Made in the USA

Over the course of the past two years that I've been living in Madrid, I've had several people ask me, a) do I miss the US?, and b) what do I miss about it?

Do I miss the US? Kind of a weird question. I mean, it's where I lived for nearly my whole life and where my entire family and most of my friends are. I'll call Madrid "home," but it's not really home. On the other hand I'm in no rush right now to get back to the US. To be honest, I've adjusted fairly well (intentional or not) to Madrid and certain aspects of the lifestyle here. But there are things I will never get used to, for example: lack of personal space, those damn people who are so unbelievably anxious to get off the metro at their stop, even though I have no idea what they're in a rush to get to (hello, you're Spanish), and grocery stores being closed on Sundays or banks only being open until 2 pm every day of the week. But even these things I've (begrudgingly) come to accept.

There are, however, some things about the US I'll always miss; things that either don't exist in Spain or that just aren't the same here. But I think the more time I live here, the more the list of American things decreases. For example, I used to bring back certain toiletries, peanut butter, Kraft macaroni and cheese, etc. when I would take trips home. There are still some toiletries that I buy at home and bring back (mainly because things like contact lens solution, for example, are so damn expensive here), but the list has more been reduced to the things I really need, rather than the things I just like.

Anyway, there are still some things that I'll always miss. Some things I can live without, some (more abstract) things that will keep me always coming home (you know, until it's for good). Here are just a few (in no particular order):

1. Iced coffee. It's not that this doesn't exist here, per se, but rather that in my experience, it's not quite the same and it's not as easy to find. Sure, you can go to Starbucks but it's expensive. It's really rather strange that it's not more common here, seeing as it gets ungodly hot in the summer. I suppose it's in part due to the different style of coffee here: small and strong, versus the American large and watered-down. Regardless of the reason, I find myself trying to steer clear of Starbucks during the hot weather months simply to avoid the temptation.

Oh, refried beans, I think I miss you most of all.

2. Good (and cheap) Mexican/Tex-Mex food. For anyone thinking, "but Spain is full of tacos and enchiladas and fajitas!": please, dear god, go review your high school history textbook. You're on the wrong continent. Yes, yes, Spain once conquered the land that is now Mexico, but the cultures between the present day countries is quite different. Including food. You'll find practically nothing spicy in Spain (perhaps one reason why Mexican food is hard to come by). There are Mexican restaurants in Madrid, but in my experience, they're far from spectacular and also quite far from cheap (or reasonably priced, even).

Ok, maybe he's an exception...

3. That hard-working American attitude. Okay, we have tons of lazy Americans. But by Spanish standards, we work too hard. Sorry, Spain, you just don't work hard enough. Maybe I shouldn't be bringing what could be a sensitive cultural topic into play here, but I really can't help it. I do know plenty of hard-working Spaniards, but the general attitude I observe is, "enjoy life first, work a little later in order to afford enjoying life." I mean, for goodness sake, what country in the world still has a siesta midday?? Again, I'm not going to delve deep into a political-cultural debate, but have you guys seen the state of your economy?! I'm not suggesting you become a workaholic. But there's nothing wrong with enjoying your job and working hard at your job. It is, after all, a major part of your life, whether you like it or not.


4. Summer barbecues with family (or friends). Family get-togethers are big in Spain. Barbeques, not so much. Maybe it's a weird thing to miss, but let's face it, it's one of the best ways to get families together. (It's so much less crazy than Christmas!) Sadly, I've gotten kind of used to no Thanksgiving over here, but this past 4th of July was the first time I wasn't in the US, and it was a bit of a bummer. On the rare occasions that a grilled meat smell wafts into my apartment, I get really nostalgic for home.

Open 24 hours!

5. Drugstores like CVS. There are, of course, pharmacies in Spain. But the type of store where you get medicines, shampoo, birthday cards, random food items, and certain household items like CVS in the US just doesn't exist here. I honestly don't know what's so great about CVS - maybe it's the convenience of being able to get lots of different things all within the same store, or the fact that it's usually open pretty late, or maybe even the fact that you can print out photos and go back in an hour to pick them up. Whatever it is, I miss it.

