Brighton: a town by the sea

 

As you can see, the cold and rain have not kept us indoors these past days because we want to maximize our time in Brighton. Here we saw the main part of Brighton as well as the beach (with West Pier in the background: the skeleton structure left after a fire a couple of decades ago).  

Brighton beach has cute, colorful sheds and some of the most terrific pebbles I've ever seen. In fact, they are so neat that we plan on taking a suitcase full of rocks! ok, I'm exaggerating slightly, but if we end up lugging a couple of pounds worth of pebbles back to Houston it would be justifiable since they are so beautiful.

Christmas was spent British style, complete with the crackers tradition (goodies stored inside of a paper tube that you pop open) and wearing red paper crowns -I promise, this is what all the Brits do! The kids were very happy to discover that Santa had brought some presents for them (although we had forewarned them that Santa was delivering their presents to Houston).

We also went to see greyhound racing today, which the kids loved. Each of them would pick a hound to root for (sorry, no bets for us -British Pounds are too expensive!) and they loved the dogs' silly names like "Droopy Bertha," Guiness Rock,and  Big Suze.

Yesterday afternoon, the kids suddenly got costume fever and started to raid the costume chest. As you can see, they've been having a grand ol' time together -playing, bickering and laughing!

Tomorrow we head to London to the Museum of Science and the kids are really excited about that. More pictures will follow soon. Til then, take care everyone.

Houston, we have..... an MBA!

 

After 13 months of intense study and work, we are proud to share with you all the crowning moment of the year: Fede's graduation on December 20th. In Spain, graduates do not wear a cap & gown, but instead are given a sash to wear in the form of a "V" over their shoulders (as you can see below).

 

It was a very happy and fulfilling moment, but also a bit sad as we said goodbye to friends from around the world, who would soon be scattered across the four corners of the earth. I suppose the advantage of this is that we know people everywhere now, but we also realize that this was a unique moment in time when we were all gathered together in Madrid.

After a delicious cocktail we went home and dropped off the kids with the babysitter to go have drinks and tapas one last time. We went to one of our favorite tapas bars "Tempranillo" on the Cava Baja street where we ordered setas (a type of mushroom and a red wine called Retamas -if you can get your hands on some, it is very good).

We made it an early night though because the babysitter had an exam in the morning (and also, we were exhausted from all of the packing and moving). It was terrific though to celebrate such an event and we are thankful that we had such a great experience!

I'm jumping around a bit, as I try to fill in the pieces of the last weeks, so now I'll tell you all a bit about the flight from Madrid to Spain. Fede prudently suggested that we move out on Saturday and spend the night in a hotel because our flight to London left at 7:30am. So, according to schedule, the owners of the apartment arrived at 4pm to pick up the keys and we signed the papers to close the deal. By 5pm we were on the bus on our way to Barajas, a little suburb of Madrid where the airport is located, and we went to Mass at a precious little church there at 7pm. Antonio and Fede were thrilled to see that Real Madrid had a soccer game that night as we had dinner and then made it early to bed.

By 4:45 am we were up and at the airport within an hour. Antonio wanted to share with his friends in Spain what the flight to London was like. So, below you can see Anto sitting in his seat mid-flight. We got to see an amazing sunrise, bursting with colors too. Antonio was sure to wear his school's gym uniform (the navy blue/blue jacket) in honor of his buddies at school and to be sure, he has thought of them often since we left...

Once we landed we snapped several pictures of the plane too! Ok, that's it for now.
cheers! And, as they say in England, "HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!"

Christmas Recitals!

Hello Family and Friends!

 

It has been an intense month for us!! This month marked the last one in Madrid, as well as the kids' Christmas recitals, Fede's graduation, packing, moving...and saying farewell to Madrid and all the people there that mean so much to us....

 

We will begin, though, with the happy part, which is the kids' recitals! Francisco, as you can see, was dressed as an angel, or as my friend Charo said "Un Angelote" (a big angel!) and that he was. Fran was delighted to wear his white satin dress and bumble around like an angel -super cute. Antonio and Alejandra did not dress up, but they did memorize their lines as part of the Nativity story and sang carols both in English and Spanish. 



 

In the pictures above, the kids are with some of their close friends, as well as their teachers (Marga -Alejandra's teacher; Elena -Francisco's teacher, and Sara -the kids' English teacher). Also pictured are Fran in his classroom, Alejandra with her friends Ainhoa and Sofia, and the kids with their friend Bryan.

This year we once again did the "Navibus" which is the bus that takes you down all of the lighted main streets of the city. The kids love this outing and it provided a good way to see the city one last time.

As the days ticked down to the 23rd of December (our date for departure), I started getting pretty nostalgic about leaving and realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of our "ordinary life" here. I've shown ya'll lots of places and travels, but here are some shots of our neighborhood. In the pictures that follow, you can take the trip with us to school, from the moment we step outside our building (the gray one on the left side), to where we cross the street (Jose Ortega y Gasset), and then cross the street Francisco Silvela to walk down Cartagena street to the kids' school. These pictures are typical images of Barrio Salamanca, where we lived. (Our building is the one below with the gray part on floors 0-1 and all red brick from floors 2-7). We were really happy living there and realize that we lucked out to find such a great home.

Everytime we passed by the bakery (pictured above), Fran would pretend to take a bite out of the huge ice cream cone. And below, we are walking to the Avenida de los Toreros, the final street we cross to get to school.

Above the kids are scrambling up the steps to school, where Carmen the door lady would patiently wait for the trickle of kids to finish before closing the doors. On the way out, I snapped a picture of the kids in front of the sign of their beloved school.

I wish I had taken pictures of all of our friends, but at least here are some of our close friends: Martha with Sonia; Laura with her mom, Charo, and Victoria, our Spanish-Brittish friend. Below that is a picture of the kids playing at one of the local parks, San Cayetano, with their school friends.

Finally, above is pictured Jesus reading his book and Antonio with Dani and Jorge --these four were in the same classroom last year.

Next I will post the pictures from Fede's graduation, December 20th, and then will follow current pictures from Brighton, UK -where we are right now. We left Madrid yesterday morning at 7:30am, after a very smooth but exhausting move-out day on Saturday, and are incredibly happy to be here with our family -The Zapata Martinez- to celebrate Christmas.

To all of our friends in Madrid: we are thinking so much of yall and miss you so much. To our friends in Texas: we are so excited to see you all in January! Hoping you all have a joyous Christmas Eve and I will write soon.