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.