Days 9-14: My first week as a real Au Pair

This week would mark the kids' last week of summer vacation. Although their summer was ending, Pilar and Luis' summer was officially over. They started back at work on Monday, and they enjoyed spending their last Sunday with the kids before the real world began.

Sunday was so funny as the kids wanted to show me everything about their house! They didn't know I had been here previously, but I wasn't about to spoil their fun. When I walked out of my room in the morning, I was greeted by Snow White and a Flamenco Dancer. All of the kids gave me a first hand tour of their many toys- including a Darth Vader costume. We had a really fun day.

Monday was actually surprisingly easy! Paloma cried for a while when her parents left, but Marta (the mini-mom) cheered her up fairly quickly. We played with legos during the morning and then hit the pool. We ate lunch around 2:00pm and watched a movie afterwards. This is the only television that the kids watch every day, so it's always super exciting for them to pick the movie. I knew right away I was going to love these kids when four-year-old Jaime picked Star Wars V- The Empire Strikes Back to watch. Yeah, we're going to get along just fine :)

FUN FACT #16: Pilar and Luis have a projector and screen to watch movies along with surround sound. So watching a movie here is like watching it in a movie theatre. Except my feet don't stick to the floor. Ok, maybe that was just the Rutland Movie Theatre...

On Tuesday, we invited Lizzy and her kids to come over. Her Lucas is in the same class as my Lucas, so we thought it might be fun. Lizzy also has two other kids: Dany (10) and Anna (4) who is the same age as Jaime. We had a really fun day of playing basketball, swimming, Uno, and legos that we decided to make this a regular thing if we could.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday went by in a blur. Lizzy and her kids came over again for some fun. We also went to the library which is right around the corner!

On Friday night Lizzy and I decided to have our first night out in Madrid. We walked around for a while looking for some restaurants that Alvaro (Lizzy's dad) had mentioned. We soon discovered that most of the rooftop bars were 20€ just to get in!! Outraged, we walked around and had some drinks and dinner at a few random places before ending up at a Mojito joint.

Now, normally, there are many people working for their respective bars and restaurants who hand out menus and deals to us folk walking by. And normally, I ignore them. Not just because I don't know what they're saying, mind you, but because I just don't have time to hear about every. single. bar. that we walk by.

But God intervened on this lovely Friday evening, and for whatever reason inspired the friendly looking girl handing out flyers to speak to us in perfect English. "Do you ladies like Mojitos? We have a really good deal, and they are really big drinks too."

Oh darlin', what you just said is music to our ears.

Astonished as we were by her language skills, we were easily swayed to go into her said bar and see just how big these mojitos were. Are we talkin' big by European standards, or American, because when it comes to mojitos, you can SuperSize me. In any case, we go inside, and NO ONE IS THERE. We looked at each other like this is some sort of joke. These mojitos can't be THAT good- No one is here!

"But, I mean, there's no line..."

"And we can actually sit down at the bar..."

We took the hostess' recommendation and ordered two "Flower Mojitos".
And Sweet Baby Jesus....this drink was truly magical. It was Nectar of the Gods status.

And while we drank, this nice looking magician appeared. I'm actually not kidding! He did card tricks for us while we drank! It was hysterical. Lizzy and I were so mesmerized by this drink, we forgot to get the address or the name of the bar. But we thanked the little magic man and went back on our way.

After taking our fill of the most delicious drink known to mankind (or judging by the amount of clientele, known only to us) we headed to the most famous discos in Madrid.

FUN FACT #17: It's not a club- it's called a disco.

"Kapital" had a line going what appeared to be at least two blocks down the street. We Vermont girls really need to get our shit together. What did we expect coming to the most famous disco in Madrid?? Like REALLY Dee and Lizzy? This isn't Burlington where you can go to Red Square for free on Thursdays without a line to get in. Morons.

So we went to the disco right next door. And as we traveled through the maze of stairs and bright lights, we found ourselves at a fashion show. I KID YOU NOT! An actual fashion show, with a run way and lights and comfy sofas for the apparently really important people to sit in and watch. Now, I did not see Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, or Nina Garcia. But from all of the seasons of Project Runway that I watched with my mother until my dad made us turn it off, they definitely would not have been impressed by these garments. Tim Gunn would have said, "They did not make it work."

Anyways, we took the good with the bad. Mojitos and a Magic Show > Fashion Show. The End.