Pueblo Ingles Reunion - Theo

A couple of weeks ago we met up with our friends from Pueblo Ingles who, in many respects were the reason we moved to Madrid (and didn't stay in Barcelona) in the first place. Some, like Belen, we see regularly here in Madrid, others like lovely Amalia, who lives in Valencia less often, while the charming Alfonso and Silvano we somehow only seem to meet up with at this now annual event, which is a real shame. [Cesar we of course see very regularly - but he never attended Pueblo Ingles, hence why he ended up taking the photo!]


Very sweetly they had all acquiesced to our request for a non-smoking eatery and had even gone one step further, by booking a vegetarian restaurant, Al Natural, in the centre just off Calle Alcala. We were slightly apprehensive about how Rosie would cope; not with the new faces as she's usually fine after a period of adjustment, which she proved, but with the timing. The booking was for the very Spanish time of 2pm; her afternoon nap is at 2.30pm. Hmmmm. We decided to simply take it in turns pushing her around outside and to switch half-way through.

In the end it worked out fine. When I took Rosie off at 2.20pm not everyone had arrived; when I phoned Kate at 3.10pm then hadn't even ordered!! As it was, we switched 15 minutes later and I still got a starter, Kate coming back in with Rosie moments after they'd served the main course; our group was the last to leave the restaurant (at 5pm!). They'll make Spaniards of us yet!

Madrid PI Reunion

On Saturday we had a bit of a reunion. Not with private investigators, but rather with some of the delightful Spaniards we got to know on a Pueblo Ingles immersion week that we did last year and who had largely been responsible for us moving to Madrid in the first place, so positive was the impression of both Madrid and Madrilenos we got from them. Some, like the lovely Belen, we see relatively often, while others not as often as we'd like due to work, family and distance constraints - Amalia and Juanvi live in Valencia for example, while Olga and Silvano have young children.

Naturally not everyone could make it, sadly and ironically including Vanessa (whose idea the reunion had been) and Jero (who had made an online calendar so we could arrange the most convenient date), but there was a still a decent showing - 15 of us - at Horno de Juan in the Islas Filipinas barrio. It being a traditional Spanish restaurant vegetarian fare was not featured heavily on the menu - the rest were tucking into black pudding following by huge slabs of cochinillo (suckling pig) - but we did pretty well on salad, tortilla, and roasted vegetables. Max and Cesar desperately wanted to speak English so made sure that sat near us, which was fine except I wanted to try out my Spanish, so I made sure I moved down to near Olga, her (non-English speaking) husband Fernando and Jaime's wife Teresa for pudding so I could get some practice!
We finally left the restaurant at 6-ish and retired to a nearby bar where Olga regaled Kate with horror stories from her first birth and Max described his attempts at kite surfing which I just about understood, before Kate and I decided to call it a night. We also received our first presents for Fosbella, a beautiful, tiny pair of woolen shoes from Maria-Jose and Amalia. It was a wonderful day, and I hope it isn't too long before we do it again.

Dia del Deportes

Well that was a lot of fun!

Yesterday we begged, bullied, cajoled and persuaded 20 of our Madrid-based friends to join us in our local park for an English Sports Day and Picnic. What with the gorgeous weather which is practically a permanent fixture here in Spain and the proximity of the shady, flat spaces of Parque Tierno Galvan, it seemed a crime not to! Egg and Spoon races, Rounders, Cricket and Three-legged races were all scheduled in, as we began to assemble from 1pm, with people coming and going all day and a hard-core dozen lasting a good 8 hours until a sudden thunderstorm sent us bolting for cover, hasty goodbyes said as our guests ran for the Metro.



Turn out was much better than expected, with a strong representation from our Pueblo Ingles friends and the writing group, and there was way too much food! As we have discovered many, many times during our 14 blissful months of marriage, when you ask people to bring something to share they make enough for about five people!! Maria-Jose's veggie croquetas, Jero's home-baked bread and Vanessa'a tortilla were among our favourites. In fact the, only thing we were short of was enough to drink, especially in the 30 degree heat, so several expeditions to the local supermercado were organised.



