited me into class to talk to the children. The girls' school is now bilingual and has been for a few years. As Carlota was there before the change, she doesn't have anywhere near as many English lessons as her sister (2 a week compared with Mónica sometimes having 2 a day). I had met the auxiliar de ingles (English teaching assistant)  for Mónica's class last week - Tessa, a girl from South Carolina - so she met me at the main entrance and walked with me up to the classroom. Once I got there I met the another auxiliar, Ronan from Northern Ireland, and the children's English teacher, Elena, who had spent some time in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

I had two classes with Elena and two classes with another teacher, Sara, after the break. Each lesson started off with the children asking me questions. Elena also showed them where Manchester is on a map in relation to Spain, Northern Ireland and the USA. These are the questions I was most often asked:

"What is your name?" "Imogen... but call me Imi" (Spanish people really struggle with my name, some Americans I've met here have struggled too!)

"Where are you from?" "Manchester in England."
This was sometimes followed by "Manchester United or Manchester City?" Neither, I don't really like football.

"What are you doing in Spain?" In the first lesson, this was answered by Mónica very very quietly. She's like a completely different girl in class, so quiet and shy! The auxiliars  didn't believe me when I said she was the opposite at home. In the other classes I had to explain that I was an au pair living with Mónica and Carlota. Many of them knew the girls and a few told me things or asked questions about them.

"Do you like Spain?" "Yes"

"Have you been to Spain before?" "Yes. I have been to Barcelona twice and Segovia once but this is my first time in Madrid"

"How long will you be here?" "Until August, two months"

"Can you speak Spanish?" "Yes, I study Spanish, French and Chinese at university"

"Can you speak Spanish now?" "No, this is an English lesson"

"Ooo, Chinese. How do you say house? Can you write it?" (They sometimes wanted to know hello and goodbye as well and I ended up writing Chinese characters on the board!)

"What's your favourite colour?" "Purple"

"What is your favourite sport?" "Swimming, I am a swimming teacher"

"Do you like football?" "No"

"Do you like basketball?" "No really"

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" "I have two brothers"

Followed by "What are their names?" "Fraser and Ethan"
"How old are they?" "18 and 13"

There were plenty of other questions but you get the idea! After question time was story time. In the first class, one of the mums had come into to read to them. She had lived in the US between the ages of 5 and 10 and now works as a translator, translating Disney films amongst other things. Elena decided that as we had three English speakers (Tessa didn't count as she had a sore throat and barely any voice), we could tell the story together reading a page each. At the end of the story, she asked the kids whose accent was easiest to understand and they said Tessa's (even though she didn't speak) followed by Ronan's Northern Irish accent (really?!). This same lesson format was repeated for the next three classes, minus Nora's mum. I think I read "How to catch a star" three times! The children were really sweet though and fairly well behaved given that they were aged 7-8.

At break time I went to the staffroom and was treated to cake and coffee along with all the teachers and auxiliars. I got to speak Spanish with some of them so it wasn't a completely English morning.

If the children continue learning English at that rate, they will be so good! I was surprised that the whole lesson was conducted in English seeing as I don't think I had a lesson completely in a foreign language until at least AS level!

Funky nails and beautiful sunshine

I've had a day in today as Carlota's not very well so didn't go into school. I force feed her her medicine, she abolutely hates it. This morning we tried mixing it with fruit juice but yoghurt seemed to work better this afternoon! We spent a bit of time together watching TV, reading a bilingual story book and, most exciting of all, painting our nails. We went out to one of the local Chinese shops and bought four new colours before getting back to the flat and having our own nail salon! The girls are really into a nail salon game on the family tablet, always playing it and making new designs, so they loved doing it in real life! Carlota wanted to paint mine first so she lined up all the nail varnishes we had (about 13 in the end as I'd brought five with me and they already had some at home. As she hasn't been very well, I allowed her to do exactly what she wanted with my nails so of course I now have multicoloured nails! She decided on something a bit less crazy for herself, opting for the green and purple I'd brought from home. They must have been the smallest nails I've ever painted as she has a nasty habit of biting them! I then went to pick Mónica up from school and she got very excited when she saw what our morning activity had been. I painted hers when we got back in - also multicoloured like mine but with white dots done with a toothpick. We had a lot of fun with it but I think it's safe to say that none of us will ever work in a real nail salon!

What happens when you let a 10-year-old paint your nails. My toes are done the same!

Yesterday I went back to Retiro park in the centre, don't think I can ever get bored of that place! The weather was amazing, really sunny and almost unbearably hot (unlike today when we've had a cloudy sky and cooler weather). The park was bustling with people with it being a Sunday and also the last day of the book fair. Jose gave me a lift there as he planned to go and get some books. I've never seen anything like the Madrid book fair before. A long line of stalls selling all kinds of books and, at times, their authors/illustrators were there to sign them. We'd all gone the weekend before but the weather hadn't been as kind to us so it was good to go back. After that I spent a while wandering around the park, still discovering new things even after walking around it for almost two hours last Monday. It was great to see so many people out enjoying the sunshine and the street performers were out in force! I'm just glad I didn't burn given the weather. 

