¿Que Tal? Madrid, España

We left Germany without a hitch (a welcomed change) and arrived in Madrid on May 7th. We stayed with Jose and Eva who we met diving on the Palau Aggressor back in October of last year. We had such a good week with them that we exchanged contact information at the end of the trip and bid each other "Until next time."

When Erin and I first started talking about where to go on this trip we thought about spending the entire time in South America. Our thoughts were that we could see a land that we had yet to visit and learn Spanish at the same time. For what ever reasons, we chose Asia. After we met Eva and Jose, Erin and I entertained the idea of going to Spain to partially fulfill that desire. We ran the idea by Jose and Eva in December and their response was "You're late already. Come home. We've been waiting for you." Needless to say, incredibly nice people.

They picked us up at the airport and brought us to their flat in Alcorcon (20 mins away from central Madrid) which we quickly renamed the 'Hotel de Eba'. All the modern amenities and another reminder that we were done "backpacking".

We spent the following day visiting academies that taught Spanish in an effort to gather as much information. We wanted to start as soon as possible in order to maximize the 8 weeks that we had intended on staying in Spain. We went to 5 schools and when we got home later that night, we were pretty disappointed. We had not done ANY research prior to arriving in Madrid and had this pre-conception that it was going to be affordable for us to do an 8 week course.

We weren't even close! The cheapest that we could find would have cost us 1800 Euros and the average was around 2500 Euros. Do the conversion to dollars after that and Erin and I had to do some serious thinking. We had the money BUT had to consider where it would be best spent (especially with Siobhan coming in December).

It didn't take long to make the decision. We order our tickets to go back home the following day and spent the next week as 'gearies' (tourists). Madrid is a beautiful city where old meets new. We came just at the right time. Flowers were in bloom and everyone was out and about enjoying the warm weather and long days.

Along with the numerous plazas, outdoor cafes and narrow alley ways in Madrid, we visited the towns of Toledo

and Segovia (where we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the annual puppet festival).


Our hosts were kind enough to give us a crash course in Spanish culture where we had much to learn. We only scratched the surface in beginning to understand the food/daily time tables and will have to go back some day to take in the rest. Thank you Eva and Jose for opening your house to us. We look forward to returning the favor. Hasta luego!

FMP