The egg and spoon races - 4 heats followed by semi-finals and then a grand final - caused much hilarity and some outrageous cheating, and were eventually won by the athlete from Senegal, Aboubacar, after the local challenger Javier and the early favourite Owain both suffered disastrous egg-breaks mid-race. (The GB representatives Kathleen and Richie took silver and bronze). However, in an outstanding display of Anglo-German cooperation Owain eventually grabbed a gold in the three-legged race when he and Nico narrowly triumphed over Kate and Maria-Jose's stylish team.



Rounders, played under a shady canopy with trees for bases and a rolling-pin as a bat, was popular with Max's tight pitching keeping some of the big-hitters in check and the first game finishing in a 8-8 tie. Cricket was less successful, though Sylmara - a Puerto Rican we'd met the weekend before - turned out to be a demon-bowler in her first ever attempt at playing. Naturally Kate got the guitar out as well - her Dirty Bitch Tango being requested by her loyal Pueblo Ingles fans - and Owain joined her for a duet on a song they'd written together. Then Javier wowed us all with some amazing magic tricks and sleights of hand, roping me into helping him with a trick he'd only explained to me once before; I just managed to get it right!

A sculpture is a sculpture, marmelade is marmelade...

Obvious, yes? Maybe not - especially if the sculpture is either made of marmelade, or of marmelade. What they hell am I talking about? To find out you'll have to read my review of SJ Esau and The Wave Pictures @ Club Neu! last Saturday
http://www.the-fly.co.uk/words/reviews/live-reviews/4704/the-wave-pictures-&-sj-esau

We had spent the afternoon before hanging out with Mr Esau himself - Sam - as he's an old friend from Bristol and had very kindly played at our wedding; his songs had sound-tracked much of our journey around Europe last year. We showed him Plaza Major and the St Gines Chocolateria (a must!) and then met him later before the gig. Along with his Italian friend Nadia (who now lives in Segovia) we were about the only people at the gig who knew who he was, but he seemed to go down very well!

After the gig, it was our Spanish friend Jaime's birthday party; he's a busy boy and this was actually the first time we had managed to see him since the Pueblo Ingles week last year, so it was great to hang out with him again and meet his lovely wife Teresa. Belen, another Pueblo Ingles friend was there with our lovely Venezuelan friends David and Natalie in tow, so much fun was had in the little underground bar Jaime had booked for the occasion. A very lazy Sunday followed as a result!

Bye bye Barcelona

It's nearly time to go.....

Our fourth week in Barcelona and it's nearly time to move on. Our lovely landlady Ilse has already gone - she flew back to Germany on Tuesday - and on Saturday it'll be our turn to leave the house in Poublenou.

Kate taught her last CELTA course lesson this afternoon - a skills lesson based around lonely hearts adverts - and mine is tomorrow - I'm using "Money (that's what I want)" by The Flying Lizards and an article about the relationship between money and happiness. I'm the last up in our teaching practice group. The course has been great fun; sure it has also been stressful and frustrating at times, but we have both enjoyed the buzz of teaching, while our tutors, class mates and students have all been lovely. We've also learned a huge amount about the English language, and we're pretty sure the knowledge will be useful to us in our attempts to learn Spanish!
On Saturday we're driving to Madrid to stay with our friend Belen and hopefully see a few more of our Pueblo Ingles chums. Then on Sunday we're on the road again, this time to a plush hotel in Barco de Avila where we'll be spending the week talking English with Spanish learners at Vaughan Town. We're taking our Irish classmate Eoin with us, so we'll have some company on the road and lots of fun watching the Spanish learners try to get their ears round his thick Kerry accent!

