Touring the City

We have been in Madrid for three days now. Now that I've caught up on sleep, the city is new and exciting (rather than foreign and overwhelming).

The USAC orientation that has taken most of our free time (and energy) over the last few days is finally over. We finished today with a walking tour of the city with an intercambio (Spanish friend). The historic plazas and grand buildings started to blur together after awhile, and by the end of the three hours, I just wanted to eat and sleep. Central Madrid is fairly touristy, so most of the shops and restaurants were expensive and gimmicky. I am suprised by the saturation of American products and brands. The potato chips were made by Lays, the toothpaste by Colgate, etc. One of the things I like best about the city is the diversity of stores and restaurants (Spain has the largest number of bars and restaurants per capita than any country in the world), but one of the sorority girls in my group just HAD to go to Starbucks (despite the dozens of local cafes around the are). Except for the higher prices here, Starbucks sucks just as much in Spain as it does in the US. I wasn't really in the mood for a $5 hot chocolate.

Funny restaurants

1. Nebraska Restaurante - to my horror, downtown Madrid has no shortage of this chain. We passed four or five in our tour. I got my picture taken in front of this window to my home. The only thing about the menu that reminded me of Nebraska was its generall boringness - pasta, chicken, meat, salad.

2. Restaurante Canadense Iglu - Outside our apartment, there is a Canadian restaurant that we'll have to try someday. "Iglu" seems to be referring to igloos. I had to pass this on to a few Canadian friends of mine.

Our apartment

To our delight, the apartment is beautiful and much larger than we hoped for. It may take a while for the novelty of our big kitchen and living room to wear off. Today, we had a couple of friends over to eat eggs. Our room mates - Amanda and Sara (there are two Sarahs) are nice and funny. After encountering the abundance of drunk sorority girls that make up the study abroad program, I was thrilled to luck out.

Wireless internet is just catching on in Spain, and since we don't have a phone line in our apartment (even local calls are charged by the minute), luck was our only chance to get online. Fortunately, we're at the top of a 15-story apartment building, and we can access (steal) a few unsecured networks. There's one particular spot on the floor in my room where I can get a passable connection. The challenge is to sit absolutely still.

Twilight Zone moment: Tonight, as Sarah and I were returning from a trip to the bakery (our bread habit is outrageously enabled here), we both stared in each other in shock as we saw tha tour apartment door had a different lock. We checked to see that the floor and apartment numbers were right, and eerily returned to the bottom floor. Finally, we saw that the painting in the lobby was different. We were in the wrong building. Everything else looked the same. We felt really stupid.

Food

The food here is just wonderful. It's not so much that I love the Spanish fare (although I'm sure I'll get used to it), but that fresh food is more available in the grocery stores. Baguettes for .40 euro ($.53) is nothing out of the ordinary (compare to Jean's at the Bread Oven for $2.95). Wonderful cheeses are inexpensive and available even in convenience stores. I knew to be on the lookout for cerrano ham, but I couldn't have missed it - it's everywhere. I was really suprised by how good the ham is here. I've never liked it too much, but the sliced meat here is of a much, much higher quality and, like the other "gourmet" products, is cheap.

Instead of frozen pizzas, they have refrigerated ones that are much fresher and better. We also got something that looks like chocolate mousse for $.23. Soda is expensive, but a bottle of champagne was $2.00.

The only thing that is a little weird is the milk. Although I like the idea of milk that keeps for a few months and doesn't need to be refrigerated, I'm not quite used to it in practice.


Newspaper

The Spanish newspaper tries its best to be nonbiased, but it can't really hide its scorn for the US policy in Iraq. Naturally, Sarah and I love it. If only we could have studied this kind of Spanish all along! Our favorite lead was with "Bush sends more troops to Iraq and hopes that the plan will work this time." A graphic described how the money for the new troops could otherwise be used (curing AIDS, helping the poorest countries, etc.).