I don't even know what countries half of these flags are from.

6. The international foods section in the grocery store. I know this is a weird one, but cooking and foreign cuisines are two things I really love, and thus a lot of experimenting occurs. (And, on rare occasions, I cook something normal.) Anyway, in order to cook food from other cuisines, or at least make hilarious attempts, you obviously need certain ingredients that aren't necessarily common. Spanish grocery stores do have a foreign foods section, but it's a lame attempt generally consisting of one or two shelves stocked with soy sauce, Asian-style noodles, jars of salsa (mild, of course; I've never, to my chagrin, seen medium, and looking for hot salsa would be like expecting rain in the desert)...and little else. A few weeks ago I had to go to several different grocery stores in order to hunt down a simple bottle of teriyaki sauce. Before that I had to settle for a fajita seasoning packet instead of a taco seasoning one (which let to a somewhat catastrophic culinary result). Oy. I guess I'm stuck on the ham-cheese-bread diet for the remainder of my time in Spain.

So there you have it. Not a long list at all. Maybe there are other things out there that I would add to it, but I started this post a few days ago and haven't really thought of many things to add to it. But really, the fewer the better - I won't be seeing any of this stuff until I go home for Christmas.

Sintra: Fairy Tale Land

This is going to be a short post. Because, well, frankly the trip to Portugal was just too long ago and I have more recent places (Hungary and Slovakia!) and things (how I survived my first year teaching preschoolers English!) to be updating about. And no one really wants to read my long-winded blog posts anyway, so short and sweet it is.

The first time I went to Sintra, I thought, oh, this will be a great day trip. Day trip my culete. Most people do spend only one day in Sintra, and shame on them. Not only is there really a lot to do there (after two days there with Maddie I left still without seeing everything that I wanted to see), but the town is so peaceful at night when all the tourists are gone. And it's in the mountains, so the view of the countryside at dusk is really beautiful. Anyway, we spent the first day in Sintra seeing things that I didn't have time to see when I was there the first time - the Sintra National Palace and the Quinta da Regaleira palace. Both were really awesome, but the latter in particular. The palace at Quinta da Regaleira is really neat, but its perhaps more famous for its insane gardens, which include lots of fountains, statues, an old tennis court, towers, and a bunch of caves and tunnels. I felt a little like I was in some sort of Portuguese Lewis Carroll land.

Quinta da Regaleira Palace

Initiation Well - one of the quirky things in the gardens - from the top.

Initiation Well from the bottom.

The next day we went to the Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle, both of which I'd been to the first time around, but I enjoyed revisiting them. The Pena Palace is located in a big park that has a lot of similar quirky things hidden about just like the Quinta da Regaleira, so we spent a good portion of our time there exploring the park alone. And enjoying the view of surrounding Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean from up in the mountains.

View of Pena Palace from the highest mountain in Sintra.

Pena Park.

Chances are, I won't go back to Sintra again any time soon, if at all. (The world's just too big - too many other places to see.) BUT, if I did, the one other thing I really would have liked to have seen was the Monserrate Palace. It apparently has a lot of Islamic-style architecture and interesting gardens (I think I remember reading somewhere that the gardens are divided into sections of exotic plants from different parts of the world). We actually would have had time to go there, except that the palace is a few miles from the center of Sintra so you really need to take a bus. However, the stupid bus stops running an hour or two before the palace closes, what kind of sense does that make? Grrr! Anyway, apparently there's also an antique toy museum in Sintra that perhaps would have been interesting. And there's a famous convent with nice gardens, but you have to have a car to get there, so that was always a no-go (but I guess you really only need to see so many gardens...).

So, to sum up: if you're ever in Lisbon, don't miss Sintra!

I left my heart in...Lisboa

San Francisco? Rio? Lisbon!

