I'm a Norseman!
It’s interesting being from Vermont and moving to Madrid.
I feel like a norseman here. I still can’t get over people wearing winter jackets when it’s 70 degrees out. I have yet to wear a jacket and everyone on the street is in a winter jacket and scarves. When I first typed this, my little desktop widgets from Vista told me Madrid today is 55 degrees. In Middlebury Vermont its minus 12.
Just got off the phone, Doug tells me they just got another 22-24 inches of snow this week.
Yesterday, it was 70 degrees out. Wendy heard a woman tell her child “Hurry up, I’m freezing out here.”
Moving right along… We’re settling in. There’s a lot to be done both with someone moving in with you, and someone moving to another country. You find you need things. You go out and get those things. You have people to meet and parties to go to. You have a schedule that is constantly interrupted for the first ten days.
Last week we started to settle down. I got my column in to Star City days early instead of just barely. We went running twice. (OMG does Wendy run farther than me. I can barely make it to the end. I’m used to going shorter distances at a greater speed. So twenty five percent of the way in, I am boundless energy. Wendy tells me I can lap her if I want. I decline. I’d prefer to run with her but feel very confidant half way through the run that this is going to be a little too easy for me. Which is good, because I don’t want her thinking I’m a girly man. Three quarters of the way through the run sweat is dripping in my eyes. The last ten percent of the run I’m stumbling like I’m on a death march. Good thing I didn’t get cocky and lap her.) This weekend, we actually spent an entire day home without leaving the house for some necessity we didn’t plan. Sunday, we actually lay in bed reading. This might not seem like much to some, but for us it was bliss. It’s been a busy two weeks.
On Thursday and Friday I started working on “The Novel” for the first time in three years and remembered “Wow is writing hard. Fixing computers is way easier than this!” See, a great deal of my writing is, well, this. Reporting. Rambling. Telling about things that have happened. My mind only needs to remember them and hopefully write them in an amusing and entertaining way. Simple.
Writing a novel is pain.
I can do ten pages a day reporting. I have managed to do two pages a day on the novel and found myself exhausted by the effort. Thankfully, I have a few wonderful books on the subject and I am refreshing my memory on how to do just such a thing.
Friday night we go out to dinner. We’ve decided that three Fridays a month is “Go to dinner at one of the dozens of neat little places near our apartement that looks interesting. One Friday a month is eat at our favorite place.” Friday’s dinner was held at Casa Lucas. Wendy has been there before, but it was so good she wanted me to experience it. I’m glad too, the food was phenomenal.
After that was ice cream. We’re a sucker for ice cream. I haven’t had a candy bar in six months but I’ve had an ice cream cone four times this week. This place was very chic and had large easy chairs to relax in while our order came. I ordered an espresso and a Tiramisu ice cream that was some of the best I’ve ever had. I recline in my big comfy easy chair and smile. The place starts to get packed and a mother and her twenty something daughter ask to sit with us and get a six pack of ice cream cones. I’m not kidding, they had six cones come in a little pack and not only did they finish them, they were licking the bottom of the pack when the cones were gone! They are speaking in a language I don’t recognize. I whisper in Wendy’s ear -
“That’s not Spanish, is it?”
“It’s Nordic. Not sure which one.”
A few minutes later the mother leans over to me “Where in America are you from?”
“How did you know I was American?”
“It wasn’t hard.”
“I’m from Vermont.”
“Vermont is beautiful. We’re from Norway.”
She tells us about Norway and how its similar to Vermont and asks our advice on Madrid. Wendy gives them some suggestions on what they should see. I suggest Plaza de Espana and the Egyptian Temple.
Tonight Wendy is making us Salmon in a blackberry merlot sauce with grilled mushrooms, onions and asparagus. I help out by cutting things and stirring. Tomorrow I’m cooking Cigala (Norway Lobster). The rest of the week is just plain work and writing. April 8th is the first Bullfight of the season. April 27th is Berlin. I can’t rember why we’re going. I think its to see “The Hoff” perform. Oh yeah, and because it’s Berlin and we’ve never been.
