m is for madrid

So we signed a 20 pages spanish contract for that appartment in Tetuan (north of the center) yesterday.We already got the door keys. Its on of the classic brick buildings and furnished.

After work we went to (one of the 3) IKEA stores to get some dishes and cooking stuff.We are a bit sick of the living in the appartment hotel so we are quite happy about this.

We have the possibilty to use the local way of drying cloths but as we are in the 4th floor we wont use it for now. We also discovered a nearby chinese shop where you can buy everything (without having to know the name).

For those who hate climbing: use the moving staircase to toledo
Pano preview of Alcazar, still need to fix it:

Its only a 30 minutes ride by train to toledo. As the train leaves from the station which nearly was blown off by terrorists (the one with the palms inside, see below) security checks are like at the airport: all bags need to be screened.
Our level of spanish is still pretty basic (counting to 10, ordering coffee with milk) despite going to spanish lesson once a week with our really nice polish spanish teacher Ana. So we bought a children’s encyclopedia to learn some more words.

Größere Kartenansicht

We went to one of the catholic processions in the centre of Madrid at sunset.
There are some 20-30 processions scheduled before easter sunday.
Seems like red hoods belong to the Jesus  and black ones to the Maria statue.

Easter holiday starts today. We had a look at a 3 room appartment in the north of the city tonight.
No terraza but otherwise nice. The landlord speaks English which is good.

My compuer arrived and it’s working (yeah).

in parque del Oueste and the city

so we survived our first week and so far we really like it. It’s sunny and warm again and we are quite bussy: We got our NIE, bank account and first spanish class. My computer has still not arrived: dhl promised 3-4 days, damn.

spain is great for people who like to get up late: start working at 10 am, lunch from 2-3.

As already mentioned we changed the room - now we don’t hear the street anymore, although on the same floor is a guest with a dog. The dog is squeaking the whole time with his toy. Walking through Madrid is an permanent up and down. There are also some amazing buildings with  extraordinary views.

Despite some shops are open on sunday today was cloudy and a bit slow. We changed our room in the hotel from one with a great view (an old monastery) but noisy street to one in the courtyard.

Today’s discovery is this train station which looks more like a botanical garden.
Spain holds elections today so there are camera teams everywhere in the city. All we got so far is there s a blue and a red party competing.

We spent this nice sunny day following (blue) metro line 10 from plaza de castillia to the north to see what would be a nice place to live as the company is located there. Madrid has plenty of hills and there are even some mountains in the north. Skyscrapers tend to be strange looking.

It’s a 40 minutes ride from the city center out there so we are not sure if we want to live in the city or rather the suburbs close to work. Everything is still under construction there.

So we finally arrived. Luckily nobody was on strike at Munich airport today. Th metro was extremly crowded. I guess we still have to get used to people bumping into you in the street all the time;)
Our appartment looks ok and has internet (useful to look up Spanish words for using the climatisation). It also has a very basic kitchen, so we went looking for a supermarket (see below).

@kleine Freunde: Oreos gibts natürlich

We need to find a permanent appartment now.

katisss