I'm not really sure why, but I love Lisbon. I think it's really Portugal in general that I love, actually. It's just a really beautiful country, the people are nice (and they speak English!), the food is awesome, and it's a great and super easy place to go to get away from Spain for a little bit. I haven't seen a ton of Portugal, but among the cities that I have been to (which are all quite different, by the way), Lisbon is my favorite. There are so few cities in the world that I've visited that I think I could actually live in, and Lisbon is one of them. But anyway, back on track. Back at

Just look at it!

the end of April/very beginning of May I had a five-day weekend, and I figured, let's go back to Lisbon. I spent three days there back in December, one of which spent in Sintra, a magical little town about half an hour away from the capital. So really we were only in Lisbon for two days, and even though there's not a ton to see in Lisbon, it wasn't enough (not to mention, the weather on the last day was pretty bad; it down poured most of the morning). This time I dragged Maddie with me (although dragged is a bit of an exaggeration, because she's been asking to go back since we left). We spent five days in Portugal - two or so in Lisbon, two in Sintra, and about half a day in Cascais, a pretty little beach town less than an hour from Lisbon. And while I'm now going to hold off returning to Lisbon for a third time for a while, I would still love to go back.

On the first day that Maddie and I were in Lisbon, we took the tram to the neighborhood Belem to see the Jeronimos Monastery, which is mostly famous for its beautiful cloisters, and the Torre de Belem. Belem is a bit of a ways from the center of Lisbon - probably about a half hour ride on

Madds & me, Torre de Belem

the tram, what with all the stops it makes, and on the way back another American decided to strike up conversation with us. This guy had been living in Russia for something like ten years now, and clearly it was getting to him. One of the first things he said to us was, "Lisbon is so awful. This city is shit. I don't know why people come here." Luckily Maddie will talk to anyone, because I really wasn't too enthusiastic too dignify his comments with a response. I guess his life story was, from Detroit (that's perhaps saying something right there about his views on nice cities), living in Russia for a while, doing some sort of PhD research there, was visiting Lisbon because his wife or girlfriend or whoever the girl was with him had some sort of conference she had to attend there. The only places in Europe that he likes are Poland and Croatia. And Andalucia in Spain. Come on, dude, get over yourself. I'm not necessarily a big fan of the cliche European cities that Americans always visit; Paris is just ok, and I'm in no rush to visit Rome or really anywhere in Italy. (I admit, London is pretty damn awesome though.) But there are lots of beautiful cities in western Europe, Lisbon included.

Torre de Belem

Cloisters of the Jeronimos Monastery.

Anyway, after that bizarre conversation, Maddie and I spent the next two days in Sintra. I'm going to write a separate post about Sintra - but rest assured, it was awesome. So after our sad departure from Sintra, we got back to Lisbon and did some walking around Lisbon at night. Finally by this point Maddie was able to stay awake past 9 pm (really, though, she got accustomed to the time difference pretty quickly, especially considering how much sightseeing I made her do on her first few days here). We did a little exploring around the Bairro Alto, or the Upper District, one of the hilliest neighborhoods of Lisbon, had some awesome Portuguese food in a tiny family owned restaurant recommended to us by the people in the hostel in Sintra, and listened to some of the many street musicians that are so common in Portugal (and Spain). I wanted to upload a video of said street performers, but blogger for some reason won't let me, so I'll have to try it in a separate post.

The next day we originally planned to go to Evora, a town known for its Roman ruins, a Roman temple in particular. However, this day was a holiday and apparently many of Portugal's tourist sights close down on holidays. Stupid. So instead of taking a two-hour bus ride both there and back and running the risk of not being able to go inside anything in Evora, we took the train to Cascais, a pretty little beach/fishing town not too far away. Obviously at the beginning of May we weren't exactly looking to go swimming, but we walked around the small town, saw a boatload of boats, and took a long walk along the coast to the Boca do Inferno (Hell's Mouth), which is a deep chasm in the cliffs along the ocean.

Cliffs near Cascais

Boca do Inferno

I'm betting that during tourist season, Cascais is not the place to be (well, unless you're looking for a place overrun by tourists), but at the beginning of May it wasn't too busy, and the scenery was still beautiful. And despite there not being a whole lot to do or see there, it's another nice little getaway from the hustle and bustle of big city life. We ended the day with this great seafood stew that was really like nothing I'd ever had before, mainly because it was thickened (a lot) with breadcrumbs. It was bizarre, but in a good way. Maddie still has an ongoing obsession with said stew - one that I don't see ending any time soon, and rightfully so.

