12 Flights 7 Weeks: Madrid and Getafe

The next leg of my trip was going to be fraught with old housemates and epic fun! I just had to get to Spain first. 

I left behind Edinburgh and my underage future husbands early in the morning. I got to Dublin at 9h15 and settled down to update my journal and drink coffee till my flight to Madrid left at 16h10. To some people such a layover would be a hassle and annoying but to me.... it was perfect. I also did a decent amount of people watching. And I discovered the most amazing Starbucks hot chocolate... Honey and Almond Hot Chocolate! Like seriously amazing. I also found a lounge slash cafe that had a great view of the planes taking off and landing and it was very exciting to watch while i worked on editing my manuscript.

My Dubling layover went swimmingly. And it was off to Madrid I went. I arrived at 19h50ish and promptly grabbed the metro into Sol. Ana had given me superb directions to where I was meeting her because she is going to school outside of Midrid city centre so I had to take the metro to the city then hopped on another train to Getafe. When I got to the station it was off to meet up with Ana and I was so freaking excited!

I found Ana with 0 problems. It was a slightly tearful reunion. We then headed back to her flat where we ate yummy food, drank sangria and hung out.

The next few days were filled with struggling to make an American Thanksgiving in Spain. Thank god there was an "American Store" right down the street.

It was seriously the funniest things because yes it was all American things but they were way expensive. Like a can of Campbell's soup was about $3 conversion rate. But we needed it for the green bean casserole. It was all so tasty! Don't tell my mum (or she'll want me to make it) but i made stuffing from scratch!

We made the pie from scratch!!

Ana took me to El Escorial. It's the palace of King Phillip II. It was also a monastery. The cathedral was really lovely and the library was amazing!! The architect  Juan Bautista de Toledo had also worked on Saint Peter's in Rome. So to say that the place was pretty is an understatement. 

And CHRISTMAS MARKETS!!!!!!! We went into Madrid city centre for the Christmas Market and to see the lights. It wasn't the best Christmas Market but it was better then nothing! Plus Madrid looked so cute decked out in Christmas lights!

I got to see the Getafe Cathedral. It's a bit plain on the outside but still charming I think.

Ana still had classes during the week so I was lucky to get the alone time. I got a lot of writing and Editing done. I also drank a lot of coffee.

And saw a rainbow.

It was a great few days in Getafe with Ana. I loved bing able to catch up on everything. I even got to meet her boyfriend via skype. It was also this point in my trip that my mum sent me the cutest picture of my puppies. She got them matching sweaters!!!!!!

It really made me miss them. But I still had four more stops before heading home. And my next stop was Barcelona to see Lenka and Damien. And I got to take the train!!

Cheers,

A Giving of Thanks

I’ve had 22 years worth of Thanksgivings now. When I was younger we would always spend the day at my grandmother’s house. My mum would dress all of us kids nicely and tell us to use our manners and be on our best behaviour, so we would be better behaved then the other kids there. For dinner I’d sit at the kid’s table, sadly I never got promoted to the adult table. To be honest I don’t know if the adult’s table was any fun… since most of our parents would make their way over to the kid’s table to hang out with us. When I moved to New jersey I was in second grade and every year we’ve lived up here we went to New York cit to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We’d get there in the early to middle part of the parade then go eat dinner at the Stage Deli. It was our tradition. I’ve got years of photo’s of us kids at the parade. 

^My brother's and I... how excited they look^

^My mum and i doing a Zoolander^

^My borthers enoying a thanksgiving Starbucks^

Then last year I spent it in France watching the parade on my laptop via a traffic cam. Not the most glamorous of thanks giving, but I had turkey burgers and it was still nice to spend it with Damien. 

I loved spending thanksgiving with my family so much. Every year was something special. But this year’s Thanksgiving topped every past one.

Since the Hurricane hit my mum has been volunteering in Union Beach, New Jersey. Yesterday they had a Thanksgiving feast for the town so we went down as a family to help out. They set out tables and made it something special for the residents. 

We mostly did the clean up afterwards. Sure it was fun goofing around and moving tables and food and all that. But the part for me that was the most touching was how amazing everyone there was. Some of the people helping us clean up were residents. The woman who organized it all was also a resident. They each had a story to tell of how it was during the hurricane and how it’s been since with cleaning up and rebuilding.

After we ate that afternoon my mum drove us around and gave us a tour of the town.

Seeing it all put a lot into perspective for me. I loved having the power out from the Hurricane but I had friends and co-workers complain about being out of electricity for a week was a task and how horrible it was. It made me feel guilty almost to know that I only had to go without power while people now have to go without homes. 

A whole town of people lost their homes. Most of the houses we passed had the orange condemned tags on them and there’s talk of wrecking the first three streets worth of houses down and never rebuilding them. Many of the houses were one story so they lost everything. Think about it, pictures, home videos, heirlooms, everything! I was so fortunate that all we lost was power and our beach house was a second home to us so the damage there doesn’t matter much at all. 

The part that was the coolest about Thanksgiving was that at the end of the night when we were packing it all away there were only a few volunteers that had stayed and everyone else was a resident of the town.

So there I was with my family helping move things mostly the left over food into the truck we were taking to a local tavern that was offering us their fridge space. When we got to the tavern I stayed in the fridge to organize everything and make sure that it would all fit. We easily filled it three quarters of the way. That food will be used at the pantry my mum works at later this week to give out hot meals to people, since most of them are still without power, staying in hotels still, or don’t have the means to cook.

It was a lot of fun to do the clean up though. We were all joking around and having a grand time. I got deputized by a local officer, needless to say I’ll be insufferable at home now. But over all it really was inspiring really. 

Before thanksgiving all I knew of the town was stories and pictures I had seen from my mum and the stories she posted on her blog. That day made it something real and tangible. It wasn’t quite what I expected. You’d think that going to a town like this people would be sad and depressed. Yes they were sad but they weren’t hopeless. Everyone still had a smile on their face. They lost a lot but this is sort of like when wildfire burns a forest. Everything is temporarily lost but it grows back healthier and stronger. 

I want to go back so I volunteer and meet more of the residents.
  
Thank you Union Beach for the best Thanksgiving!