Days 17-23: 1st Week of School, 7 Peaks, and American Dinner

Jaime fell asleep with a bite of sandwich in his
mouth at lunch...
School is hard on a 4 year old.

Lizzy's Lucas (left) and my Lucas
after their first day of futbol practice

Day 17-Day 20: Monday began the kids first day of school. They were so excited when they woke up, and I got kind of nostalgic. For the first time in my life, I did not have a first day of school this year.  But then I remembered, I'm going to be a teacher. I will always have a first day of school!

It was kind of a crazy week. For the month of September, the kids went to school from 9:30am to 1:00pm. Lizzy and I then picked up the kids and we had lunch and played all afternoon. In October, the kids will get out of school at 1 and go back from 3-5 (which seems really stupid to me, but whatev). Anyways, for now, we have a huge gaggle of kids walking from school my flat. Although Lizzy lives right across the street from the school, it is more fun to come to my flat because we have lots of movies as well as a swimming pool that all the kids can go to.

Although Paloma is only 2, she goes to the nursery school all day. It's kind of a cool place, with a different room for each age level. SO MANY KIDS! Paloma seems to like it.

Pilar had a stressful week buying and sorting all of the books for the kids. Unfortunately in Spain, teachers are not permitted to design their own curriculum. Every single day is planned out for them and the students learn out of work books. So don't worry Grandma, I definitely will not be teaching in Spain anytime soon.

The kids were excited about starting sports again. Lucas played futbol (soccer) this week, but Pilar and Luis are leaning towards him playing basketball instead. It was kind of interesting to see that they do not play on grass or turf! They play soccer on a court outside or inside. Unfortunately this means that their mothers will never appreciate the joy of grass stains. Oh well. Marta and Jaime will definitely be playing basketball- each kid plays twice a week! It will definitely keep them busy!

On Saturday, Lizzy and I went on a day hike to Los Siete Picos, or The Seven Peaks. Located near the Valley of the Fallen, you can see The 7 Peaks as soon as you drive out of Madrid. Alvaro (the father of Lizzy's family) told us to take the train from Madrid to Cercedilla, hop on a bus to take us to the base of the mountains, and hike whatever we wanted! So I slept at Lizzy's the night before and Angela (the mother of Lizzy's family) took us to Atocha (the Madrid train station) and we were on our way! It took us about an hour's train ride to get to Cercedilla, but we still arrived around 9:30am.

When we got there, we were a bit confused as to where to find the bus. As to where the mountains were, that was painfully obvious. So we figured, screw the bus! Let's walk the whole way! So we did.


Alvaro told us to take the green trail, but we kind of deviated from the plan. And by deviated, I mean I set my eye on the highest mountain visible and said to Lizzy "I want to climb that."

"The tallest one? You read my mind," she replied. So up we went!!

FUN FACT #24: The northern side of The 7 Peaks belongs to the municipality of Segovia, while the southern side belongs to the municipality of Madrid.

It was a beautiful day- sunny and breezy as we climbed the mountain. When we reached the top around lunchtime, we sat with Lizzy's American flag (not letting it touch the ground of course) and took pictures and ate. It was glorious.

On our way down, we followed a different trail which actually turned out to be the old Roman road.

FUN FACT #25: As mentioned earlier in my blog, Segovia was home to many Romans around AD 100. Therefore, to get to the rest of Spain, a road was built through the Guadarrama Mountains. This is what we walked along back to Cercedilla.

We returned home to Madrid sore and tired. I baby-sat that night so Pilar and Luis could have some fun in Madrid. Lizzy came over and we cried over our sore legs.

In the morning, we took the metro to "Taste of America!" an American grocery store. Of course, we bought some essentials, like peanut butter and macaroni and cheese and we looked for other supplies to make dinner for our families.

We spent most of the day making Rosemary Lemon Chicken, and it turned our superbly if I do say so myself. The kids were a bit wary of it at first (naturally) but they enjoyed it- especially the mashed potatoes!! Lizzy and I ate with Angela, Pilar, and Luis on the balcony (Alvaro was out of town) and we watched the kids play together through the glass door. It was nice to have dinner with just adults. Overall, a very successful week!

NEXT WEEKEND- PARIS!