New people in our lives

These last few weeks have opened up a world of new friends for Theo and me - it's almost overwhelming. Our week with Pueblo Ingles at La Alberca has left us feeling slightly bereft because we became so close to so many people then had to be parted from them almost straight away. Slightly bereft, yes, but also richer in new relationships, many of which I feel sure will last indefinitely.

The experience at La Alberca was special partly because we felt we were doing something helpful, but mainly because the intense programme of conversation - much of it highly intimate in nature - led to a deep appreciation of and affection for the other people involved.

Our weekend in Madrid only added to these feelings as Belen and her boyfriend Cesar made us feel so very welcome in their flat and our other Spanish and Anglo friends organised a joyful reunion in the centre of the city. Extra thanks to Andres, Max and Cesar for their kind chauffeuring too!

It was hard not to feel a little flat as we tackled the seven-hour drive to Barcelona on Sunday then arrived in the middle of downpour. But our new landlady soon helped to lift our dampened spirits. Ilse is a German translator who lives and works in Barcelona and lets out one of her rooms to visiting trainee teachers. As soon as we had arrived and got our stuff inside, we were offered home-made pumpkin soup and told to help ourselves to anything in the kitchen. Not only is Ilse friendly and generous, she is also providing us with a well-furnished double bedroom plus en-suite bathroom. Yay!

For the last three days the weather has been warm and sunny, our tutors, fellow trainees and our students are all likable people and the teacher training course we are doing is challenging but enjoyable.

If we didn't have so much homework, we might even find the time to feel exceedingly smug.

leaving La Alberca

We've had a fantastic and inspiring time on the Pueblo Ingles week at La Alberca, but it's nearly time to say goodbye. Tonight is the last night, so naturally we're having a big party - lots of drinking and dancing to a mix of Spanish and English pop music. It's been a fantastic week, we've met so many wonderful people, both English and Spanish speaking, and have had fantastic weather for the most part allowing us to appreciate the beautiful countryside.


We start our TEFL course in Barcelona on Monday, but first we're going to spend a couple of nights in Madrid with our new friend Belen. However, assuming they let us, we suspect we'll be back at Pueblo Ingles in the not too distant future.

Speaking for our supper

Kate and I are currently staying in a beautiful 4star Hotel just outside the picturesque village of La Alberca, high in the Sierra del Gredo to the west of Madrid. We are sharing a two-bedroomed en suite cottage with a lovely Madrilena called Olga, who is here to improve her English.

We aren't paying for anything (except the odd beer from the bar). Instead we are, quite literally, talking for our supper. Along with a dozen other "Anglos" (in this case Americans, Canadians and English) we are here to talk to another dozen or so Spanish (and one Portuguese) people who want to improve their English. This is Pueblo Ingles.

This morning I've had hour-long one-to-one conversations with Olga, who is a very high powered business executive it seems, Jaime, a Basque speaking advertising executive working in Madrid, and Daniel, who works in telecommunications solutions. The telecommunications industry is well represented here. I'm one of the youngest, but it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone here is charming, friendly and interesting, and naturally Kate - with her welcoming smile and BBC-honed enunciation - is going down a storm.

It's now siesta time - that's actually on the schedule! - so I'm going to take advantage; we've got more activities scheduled tonight!

Learning to speak English

Kate and I have been accepted on a CELTA Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in Barcelona, starting November 3rd. So for the past week we've been trying to learn how to speak English!

Luckily we're staying with Kate's mother Cathy this week who is (like my Mum actually) a TEFL teacher, so she's been helping us with our pre-course homework. 6 months on the road without having to work have made this a bit of a culture shock, but Cathy has more or less guided us through the 3rd conditional, phrasal verbs and progressive tenses.

Next week we're off to warm up our language skills a bit more, spending a week in a four star hotel (expenses paid) near Salamanca talking English to Spanish learners on a Pueblo Ingles week. Should get us in the mood.

Then a month in Barcelona, lodging with a German translator, working 9 to 5. Culture shock alert! We're quite excited though.