Madrid Book Fair

There were even people doing a bit of Taichi! Was quite tempted to join in.

Slanted tree

Beautiful sunshine

The boating lake

The pool's now open! (and it's very cold) + more sightseeing

A new activity has been added to our daily routine, we now go swimming straight after school. The communal outdoor pool for the appartment complex, or urbanización, opened on Saturday but over the weekend we experienced some quite British weather here (rain, sun, rain, clouds, rain, sun) so we didn't go until Monday. The opening hours are from 11.30am until 9pm but it closes in the rain, you can only go when there is a lifeguard on duty. I thought they were exaggerating when they told me it would be cold. Here they walk around in jeans and jackets when, if we were fortunate enough to get the same weather in the UK, you'd see men walking around in just shorts. However, they were most definitely telling the truth. When we went down to the pool yesterday after school, the people sitting around outside stared at us in horror "You're going swimming? But it's so cold!".Unphased, we carried on to the empty pool. The lifeguard was sitting there looking bored out of his mind. I gradually went down the steps before taking the plunge and swimming a couple of lengths while the girls splashed around a bit before having enough of the freezing cold water.

Thankfully, since then, we've had some great sunny, hot weather which has begun to heat it up slightly. It's still cold but not as unbearably so. The parents have asked that I give the girls some lessons in July when they don't have school, the pool's warmer and we've got more time. Time to start learning swimming vocab! (as the children could potentially drown, I'm supposed to speak Spanish with them in the pool). The girls seem to enjoy watching me swim more than anything else. Yesterday they threw all of their diving sticks and got me to collect them in one go and today they just wanted to see me do lots and lots of butterfly! The girls themselves don't seem to be able to swim that well so I'm hoping that I can help them in July. Mónica doesn't seem to mind the cold water as much as Carlota so stays in longer but is much happier when in the shallow end. From what I've seen of Carlota's swimming (not much as she doesn't stay in that long), she seems to know some of the basics but there's room for lots of improvement! It's not really surprising though seeing as they only get to go swimming in the summers as they didn't enjoy their swimming lessons. 

UPDATE: The pool in the morning before it's open

I've been trying to get out a bit more in the mornings now that I'm more used to everything here so went back to Retiro park Monday morning and went to the rooftop terrace of Circulo de Bellas Artes this morning to get some great views of the city in the sunshine!              

Retiro park on Monday

                

Inside the Palacio de Cristal in Retiro Park

 

Retiro park on Monday

     
                             

Stunning views of the city - well worth the 3 euros!

The rooftop terrace

I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but I think I'm actually starting to change colour!

My daily routine

I haven't written a post in a while so be prepared for a long one!

I've survived my first week here now and I think everything's gone pretty well so far. You might have seen a bit of what I've been up to on my other posts but I've been doing so much that I haven't had time to write about! 

I completed my first "working week" on Friday which seemed to go ok, could have been better, could have been worse. It's been a bit hard to know exactly what's expected of me with regards to house rules, speaking English/speaking Spanish etc. The girls are still at school until the end of June but finish at 1 rather than 4. In previous years the girls have had to stay in school until 3pm when their mum could pick them up after work so this year it's all a bit of a new routine for them as well as for me.

I set my alarm for 7/7.30am (depending on whether I'm planning a shower or not) and get up, get dressed, make coffee and get the breakfast ready. At 8am I go into the girls' room to wake them up, open the blinds and say "Good morning! Wakey, wakey!". This has worked to various degrees throughout the week as the girls have got more tired. We then have breakfast together. After breakfast, Carlota has to have some medicine for fatigue which comes in little glass vials. I learnt the hard way that to open these you need to snap both ends off before pouring it into a glass - I cut my thumb on the first day! I've learnt that it's best to use a tea towel to avoid this... The girls get dressed, brush their teeth, get their bags ready and off we go to school.

The walk to school takes about 10 mins and once we get there, we say our goodbyes and the girls go in with their friends. I then have the morning free to do whatever I fancy. As it was the first week, I haven't been particularly adventurous. My aim has been to go out somewhere every day so if I know that Mónica's got something planned for the afternoon, I've stayed in in the mornings. I've had to send various emails to do with China and have been learning more Spanish vocab so I've kept myself busy. On Tuesday I did go into the centre though, something I should do more often. The problem is that by the time I've got there, I've only got about 2 hours before I have to go back!