Our last day in Lisbon was a rainy one. Actually it was worse than a rainy day - it was one of those days that goes back and forth between heavy rain and no rain at all. You try to be grateful for the

Igreja do Carmo, or what remains of it after the 1755 earthquake.

no-rain parts of the day, but you can't help but get frustrated by having to take out and open your umbrella, close your umbrella once the rain stops, carry it around because it's too wet to put away, finally put it away because it's finally dry enough, and then BOOM it starts raining again. It's a vicious, watery cycle. Aaaanyway, we tried to spend the day at places inside, but there actually aren't a whole lot of sights that are completely inside. First we went to Igreja do Carmo, which was a church that was turned into an archaeological museum after an earthquake destroyed a lot of it in the 1700s. Sadly, the part of the museum that's inside is small, and the rest is the structure of the church, sans roof. But well worth the visit either way.

View of Lisbon from the fortress/castle.

Next we moved on to the cathedral of Lisbon, which actually wasn't majorly impressive. But it was inside, so that counts for something. Our last sight was the castle on one of Lisbon's biggest hills, overlooking the entire city. Not inside at all, but it had stopped raining by this point in the afternoon. We ended the day with a bit more walking around and enjoying the pretty Portuguese architecture, complete with a nice relaxing break from the hectic sightseeing for yummy Portuguese pastries. I've probably said it before, but Portugal has awesome pastries.

And thus ended our trip to Portugal. Boo. But then it was time to show Maddie what Spain is like, so yay for that! Great trip(s) overall, and I think she had a good time as well.

#42 Start a day with churros from the Chocolatería San Ginés

If you ask me, Spain doesn't have a super wide variety of traditional pastries and sweet things. But churros with chocolate is a wonderfully greasy and chocolately thing that Spain does right. Some people consider churros Spain's version of donuts, but they're almost more like fried dough to me. Either way, if you have a strong stomach for grease and sugar, this is the Spanish treat for you.

Feast.

For those of you who aren't familiar, churros are typically served with either coffee or chocolate. You can get them at most cafes in Spain, but they're typically only served in the morning. However, there are some specific churrerías or chocolaterías that serve this treat all day long (or in some cases, super late into the night). While you can get churros most anywhere in Madrid, the Chocolatería San Ginés, located halfway between the Puerta del Sol and Ópera, is one of the most famous and I think one of the oldest still running churrerías in the city (it opened in 1894). And, according to their business card, they're open "all day and night." (Their website, on the other hand, says 9 am until the "early morning," whatever that means.) Perfect hangover food after the typical madrileño long night out on the town, I guess?

You know it's morning cause
 my hair's still wet.

Anyway, I've been to San Ginés several times, (and at different parts of the day - in the morning, the afternoon, at night, but not in the wee hours of the morning, I assure you). However, until recently I had actually never "started a day with churros" from San Ginés. When Maddie came to visit me back at the beginning of May, we set off one morning without having eaten much breakfast, and I suggested churros. We were pretty hungry, so we ordered churros, porras (basically just the version of a churro on steroids), chocolate for said churros and porras, and our respective morning beverages (coffee for me, tea for her). I'm not really sure how we downed all this at eleven in the morning, but, my friends, we did. And it was muy rico.

I haven't really done a lot of searching for amazing churros elsewhere in Spain, but if you're not in Madrid and want good churros (particularly at any time of the day), another place that I would recommend is the Chocolatería Valor, which is a chain of chocolaterías throughout the country. Their churros are a slightly different style, but they're equally delicious and heart-attack inducing. Buen provecho!

