Coffee Coffee

I was buying coffee today and found these. (as you'll continue to read - they sucked. So much that I won't even waste my time turning the photo)

They are little capsules that go into the kind of coffee maker I bought. I thought it was ingenious so I bought them.

I was so excited about them that it didn't occur to me that since the coffee makers come in varying sizes...that so would the capsules.

As you can see I bought the wrong size.

I decided to give it a go anyways. It worked and the fact that it was the wrong size was only semi-problematic. 

BUT....the coffee sucked. It tasted like Folgers. Or like the black sheep of the Folger's family. 

A majour fail.

On a coffee plus side.... Today I bought coffee candy, coffee filled cookies and found fair trade coffee for sale. And yes, I fully admit to having a coffee problem.

That guy just looks so happy to be the face of Oxfam fair trade coffee.

Geocaching!

When I was at the Madrid tourism office at Plaza Mayor I saw a brochure on geocaching in Madrid. The brochure has the coordinates for 7 and I'm going to try to find all of these and then maybe go online to look up more.

I found one today in a really cool area near the river. 

 The geocache was magnetic and behind the 17XC80 sign.

Here are some photos of the area around the river.

As you can see the river is quite low.

Here's Jessika...being awesome and awkwardly taking photos of herself....

Um. No thanks.

Intercambio

Qué  es un intercambio?

 

An intercambio is when you meet with someone who speaks another language and you spend 1/2 of the time speaking in one language and 1/2 of the time speaking in another.

 
The last time I was in Spain I tried to have an intercambio. 5 times. None of them worked out. Jessika was not down with the Spanish concept of time when her intercambios were 30 - 45 minutes late. 

I decided to have another go at it and found a random woman online - because meeting people online is not shady at all..

 

Luckily she turned out to be a real legit person. Not a creepy man. Not an ax murderer. Not a mugger. Not a crotchety old woman. 

 

We met at McDonald's - obviously at her suggestion...not mine - and socially awkward Jessika managed to have regular human conversations (with some awkward Jessika have eye contact issues) for 2 hours. 2 hours! 

 

It was great. I stumbled through my Spanish a bit a lot but she made mistakes in English so I didn't feel horrid about my mistakes. 

 

She asked a lot about the US, Minnesota, the differences between the two countries, how I like Spain, what I do for work in the US/Spain, etc. She told me about her family, her travels, why she needs to learn English, etc.

 

She is a communications engineer (I'm not sure if this is what we'd call it in the US?) and makes apps for phones. Soon her company will be working with companies from Germany, France, Italy, etc. and when they meet they'll all be speaking English so she needs to work on her conversation skills.

 

It was spectacular. She showed up on time (which is rare in Spain). She was friendly. We had a lot in common (we both watch How I Met Your Mother). And she didn't rob or kill me. 

 

After I get my work schedule we're going to make plans to meet on a semi-regular basis. 

 

Yay for working on Spanish skills with a friendly Spaniard!

El Rastro

El Rastro is a market that fills the streets each Sunday in La Latina neighbourhood - right near me!

People set up shops on the sides of the street and you can buy anything from clothes, jewelry, antiques, electronics, underwear (ick), etc. etc. Basically, if you can think of it you can buy it there.

Jessika standing awkwardly at El Rastro. Take note that she is wearing a tank top dress because it's right around 80 degrees here today. What's the temperature like in Minneapolis as I am writing this? 45 degrees? That sucks.

So many people come to El Rastro so the crowds are super intense. It reminds me of the MN State Fair on steroids. And better. Better than the state fair.

There were a few shops with dresses but amazingly I was able to control my dress addiction (and I purposely did not bring enough money) and I only bought one dress. Originally it was 13 euro but the lady bartered with herself and randomly changed it to 12 euro. She obviously does not know that I can not resist dresses and there was no need to change the price.

I also bought some earrings.

I'll leave you with this:

I saw this guy at El Rastro. I have the exact same shirt.

La Latina

My apartment is in the La Latina neighbourhood and near the La Latina metro stop.

The Palacio Real (Royal Palace) is very very close - not even a 5 minute walk.

There are tons of cafes (which is great for my coffee addiction) and little shops for groceries or random things. 

At the end of my road is a small plaza.

There's a big market that has a bunch of smaller shops that sell fruit, veggies, meat and other misc. food items. 

This is one cafe/restaurant/bar I've been to a few times - 100 Mondatitos. The food/drinks are pretty cheap already but on Wednesdays apparently everything costs only 1 euro. I'll definitely be taking advantage of that.

I've had fun exploring my neighbourhood and am getting lost less and less. 

Grocery shopping

Spain isn't very vegetarian friendly so I was mildly worried about finding legit food here. I was able to get a bunch of great food so it doesn't look like it will be much of an issue with me making food. Marvelous.

One of the first things I bought was a coffee maker and coffee for my apartment so that I could continue with my intense coffee addiction. I will still be frequenting a cafe for some cafe con leche.

I found a grocery store pretty close to me and went grocery shopping for the first time.

