Asturias and the Beaches of Northern Spain: 6/28/12 - 7/1/12

Two weekends ago, Luke and I rented a cute little Ford Fiesta,

grabbed the largest to-go coffee we could find,

and headed to Asturias, which is a community in the North of Spain about 5 hours from Madrid.

We took pictures of old, rustic doors,

 and had a couple of close encounters with cows,

horses,

and sheep.

I got my feet wet in the Atlantic,

and Luke did some novice rock climbing in flip flops

while I warned from above to, "Be Careful!"

We posed with more cute, old doors on the misty walk to dinner, 

but nearly cancelled our dinner plans when we picked up our own escargot along the way. 

We sampled fine Spanish wine, 

 

 and enjoyed a beer or two alongside gorgeous ocean views. 

We saw gorgeous, untouched beaches,

witnessed where the river literally meets the sea,

 

and discovered remarkable, yet fleeting, inland beaches that only exist when the tide is just right. 

We were on top of the world. 

If you're interested in learning about the beautiful beaches that Asturias has to offer, you can read more here. 

After our time in Asturias, we headed east along the coastline to San Sebastian. Recap to follow soon!

3 Things I love about Madrid

I figured a good way to end my first full week alone (while Luke brings home the bacon) in Madrid would be to document a few things that I noticed this week and really liked.  So with no further adieu, here we go!

#1:  The parks! Madrid is a lot like any other big city in the states....lots of people and lots of concrete. But there are several big green parks really close to the center of the city that offer lots of shade and great trails for running. Just this week, I ran approximately 20 miles in just 4 runs through 2 different parks: Parque del Oeste and Parque del Retiro.  (Don't worry, Mom, I'm changing my routine! :)) Retiro is pretty big, so it's easy to do longer-ish runs without a bunch of looping back and forth. Plus, since I'm never exactly sure of my location within the park, I don't really recognize it if I am doing the same loop over and over. Whoops! Hopefully, that will change as I become more acquainted with the area.  Oeste is hilly.  In fact, did you know that Madrid is the second hilliest city next to San Francisco? Not really. But it sure felt like it at times in Oeste.  Both parks have lots of trees offering great shade, so even if I don't make it out until 11 or so, I'm not dying in the summer heat. And there are always other runners, cyclists and tourists around so it always feels safe and lively!

#2: The babies! I guess it's because I don't have my own, but I can be a little obsessed about cute babies.  So walking through the city with Luke, I point out all the cute babies, and he points out all the good looking dogs. It's just what we do.  These Spaniards make some of the most beautiful babies I've ever seen.  With beautiful caramel latte colored skin, dark curls, chubby thighs and in fashion clothing, I can't get enough of them! They also have amazing strollers. These kids are rolling around in style in their bugaboos carriages with shade umbrellas attached.  The strollers here seem much more streamlined and less bulky than the ones we're used to at home, but that may be typical of any big city to make them easier to maneuver in tight, crowded places. I'll try to discreetly snap a picture of a cute baby in a cool stroller in the next days to illustrate. 

#3: The Metro! The metro system is so convenient and user friendly. The maps are easy to read, and in the center, you're never far from a stop.  To be honest, I really haven't used the metro all that frequently because I'm new to the city life and am still enjoying being able to walk just about anywhere.  But it's nice to know that if I ever get turned around or way too tired, I just have to find the nearest metro to be headed back in the right direction. Also, the metros have a ton of stairs, and after enjoying all the Spanish wine and beer nearly nightly, I feel like a cheater if I don't take them.  So while I hate this when I'm actually climbing the stairs, I secretly love it and hope it will help keep me in shape. Every step counts!

And many more good things, but I'll save those for a future post. Have a good weekend!

Just Another Madrid Monday #4

After more than a brief hiatus, I'm back for the 4th installment of Madrid Monday, and this time, believe it or not, we're actually in Madrid! After a few luggage mishaps (i.e. the trunk wasn't closed and my carry on including passports and visas for both fell out into the middle of an intersection), lunch with Shelby and Coleman at Chick-fil-A and a tearful "See you soon" with my mom and dad at the airport, we departed DFW around 6 p.m. on Monday, June 18. (Although Luke's parents couldn't see us off, we got to seem them just the weekend before, and though it's never really "Good-bye," tears were shed there as well.)

 After more than 5,000 miles (or 8,300 km for those of you who that actually means something to), we landed in Madrid at approximately 10 am....9 hours later and 7 hours ahead of US Central Standard time. We found our way to our temporary apartment hotel with a kitchen smaller than the size of a normal closet in the states.  For about the first month, we're staying right in the city center in Plaza de Espana. Although we wouldn't want to live this smack dab in the center of things, it's a good temporary location, and we even have a view of the Palace. 