I feel like a norseman here. I still can’t get over people wearing winter jackets when it’s 70 degrees out. I have yet to wear a jacket and everyone on the street is in a winter jacket and scarves. When I first typed this, my little desktop widgets from Vista told me Madrid today is 55 degrees. In Middlebury Vermont its minus 12.
Just got off the phone, Doug tells me they just got another 22-24 inches of snow this week.
Yesterday, it was 70 degrees out. Wendy heard a woman tell her child “Hurry up, I’m freezing out here.”
Moving right along… We’re settling in. There’s a lot to be done both with someone moving in with you, and someone moving to another country. You find you need things. You go out and get those things. You have people to meet and parties to go to. You have a schedule that is constantly interrupted for the first ten days.
Last week we started to settle down. I got my column in to Star City days early instead of just barely. We went running twice. (OMG does Wendy run farther than me. I can barely make it to the end. I’m used to going shorter distances at a greater speed. So twenty five percent of the way in, I am boundless energy. Wendy tells me I can lap her if I want. I decline. I’d prefer to run with her but feel very confidant half way through the run that this is going to be a little too easy for me. Which is good, because I don’t want her thinking I’m a girly man. Three quarters of the way through the run sweat is dripping in my eyes. The last ten percent of the run I’m stumbling like I’m on a death march. Good thing I didn’t get cocky and lap her.) This weekend, we actually spent an entire day home without leaving the house for some necessity we didn’t plan. Sunday, we actually lay in bed reading. This might not seem like much to some, but for us it was bliss. It’s been a busy two weeks.
On Thursday and Friday I started working on “The Novel” for the first time in three years and remembered “Wow is writing hard. Fixing computers is way easier than this!” See, a great deal of my writing is, well, this. Reporting. Rambling. Telling about things that have happened. My mind only needs to remember them and hopefully write them in an amusing and entertaining way. Simple.
Writing a novel is pain.
I can do ten pages a day reporting. I have managed to do two pages a day on the novel and found myself exhausted by the effort. Thankfully, I have a few wonderful books on the subject and I am refreshing my memory on how to do just such a thing.
Friday night we go out to dinner. We’ve decided that three Fridays a month is “Go to dinner at one of the dozens of neat little places near our apartement that looks interesting. One Friday a month is eat at our favorite place.” Friday’s dinner was held at Casa Lucas. Wendy has been there before, but it was so good she wanted me to experience it. I’m glad too, the food was phenomenal.
After that was ice cream. We’re a sucker for ice cream. I haven’t had a candy bar in six months but I’ve had an ice cream cone four times this week. This place was very chic and had large easy chairs to relax in while our order came. I ordered an espresso and a Tiramisu ice cream that was some of the best I’ve ever had. I recline in my big comfy easy chair and smile. The place starts to get packed and a mother and her twenty something daughter ask to sit with us and get a six pack of ice cream cones. I’m not kidding, they had six cones come in a little pack and not only did they finish them, they were licking the bottom of the pack when the cones were gone! They are speaking in a language I don’t recognize. I whisper in Wendy’s ear -
“That’s not Spanish, is it?”
“It’s Nordic. Not sure which one.”
A few minutes later the mother leans over to me “Where in America are you from?”
“How did you know I was American?”
“It wasn’t hard.”
“I’m from Vermont.”
“Vermont is beautiful. We’re from Norway.”
She tells us about Norway and how its similar to Vermont and asks our advice on Madrid. Wendy gives them some suggestions on what they should see. I suggest Plaza de Espana and the Egyptian Temple.
Tonight Wendy is making us Salmon in a blackberry merlot sauce with grilled mushrooms, onions and asparagus. I help out by cutting things and stirring. Tomorrow I’m cooking Cigala (Norway Lobster). The rest of the week is just plain work and writing. April 8th is the first Bullfight of the season. April 27th is Berlin. I can’t rember why we’re going. I think its to see “The Hoff” perform. Oh yeah, and because it’s Berlin and we’ve never been.
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