Yeah, let's bring Kyle around children, what a great idea

I had my first real day in Spain today. And by real, I mean I wasn't walking around in a jetlag-induced stupor. Yesterday Maya and I went on an exhaustive walk around Madrid for about an hour and a half, which was clearly a good idea after walking around the city after I got off the plane with about 50 pounds on my back. Got some fantastic pictures though. We checked out a good amount of the city.

HUGE PALACE

Today I went with Maya to her school where I talked to all of her children. They're learning English and most are able to ask and answer questions about favorite things, foods, activities, sports and the like. I had to pretend I loved Real Madrid all day (go Sounders). They had a huge problem with my name. They asked me about my brother and sister, who were very easy.

"My brother's name is Brad"
"Ohhh, como Brad Pitt!!"
"Yes, like Brad Pitt. My sister's name is Lisa"
"Ahh, Los Simpsons!!"
"Yes, yes. My name is Kyle"
"Calle?"
"Kyle"
"Carl?"
"Kyle" *I write my name on the board*
"Oh, Keelay!" *phonetic*

Kids.

I also met a lot of her coworkers. They all caught me a little off guard, because the normal greeting in Spain is the cheek kiss, which I'm totally good at now. Some of them some who spoke no English. We had some very awkward conversations. I'm actually remembering quite a bit of my high school Spanish, which is astounding. Not nearly enough to converse though. Thankfully a lot of Maya's friends like to practice their English. Still no Germans in sight, so I've just been speaking it to Maya when I'm sick of everyone speaking Spanish and I have no idea what's going on. Here's a picture of one of Maya's classes I spoke to:


After class we went to a camp that the majority of Maya's students are at this week. This place is the best damn camp I've ever seen, all of the buildings are new and awesome, there are a ton of futball fields around, they have a legitimate lab, a pool, and so on. Maya wants to live there forever. Check out the pictures, it's a really nice place.



Those pictures would be a little more impressive if the weather wasn't so angry. Speaking of which, there was an AWESOME lightning storm on the drive home. Lots of sheet lightning, and it was very frequent. I tried to take video of the lightning strikes but it turned out horribly. Schade.

Spain is awesome, but good lord do I miss real beer. Every beer here is exactly the same; a light, largely tasteless beer similar to Bud Light or the like. And the servings are very small. I would kill for a real pint of a good IPA or a Porter. Tomorrow I'm on my own while Maya is at work, I'll be looking for good places to wander and hopefully I can remember enough Spanish to get around ok. At least "beer" is a pretty universal word.