Hasta Lunes

A better work week is done and I'm sitting on the balcony overlooking our street, Calle de Lagasca -drinking a vodka-redBull -looking into the back yard of the Italian Consular General to Spain's residence -AJ just made a great cheese and fruit platter, Jay has veal sausages and wild rice on the make, life is better than decent.

Andy, out.

Hit-and-run culture

Finally took our cameras on a walk, so new photos are on Flickr. It was a long walk too but we broke up the return journey with a few stops for a quick beer at some outdoor places on the way. Jay had already scoped out the modern art museo, the Reina Sofia, so we targeted the big Picasso's and Dali's for some hit-and-run culture. The large park that's 15 minutes walk from our apartment is great and after being asked if we wanted to buy any hashish we mingled with the crowds, runners and roller bladers.The weather has been great this week and it looks like blue skies today too. It makes our office pretty hard to bear in the afternoon though as they don't appear to arc up the air-con as the building heats up and we're all suffering to varying degrees in the dead/stale air. But lunch is when we get out and go for a walk and yesterday found a great little donor kebab place where we had a really tasty meal so the food options are opening up finally.We have requirements discussions all day today, hopefully we'll be able to contribute. Although most meetings are started in English, and it sounds like the main points are discussed in English, there are often long sections of discussion in Spanish that we're always unsure what's being said. The long sections are usually summarised for us in English, but the summary is always very short leaving me worried that we're missing something. But in the end it'll all be written down by our Spanish BA's and translated for us so we're hoping it's going to work out.

Anyways, I better finish breakfast and have a shave so we can get out of here.

Andy, out.

A Long Haul

The working hours here are a little tough on us. Starting at 09:30 is fine, but waiting until 14:00 for lunch and then coming back and staying in the office every day until 19:00 is a new experience for us. Especially for the last week which really has not contained much work for us as we wait for the deal to get signed. Today, Friday, is a little better as we get out of here at 15:00, but it also means no lunch hour at all... it's touch and go whether we make it to quitting time or die of hunger.

Food has been mixed and options other than Spanish fare are limited. I've not seen a single Chinese or Indian resturant and even the 'Irish Pub' didn't have anything resembling Anglo food. Not that we're complaining, the local tapas bars are awesome and we've had great Spanish food mostly. It's really just a few places around the office that have disappointed, average cafeteria food served in restaurants. But of course that can happen anywhere and it's not like we paid more than 15Euro (about $27AUD) each including a pint of beer for 2 courses. On the plus side AJ found a bottle of red wine for 1Euro and it was actually pretty good, so not everything here is expensive and not everything cheap is nasty.

AJ has a buddy in town for a few nights so we plan to go out tonight with Riyaz and continue the good work he and AJ started last night (they got back in around 3am, Jay and I aren't young enough to do that crap anymore). With tomorrow planned for recovery and probably some more exploration we will get out of Madrid on Sunday and go here to see a 15th century castle that featured in the 50's movie El Cid, sweet.

Andy, out.

Bien gracias, y tu?

Seriously have to learn some more Spanish. Lots of people speak English quite well but we've had a couple of cab drivers who didn't, making us work hard with our hands to make sure we went in the right direction, hilarious. The flights weren't too bad, I caught about 3+ hours sleep between Toronto and Frankfurt and after a quick break there the 2.5hr flight to Madrid was pretty easy. AJ didn't get any sleep so he had to keep his eyes closed to avoid bleeding to death. We went straight to the apartment, in a very Toorak-style inner-city neighbourhood called Salamanca. The whole area is flooded with high price fashion stores, D&G, Prada, Miu Miu etc and other top-shelf stores (Jay bought one apple and a handful of blackberries from a grocer and the cost was 6EU, or $12AUD). We arrived at the apartment to find it was still being cleaned so after a quick look around we decided to go for a walk.

Jay had been to Madrid a few weeks ago as part of setting the gig up so he had a good basic mental compass for what was where. The sun was out and temp around 20 degrees so we headed towards the main city center about 4k's away. Every so often we stopped to check out food, a plate of cured ham, awesome sheeps-milk cheese and beers for all 3 of us cost 10EU, outstanding value and damn tasty. I was in Madrid in '86 but my memories were of hot mid-summer weather, back-packers hostels and a different area of the city. The streets, especially Grand Via the main drag, were very familiar but early spring gives all the trees and parks a much greener look to the one I saw with 19 year old eyes and now recall with a 41 year old brain.

First images of Madrid are the obvious ones, tight winding streets with smaller cars (easier to touch-park) and 100's of vespas, lots of people on the streets after 8pm on a Monday, old couples walking hand in hand wearing their best clothes (just strolling), fantastic architecture, statues, sculptures, gardens. Our walk was over 7k's round trip and after being cramped in the aircraft my knees started to complain (clearly getting old :-)) so I was relieved to get back to the apartment around 21:30, have a red wine and wind down.

We all hit the hay before midnight not sure what time our body clocks would wake us. In the end I hit my snooze 3-4 times before I could get moving, my body still thinking it was 2am. We were running a little late so I couldn't stop for a coffee and that made this morning a bit harsh. We attended our first client meeting which was held mostly in spanish, a sure fire way to make me nod off and I had to focus to stay awake. We had lunch at a local place were the IBM'ers are given vouchers that cost 1EU and are good for a 3 course meal. The three of us did have any vouchers but the bill was under 10EU each although the food was pretty basic, okay 'rustic' to be polite. Hopefully it wont be our regular lunchtime haunt. The plan for this evening is to take the Metro back to the apartment, rather than a cab, then shop for some essentials before we head out for tapas again. I didn't take my camera with me last night so I don't have any pictures yet but expect that to be remedied tonight.

Andy, out.

Como estats!

So we have Easter lunch tee'd up with our relatives the Strutts on Sunday and then in the evening I fly out to Madrid via Frankfurt for three weeks. We have a really nice apartment booked for the three of us, Jay, AJ and myself, in the Salamanca district, walking distance to the metro and in very nice street. We plan to shuffle our trips back to TO so that 2 of us are always on site. I need to get back into my online Spanish course so I have a hope of ordering edible food and finding my way around :-). The project is for the next 12 months, hopefully the family will join me for summer in Madrid and we'll get to England and Paris too with some luck, but as usual we'll play it all by ear and fly by the seat of our pants, it's how we roll!

Andy, out.