Gracias garbage!

I was running  late to meet someone and walked out my door. Lo and behold, I spied this map laying on top of the garbage across the street. How could I pass that up?

So I grabbed the map, brought it in and then ran to meet  my amiga. 

I question who threw this great Spain map away but appreciate that I was the first to spy  it and that it is in pretty good condition.

It now hangs on  my wall above my love seat. It makes my apartment look much more homey to have something on the wall and the fact that it was free makes it even better.

Other things Jessika has awkwardly spied next to the garbage and taken as her own... a vase, a drawer (to keep my shoes in..) and a wooden crate that had been used to deliver fruit (and now holds yarn).

Aceitunas. Me gusta!

One day this tent appeared in the plaza right near my casa.  It was an interactive educational tent to teach people about olives. I'm pretty sure it was geared towards kids (colouring pages, tiny benches for the informational cartoony video, etc.), but I went in anyways.

I walked in and was handed a bag with three cans of olives so even though it was definitely for children at least I walked away with free olives!

One can is full of olives stuffed with anchovies. Yuck. I'm saving those for Nathan to eat.

Christmas lights!

They are putting Christmas lights up all around Madrid and there are a  few Christmas markets set up as well. The lights  were just turned on a few nights ago so I'll be sure to take pictures soon.

I walked around last night to look at the lights and was in Christmas heaven. 

Ah. Christmas in Spain. I'm excited.

Rain? Finally!

On Sunday and Monday it rained for the first time since I got to Madrid. I was starting to think it would never rain.

Sunday the skies were dark all day but it only sprinkled (if I'd even call it that...) for 5 minutes. It wasn't even worthy of an umbrella.

Monday it actually rained but sadly I didn't bring my umbrella out on my errands since I figured by "rain" they meant the same 5 minute sprinkle as the day before.

It wasn't too bad without my umbrella but this rain actually left some puddles.

A puddle. Because apparently I felt the need to take a picture of it... :-\

It lasted about 1/2 the day and the rest of the day was marvelously dreary. Perfect for the minty hot cocoa that Nathan sent me. Mmmm.