We spent the majority of our first 2 weeks in Madrid searching for a piso (Spanish for apartment) and covering the whole city multiple times on foot.  (My refusal to wear tennis shoes has left me in dire need of a pedicure. Now I just have to get up the nerve to walk in and tell them, "Me gustaria una pedicura por favor.") Luckily, though, we found a piso and put a deposit on it at the end of last week.  We should sign the contract sometime this week and plan to move in on July 12. Once we get all moved in and set up, I'll take some pics and post about it. But for now, here are a couple from the listing that show my favorite things about it.  

Open floorplan, which is not typical of a Spanish apartment.

Original tile floors. Major swoon!

Two big windows with tons of sunlight. Hopefully, this will keep my seasonal affective disorder under control :)

Two updated bathrooms.

Old green shutters used as doors for the guest bedroom. 

So far, the city of Madrid has been very friendly.  From strangers who are more than willing to help us with directions and chase us down when they realize they've sent us in the wrong way to several of Luke's co-workers inviting us out for dinner and drinks and offering to help us with anything that we might need, we've felt nothing but welcome and are looking forward to experiencing all this city (and Europe!) have to offer.   

Dinner with Luke's co-workers.

"Houston, we have a bucket." At La Surena, where there are buckets of 5 beers for 3 euros.

Enjoying a cerveza on the terraza.

In honor of Luke's mom. :)

Drinks with Julie and Miguel. Julie is from Kentucky and speaks awesome English!

Enjoying the tinto de verano that I ordered all by myself. (Note: Ordering is hard. Not because I don't know how to say what I want (because I do), but because it is quite difficult to understand what they say back.) Luckily, I have 18 months to practice.

Nicholas, Jose Carlos, Luke and Miguel being silly with beer caps on their foreheads.

Dinner at Mercado San Anton, which is really cool and super close to our new piso. Can't wait to show all of our visitors!

After finding our piso, we rented a car and set off for the North of Spain last Thursday in order to have a little vacation before Luke's first day. I'll be back soon with posts and pics from that trip, but for now, I'll leave you with Luke's first day of work picture. What a professional!

Playing House

The house.

The car.


The kids.

In early September, my sister, Meg, and her hubby, Jeff, found an awesome flight deal to San Francisco and couldn't pass up the opportunity for a long weekend sans kiddos. Since I wasn't working and wanted to make sure that they'd take advantage of this opportunity, I quickly volunteered to play Mommy while they were gone. So about a month ago, Luke and I packed a few bags and headed over to the Peck house for Sunday through Tuesday.

Since Shelby is in 1st grade, Coleman in pre-school, both kids involved in sports, and Tuesday was picture day for Shelby, we had a busy couple of days. Our mornings started by waking both kids up around 6:30. We had a quick breakfast, dressed and grabbed our backpacks before heading out the door. I was surprised by how non-chaotic the mornings were. (However, if I also had to get myself ready too, it probably would have been much more difficult. All I had to do was throw on some workout clothes and pull my hair back into a messy ponytail before heading to the carpool line.) Both kids woke easily and knew exactly how the morning routine would go. The first morning when I went to wake Coleman up, he had this huge smile on his face. I thought he was just super happy to be awake but turns out he was still sleeping and in the middle of a really good dream (probably involving ninjas or swords.) It was one of the sweetest little faces I've seen.

After dropping both kids off at their respective schools, I did what any good stay-at-home mom would do and went to the gym. Following my workout, I prepped dinner, ran errands, etc until it was time to pick Shelby up at 3:20. My mom laughed at me when I told her that the days went by so quickly. I seriously don't know exactly what I did, but before I knew it, it was time to pick up Shelb, and I felt like I hadn't sat down all day! Haha. Both days I picked up Shelby first and then we went together to get Coleman. Back at the house, Shelby and I did her reading homework before starting our other evening activities. (BTW, she is becoming quite the little reader these days!) Monday evening, the kids and I walked down the street to watch Richland High School's (my alma mater) homecoming parade. The parade wasn't all that impressive, but it was a nice evening to be outside and the kids enjoyed seeing the band, football players and cheerleaders. Tuesday evening, we went to Coleman's baseball game and then met Nonny, Poppy, Luke, Mimi, Jack and Randy for dinner. Our days went by so quickly, and it was a nice little preview of what family life might be like for us one day!