Manzanares el Real

Well, well, well...It's been a little while. Actually, for me, not so much. Not only do I have a list of things that I've been meaning to write about on an electronic Post-It Note on my computer desktop, but I've had literally four posts that have been sitting in draft form for several months now. Shame.
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1617827759491842830#editor/target=post;postID=6643231031662027662
Well, school's been out for three weeks now, and I've finally hit the stage of ultimate boredom (which hopefully won't last too long). So today I'll try to finally finish up these four posts, just for you, mis amigos. Here goes:

Moving along, this year in Madrid I've really been trying to travel and explore as much as possible. I'm probably only doing a mediocre job in doing so, but in my opinion, I've still seen and gotten to know a lot more of Spain, Madrid in particular. I've also been, as you may know, to Portugal a few

Community of Madrid & Surrounding

times in the past year, and Germany and Austria, of course, all of which I liked a lot. But getting to really know Madrid and its close surroundings has been something of a goal of mine, and it may seem like an easy task, but it's not always. That's partly why I decided to try to complete that list of 100 things to do in Madrid (um...yeah, about that...). But I also enjoy going to places outside of the city of Madrid but still in the community (which, for the sake of this post, is essentially Spain's equivalent of a state or province) of Madrid. One of the great things that I like about Madrid is the public transportation. The bus and train system are pretty reliable, relatively cheap (although they recently raised prices a lot), and most of all, extensive. Seeing as I don't have a car and would be terrified to drive here even if I did have one, this is key for me. For a while when I was first living here, I thought that pretty much the only places worth seeing on the outskirts of Madrid were Toledo and Segovia (neither of which are even in the community of Madrid). Since then I've seen some great places like Aranjuez (my favorite by far), El Escorial, and this one, Manzanares el Real (red arrow), all within 45 minutes of my house.

Manzanares is located not even an hour north of Madrid, at the foot of La Pedriza, a part of the Sierra de Guadarrama. Just in case you were curious, courtesy of Guidebook Sarah. Anyway, so it's up in the mountains. Right on a huge reservoir (el Embalse de Santillana), towards the mouth of the river that bears the same name. A town relatively busy with tourists and yet still tucked away enough that it's only the good tourists (i.e. few non-Spaniards - during peak season there are plenty of Spanish tourists) who even know about it. It's mostly known for its very well-preserved medieval castle, but there's a lot of great hiking in the area as well. So long story short, I'd been meaning to go for a while, and back in March (I know, right, March?) I bit the bullet and finally went.

Manzanares River

 The town itself doesn't have a whole lot of things to do or see, aside from the nice scenery. There is the medieval castle, the Castillo de los Mendoza from the 15th century. There's also the castillo viejo, or old castle, which is pretty much just ruins and no one seems to really know exactly when it's from (I guess they think maybe sometime around the 14th century, so really not much older than the other castle). There's also a church (surprise, surprise), and some monastery or something like that, which we didn't go to because it was a bit of a hike up in the mountains and we didn't have time. We started out by crossing the river past the "old castle" and taking a walk alongside the river, across from the town. It was a good walk, and really the scenery alone makes it worth going out to Manzanares. It's the perfect combination of mountain, water, and cute little town nestled somewhere in between.

View of the pueblo and mountains from across the river.

Please don't feed the adorable, pretty, sweet horsies.

Old Castle - not a whole lot to see.

 Anyway, afterwards, we checked out the castle. Basically its story is that the Mendoza family decided in 1475 that the old castle just wasn't flashy enough for them, so they had the new castle built. (Hence the castle's name, the Mendoza castle.) Now, of course, the castle is open to the public (although I think it's still privately owned). Inside there are a lot of tapestries, paintings, some furniture - the usual. The two-story courtyard is pretty cool, and in the middle of it there is an apple tree (although a somewhat small and pathetic-looking apple tree). This is because "manzanares" means "apple orchards." You can also go up on what I guess I would call the roof of the castle (or a walkway along the roof), which gives you a great view of the town and surrounding landscape.

Castillo de los Mendoza

For anyone thinking, "Medieval Times" much? Yeah...the castle is a bit cheesy and fake looking. It's no Segovia Alcazar or Neuschwanstein Castle, but it's cool nonetheless.

Like I said, there's not a ton to see in the little town of Manzanares, but since it's located in the Sierra de Guadarrama, there is a lot of hiking. On this day in March, we didn't venture up into the mountains, partly because we didn't have time and partly because the woman in the tourist office advised against it since it was still, well, March. And since then I've also learned that these mountains have some of the most confusing and easy-to-get-yourself-lost-in trails around Madrid. So good thing we just stayed in the pueblo.