I pick the girls up from school at 1pm and we walk back to the flat. I try to make light conversation with them in English but there are times that they are more willing to talk than others. It tends to be Carlota who's more keen to talk in English, being the eldest. We play "I spy" or "Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and I bought... ". Hopefully Mónica will join in with us soon! Mónica madre tends to prepare our meals for lunch the night before and all I have to do is heat it up. So far we've had lentils twice, pasta with tomatoes, tuna and olives twice and puré (a thick soup) with hake (this last one has to be my least favourite!). The problem is that the girls constantly want to watch the tele while they're eating. On the first day we ate in the kitchen but on the second, they rang their mum and asked if they could eat in front of the TV. She said that they could so then I was a bit confused as to where exactly they were supposed to eat. I'd never been allowed to eat in from of the TV as a child! Yesterday I spoke to José and found out that this is not allowed. Seems I may have to argue with the girls a little bit next week... 

The girls then have homework to do before we play together. 

There's a little Mónica somewhere beneath all those teddies!

The girls love arts and crafts. Carlota had a friend round the other day, as Mónica was at a friend's house, so we went out and bought some coloured foamy/plasticy stuff to make things out of from one of the "Chinese shops". The top two are Carlota's bird and Chinese girl, the bottom left one is Carlota's "here's one I made earlier" and the bottom right one is my fish!

Mónica madre gets back from work at about 3/3.30pm so then I'm free again unless we go out somewhere together like we did on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. On Thursday evening I went into the centre to the Reina Sofia art gallery as it's free between 7 and 9pm. I went in a little bit early so that I could have a look around the area. The queue was massive so I only really had time to see the temporary Dalí exhibition which was well worth the wait. Mónica and José told me afterwards that they'd been wanting to go so I may go back to see it again with them! As well as the famous paintings of melted clocks were many other paintings throughout his career, two films, poems and some 3D art. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed.

Reina Sofia art gallery

One of Madrid's older streets near the gallery

Old vs. New

The Ministry of Agriculture

Atocha Train Station

Yesterday I sat down and had a chat with José about how we thought things were going. He asked me if I was happy with how everything had gone or if I needed anything to which I told him that everything was fine. He said that his main concern was that he wanted me to talk to the girls in English a bit more, that I could practise my Spanish the rest of the time with him and Mónica madre. He's also trying to improve his English by going to evening classes so wants to sit down with me for an hour a week to talk English/Spanish so that we can help each other improve, at the moment though, he seems a bit shy to talk to me in my native language!

After the chat he gave me my pocket money for the week and we went out to the Retiro park before going to the grandparents' (Mónica's parents) appartment for lunch where I met not only the grandparents, but also two uncles and the wife of one of them. Unfortunately, it was raining that day so I didn't take many photos! I will definitely go back to Retiro park though as it's massive and I'm sure there's plenty to see.

Hasta luego!

Being a tourist

So... back to Spain after my last post. Those of you who have me on Facebook will be able to see that I have put a few photos on there from the last couple of days but am yet to write about them/put some on here.

Me in front of the Palacio Real in the Sabatini gardens

On Tuesday I went into the city centre in the morning between dropping the girls off and picking them up from school. It was nice to go in on my own and take my time. I had to be wary of how much time I had though as it takes about 40 mins on the metro and I didn't want to be late getting the girls from school! I had a bit of a wander around the streets, something I enjoy doing, as away from the tourist hotspots you can really see what a city's like and get to know it. I got the metro to Plaza de España so had a bit of a walk around that area and the square itself with the monument to Cervantes. From there I followed signs to the Royal Palace to get a better look at it. This time I went to the other section of Sabatini's gardens and had a look round. Two ladies asked me to take a photo of them and one of them took a couple of me in return which was nice. 

Plaza de España with monument to Cervantes

Yesterday afternoon Mónica, the girls and I went to visit another of the royal palaces. This one was in El Pardo, about a 10 minute drive away from the appartment. The palace started off as a hunting lodge for the royal family but developed over time. Hunting still takes place in that area today and the local restaurant serve up meat that has been killed there. Apparently it's very popular to go to these restaurants for special occasions such as weddings and first communions. The first thing we did was go to see the animals to keep the girls happy. We parked right by the hunting ground and saw a couple of wild boar who will undoubtedly be killed soon for their meat. Apparently there are deer there as well. We went to see the goats in their pen and the girls enjoyed feeding them spaghetti that they found on the ground.

Boar behind the fence of the hunting ground

After the civil war, Franco, the Spanish dictator, lived there. We were able to have a walk around the gardens and go into the palace for free as we were there late in the day (6.30pm). The royal family still use the palace for some events so I got shouted at for trying to take photos inside! There was a security check on the way in and we had to go on a group tour around the palace with a security guard following us as we went round, turning the lights off. Was quite a strange experience! The palace was a funny mix of old, colourful tapestries with religious images/hunting scenes, elegant furniture and rugs and Franco's possessions including his bedroom as it would have been when he lived there. It was a funny juxtapostition of royal elegance and more modern inventions like Franco's giant globe in his office and his radio and television set in another room. We also got to see a very modern looking sitting room complete with modern sofas and flatscreen TV which is clearly used by the royal family when they visit. The three courtyards now have glass rooves and are used for various social events.

Palacio Real de El Pardo

Huge trees in the palace gardens

 Hasta luego!