During our time together, the kids said such funny things, and I'm kicking myself for not writing them down. I do remember one little story that I'll share. On the first day in the car pool line at Shelby's school, I couldn't figure out how to unlock the door. So this woman is standing outside of the car ready to help Shelby out, and I can't get the door unlocked! When I finally figured it out and the lady opened the door, she said, "Your mommy just wanted to keep you today!" Then as Coleman and I pulled away, he said, "But you're not really her mommy." He said it in such a sweet little voice, and I think I suspected just a hint of questioning in his voice. Like, please tell me that my mom is coming home, and you're not taking over! Luckily for us all, Meg and Jeff got home safe and sound on Tuesday night. Thanks for trusting us to take care of your family, Meg. We love them so much!

Just Another Madrid Monday #3

Well, with our original plans, we should be leaving for Spain sometime this week with Luke to start work on October 1, but that isn't happening. Long story short; We've been delayed. Our new expected departure date is anywhere between now and January 1, and January is probably the more realistic expectation. Although we're not too upset about the delay, it's a bit frustrating for a couple of reasons.

We found out about the delay one day after leasing our house. We'd known all along that a delay was possible, but because we'd already provided all of the requested documents without receiving any updates or requests for more information, we were operating under the assumption (we all know what happens when you assume) that all was on course and October 1 was still our date. We kept lowering the rent on our house, packing things up, etc... in order to prepare. So it's been a bit of a frustrating process; however, we're still so thankful for Luke's company and all they do to help us in obtaining visas. They have lawyers and translators and all kinds of people to help get all of our documents in the correct form with all the required notaries, jurats, etc...So hopefully, everything will be accepted by the Spanish government the first time through. Seriously, I don't even know how we would begin if we were doing this on our own.

Also, I'd already told my company that I would be leaving around the end of September, and acting accordingly to what I told them, they hired my replacement, who started at the end of August. So despite not leaving until potentially January, I'm out of a job September 29th. Although this isn't ideal, it will give me a lot of time to focus on Rosetta Stone, and I've also filled out substitute teaching applications to maybe help keep me busy until we leave. Everything will work out. And truth be told, I'm not too terribly upset about this. :)

Despite those frustrations, being delayed isn't all that bad. First of, regardless of the timing, we are very glad to have leased our house. Even though we may have been able to get more rent for it if we'd known we had more time before leaving, we're glad that we're no longer stressing about whether or not it would rent before we left. And the family that moved in seems to be very sweet and will hopefully take good care of it. In fact, the husband works in construction and seems to be very handy, so we're hoping they leave it in better shape than they found it! :)

We're also really glad that we will (hopefully) be here for the holidays with our families and get to enjoy all the goodness that fall has to offer with them. And a delayed departure date means a delayed return date. We'd love to have 2 summers over there instead of 1!

As of today, the Global Immigration Services team that is working with us has (finally) received all of our documents with the appropriate notaries, copies, etc. Next up, we have to obtain apostille (which Google tells me is authentication of public documents for foreign use) and certifed Spanish translation of all the documents. Hopefully, this process goes quickly so that we can (finally) send everything off. We're expecting a 4 to 6 week wait once everything is received by the government (although I'm not really sure where that expecation was born from). More updates to follow I'm sure.

Work Out Wrap-Up #3

I'm back with another work out wrap-up just because I like to do it (and this way, Luke won't have to listen to me :)). Here is what my work outs looked like this week:



Not too shabby considering it was my birthday week, and I could have very easily used that as an excuse to sluff off for a couple of days! Tomorrow morning, I might go to spin, but I'm hoping I can talk Luke into an outdoor run. Now that the 100+ degree days seem to finally (hopefully) be behind us, I'm looking forward to a nice run in the cool morning (and it'll be even better with the company of my hubby!) Have a good weekend!

Chi Town

Wow! We've been a lot of places this summer! First, New York followed by North Carolina, Arkansas and New Orleans. Then this past weekend, we spent Labor Day in Chicago with our good buddy, Adam. And what a great time we had!