The milk is semi-questionable. It does not need to be refrigerated so it just...sits out? No se. It was sitting out at the store but I'll be putting mine in the fridge. They also seem to not refrigerate their eggs at the grocery store so I'm not sure what that's all about. I've been eating bread, cheese and tomato sandwiches and I had tortilla one day.

I also bought some yogurt, a baguette, strawberry jam for the cookies, tortilla (maybe in the US we say "Spanish omelet"?) and a few fruit items and tomatoes. I was very happy to find couscous and vegetable broth. The cans are peas and carrots. I also bought cheese tortellini, a pasta mix, pasta and tomato sauce.

The meal de mis sueños

If you've ever found yourself asking "what is Jessika's dream meal?" than this is the post for you. 

I will preface this by saying I have eaten a total of 8 meals and this has been my meal for 6 of them (minus the tinto de verano...I've only had that with two meals).

Manchego cheese sandwich. Just looking at the photo makes me want one even though I've eaten 2 of these already today.

Cafe con leche. Probably the only thing I need to live.

Tinto de verano. Wikipedia describes this as: "usually made up of 1 part red wine and 1 part gaseosa. Gaseosa is a mild flavored low sugar carbonated lemonade" I describe it as heaven.

This meal helped solidify my love affair with Spain the last time I was here and I don't imagine I'll get sick of any of these items in the next 9 months. 

The only thing that would make this meal better would be churros con chocolate. Which I plan on eating for breakfast tomorrow.

My apartment!

My apartment is muy small but there is a surprising amount of storage space. I still have to do some organizing and buy a few more things but I'm pretty set.

The bed is a loft bed with a mini-fridge and drawers below it. On the right you see an open area - from there you can crawl back under the bed behind the drawers. It's a good area to store my luggage, the space heater (because the apartment is otherwise not heated...), etc.

 

The step stool to get into bed also turns into a chair. I thought that was cool. 

There's a nice little love seat with a fold-up table.

When I first saw pictures of the apartment I didn't see a single window but I do have windows! There is one in the bathroom (that awkwardly opens up into the hallway...) and there are 3 windows in the bedroom/living room/kitchen area. The third one is the one with the wooden doors closed. The windows don't have screens so when they're open they are wide open. The bottom one has bars on it but the top two do not.

This is the door. If you look on the ground in the lower left you'll see a white shelf where I store my food. Next to it is a bin I'm using for recycling. There are recycling bins right on my street so I can continue to try to save mother earth.

 

The kitchen! I have a microwave, toaster oven and two stove burners. It's very small but will get the job done.

 The bathroom. Again, quite small but it's got all of the necessities.

I don't know how well this photo shows it but basically the bathroom is the shower. When I shower I put the shower curtains down so that it blocks the toilet and sink. There is a drain in the center of the bathroom. The little blue curtain on the right side is where the washing machine is. And..the black square on the wall is an outlet. An electrical outlet. In the shower.

El fin! That's basically all. Perhaps I'll take photos of my street, hallway and where I dry  my clothes. I enjoy that there are no dryers in Spain and everything is hang dried. Perfect. 

estoy en españa!

Jessika has reached Spain. She is alive and per the request of many amigos y family members she now has a blog.

What has happened so far...

Sept. 18th: 

I left Mpls. I flew Air Canada and had a layover in Toronto. 

Flying on Air Canada has only solidified my feelings about Canada. After we landed they dropped my backpack (which contained my laptop and my other electronics) off of the airplane. Awesome. Fortunately the laptop is okay but my webcam and converter/adapter did not fare so well. 

Sept. 19th: 

I arrived in Madrid! I lugged my luggage up and down at least a dozen flights of stairs to get to my hostel. Did I mention that my luggage weighed more than me? It was a joke. Luckily I'm very...strong. 

I magically was able to get an apartment the first day I was here but after all was figured out and I had the keys in my hand it was too late to move in so I spent the night at the hostel. I wasn't able to sleep much since I was in a room with 9 other people and two of them decided to come home in the middle of the night after apparently too much to drink. One girl spent the night throwing up in her bed so needless to say I was awake most of the night. 

Oh, at the hostel I also managed to gracefully fall out of the top bunk as I was trying to quietly get off the bed since the person below me was sleeping. Because of this fall my leg now contains the largest and darkest bruise that I have ever witnessed. I'll definitely be wearing leggings under my dress until that goes away.

My first meal after I arrived (and one I've been dreaming about for months): a manchego cheese sandwich and cafe con leche. Mmm. 

Sept. 20th:

I moved into my apartment (photos to come)! It's a very very small studio. Small but cosy and I'm thankful I am able to live alone. Jessika + girl roommates = bad news. 

The neighborhood I live in is called La Latina and I spent a big part of the day exploring with another girl that is living in the same neighborhood and is in the same program as me.

What I ate today? More manchego cheese sandwiches and cafe con leche. 

Sept. 21st:

Today! I went grocery shopping and also bought a ton of random stuff I need for my apartment. Luckily the girl that lived here before me sold me a bunch of stuff (dishes, pots, pans, etc) so I have all of the basics already. Most importantly: I bought a coffee maker and coffee. 

In the daylight I'll take photos of my apartment and be sure to post them and perhaps I'll think about a video tour - though there really isn't much to see.

For now - adios y buenas noches!