Luke and I flew into Chicago Friday afternoon. After several wrong turns and taking a round-a-bout route, we finally navigated our way around the city to our hotel. We dropped off our bags and then set out for some fun. Just down the street from our hotel, we spotted a rooftop bar, so we stopped there first for a little hummus and a brewski. After enjoying the rooftop view and nice cool breeze, we walked around a little more before finding another little patio to chill on and wait for Adam. Once Adam met up with us, we started back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. When we're on vacation or celebrating something, I kind of love eating out, and if we're going out of town, I usually do a little Internet research before hand to find us a cool spot for dinner. This time my research paid off! We dined at Home Bistro Friday night and loved everything about it! It was a cool, little neighborhood BYOB place that we never would have just happened upon (and even if we had, it was tiny and full so we couldn't have gotten in without a reservation). The lights were low and the place was buzzing with conversation but not too loud. Before heading out for dinner, we stopped and picked up a bottle of wine to pair with each course. (I use the term "pair" loosely because we had no idea what we would order and let's be honest, I'm no wine connoisseur...yet). But having a different bottle to go with each course was really fun, and we would have never done that if it weren't "BYOB". Along with the wine, everything we ordered was awesome. We started with Fried Oysters and Housemade Pierogi, which is a Polish dish somewhat similar to a pot sticker or dumpling. I preferred the pierogi while the guys favored the oysters, but both were very good and different. For our main course, Luke had the Brazed Pork Shank, Adam the Handmade Mint Fettuccine with Pork Sausage and me the Sturgeon, which is an ugly white fish that Luke says looks like a shark. Again, everyone was pleased with their choices, but after passing a few fork fulls around the table, I think my ugly fish took first place with all three of us. Dessert was a little bit of a disappointment. We brought a bottle of port to go with dessert and were hoping for something rich and chocolatey. Unfortunately, though, there was nothing like that offered, so we went with housemade Belgian White Chocolate Bars. Though they were okay, it's just not what we were hoping for. All in all, it was fabulous meal, and the "BYOB" allowed us to enjoy a really nice meal with a couple of bottles of wine for quite a bit less than we would have spent anywhere else. I also really liked that it wasn't a touristy spot. When Luke and I vacate, we love to find little, off the beaten path places, so this was right up our alley. If you're ever in Chicago and want to venture away from the Magnificent Mile, I highly recommend HB.


Rooftop Happy Hour.


Dinner with my two guys.



Saturday morning, we hopped in our rented Toyota Corolla (which just happened to have Texas plates...random) and drove east to South Bend, Indiana, home of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. We tailgated with Luke's Uncle Greg and cousin Geoff, who were in town for the game from Cincinnati, Ohio before heading into the stadium to watch the Irish take on the South Florida Bulls. We had great seats on the 4th row that Adam scored from his "buddy" Kristen, who is a trainer for the South Florida team. Though the game was fun, the Irish were losing and there were a couple of rain/lightning delays, so we only stayed until half-time. After a little jaunt around campus to see the Grotto (where we got engaged more than 3 years ago) and a couple of other cool spots, we started back to Chicago. Back in Chicago, we checked into a new hotel, and I persuaded the boys to give me time to shower before dinner. (It didn't take much persuading because Adam wanted a shower too, but I did promise to put my hair up and be as quick as possible). Luke picked The Purple Pig as our dinner spot that evening. It was a good, cool place with a lively environment and group style seating. (Basically, just long tables of probably 10-12 with multiple different parties on each table.) The menu was centered around (you guessed it...the pig) and was served tapas (not topless) style where everything is small plates meant to be shared. The food was okay but nothing to write about. By far, the best part about this meal was the company. After Luke offended our waiter by referring to the bartender as "thinning hair, beard, really excited about the menu," and Adam brought back the gag symbol to show that he didn't like something, we laughed until our stomachs hurt. Oh yes. One thing about the food worth mentioning. There were not one but two hairs in our dessert that we're convinced were put there purposefully due to Luke's tiny bit offensive joke. Gross. and Rude.


Go Irish! Outside Lou Holtz gate.








The Golden Dome.




Dinner at the Purple Pig. Before the hair.

Sunday morning, we brunched on Rush at a place called Feast. Again, everything was fantastic. Luke had challah french toast, Adam the breakfast burrito and me the Lox and Bagel. It was so nice to enjoy breakfast out on the patio in the cool, breezy weather. After brunch, we headed over to Wrigleyville for the afternoon Cubs game. After the game, we went back to the city for Chicago style pizza at Pizzano's, which is my favorite. I definitely prefer it over Giordano's because it's not quite as heavy and filling even though it is still true Chicago style. (And they serve Oprah's favorite thin crust pizza, but I couldn't talk the boys into going thin.) We made a couple of more pit stops before calling it a night and getting ready to head home the next morning. We had so much fun, and it was good to end the summer on such a high note!


Brunch at Feast.




Trying to recreate my model pose from Fenway circa 2009.


Wrigley.


Cubs game. Not even sure who they played, but it was fun!






P90X Style.




Pizza at Pizzano's.


Zoolander look.

Other than the Notre Dame and Cubs games, we mostly just walked and talked; wined and dined. But we had a ton of fun doing it and really enjoyed spending some quality time with Adam since he's become a New Mexican, and we don't get the opportunity to see each other as frequently. And we love Chicago. It's a really pretty, clean city for being so big and urban, and the fact that it is right on the huge Lake Michigan is really cool. If it weren't for the harsh winters, it might be at the top of my list for cities I would live in (if I ever had to choose). Cheers to Summer 2011!