Today marks my second anniversary using Blogger. That first post, for me anyway, was bittersweet as I was missing a site not everyone has heard of, and a site that's no longer important since it no longer exists. So, I thought I'd give a shout out to celebrate the day. Besides, this will be my last post for a while. I'll still read what others post and leave comments too; I just won't be writing my weekly post. For those who are on Facebook, I'll also keep in touch with you there.
The last couple of days have been heavenly weatherwise. I love not having to use any type of artificial cooling machines other than the fridge. Yesterday I went out for lunch with a friend, and I loved both what we ate - meatballs - and being able to walk down the street without looking for the shade. We each had 4 big meatballs. Neither of us was able to finish the tomato and cheese salad, but I ate all 4 meatballs. My friend took her remaining meatball home to her dog. Lucky Scruffy!
Last week I mentioned the problem of falling tree limbs in Madrid. Now several areas are suffering from a plague of insects that are eating the leaves, causing tremendous damage to trees. Apart from stripping the poor trees, they're being a nuisance to people, because the bugs are entering the homes, especially at night when windows are wide open. Unless the city does something to stop these insects, they'll surely spread to other areas.
I'll leave you with a couple of photos - my artsy take on the recent full moon and my friend Chris's cat. Another friend and I have been going in a couple of times a week to check on her. Going more often isn't really necessary as her sister-in-law is staying there. Enjoy what's left of Friday.
For those of you who don't know where you are, look up and you may, if there isn't any greenery in the way, see the name of the street. In this part of the world you'll find the street names on the buildings. When you don't know the area and you're desperately looking for a certain street, you often wish that balcony there on the corner didn't have such lovely plants hanging down, or if only that tree wasn't so tall.
This particular street in the photo is one I've walked in since I've lived in Madrid. It's where my old language school was located before it was sold and an apartment block built in its place, and I still live around the corner from the street. However, compare the names in the two photos.(Sorry, the sign looks a little dirty in that first photo).
Can you see the name of the street in the first photo is Francisco de Navacerrada and in the second one Francisco Navacerrada = the right name. Somebody messed up when they made that first sign!
The shop windows under the sign in the second photo advertise flats and places for sale. It's right next door to where our institute was. I've seen a video of one of the apartments for sale (haven't been in the building). I must say although the apartments are small, the kitchen was completely furnished and the distribution of the rooms was well-planned. I, however, have no intention of going there to live as it's probably got ghosts. LOL.
When it's hot and I'm out, I always try to walk on the side of the street with the most shade. Since the beginning of summer, 15 limbs have fallen from trees around Madrid. The first one we heard about happened in Retiro Park. The limb fell on a young father and killed him. He was able to push his two children out of the way, but how sad. A few cars have been damaged by falling limbs, and, on Thursday I think it was, a big limb fell onto an outdoor cafe in the centre. A couple of people were slightly hurt.
They were lucky in that the parasol under which they were sitting cushioned the blow. I heard an 'expert' claim the other day that there was nothing the matter with the trees in Madrid. Well, I don't remember hearing of so many limbs down without there being a storm. Now it seems we have to look up for weak limbs too.
It's been a 'red' weekend for me as I've made gazpacho, and earlier today I made pisto gallego, which uses some of the same ingredients as gazpacho. While gazpacho isn't cooked, pisto is. Nobody can say I haven't got my vegetables in this weekend. I'll have pisto for a couple of days for sure.
That's me for this Sunday. Wishing everyone a wonderful week.
Since I haven't had class I've been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The last time I took everything out from under the bed to capture all the dust bunnies like the one in the photo was at Easter. Actually this bunny came from a photo I borrowed from the internet. I'm not that talented nor were there enough to make an art piece. I did find lots of lint and about 10 clothes pegs under the washer when I pulled it out as much as possible. Unless someone has a cleaning lady that does all these chores, I imagine they'll have quite a bit of stuff under their washing machine too.
If I didn't realize it before, I do now. I have too many clothes. I've finally got all my winter things washed, and I've already gone through them twice picking out things I didn't wear this past winter. So I've decided if I buy anything for the coming winter, it'll just be no more than a couple of pairs of jeans.
Yesterday morning I was taking things out of the kitchen cupboards to clean them out when the phone rang. It was a friend telling me she was sending her husband with some lavender that she'd promised me a while back. I just had time to throw on some clothes as I was wearing one of those short dorm shirts and to clear the table off a bit. He also brought me about a kilo of peaches.
This is how I prepared a pot of soup beans today. As always I put some type of fat, in this case bacon, to give them a down home flavour. This time I added a lettuce leaf because one of my friends says it absorbs the gas. I had some for lunch and so far so good. Although I took the lettuce leaf out before I served the beans, there were bits of it still in the soup. The lettuce leaf and the bits didn't change the taste, but I wish Spanish brown beans were as nice as American brown beans. The lentils, chick peas and other types of legumes are delicious. It's just the brown beans that are different.
Our weekend weather has been wonderful, not too awfully hot and cooler at night. The temperatures will start going up tomorrow though. Tomorrow I start visiting my friend Chris's cat. Her sister-in-law is there at the weekend, so another friend and I only have to go Monday to Thursday.
I guess I'll leave you and see what mischief I can get up to. Hope everybody has a good week.
Our summer lunch in the centre yesterday was at a Greek restaurant, and, of course, I had moussaka. The moussaka was nice and there wasn't any dancing even though we were in the touristy part of town (very near the police station we were at a couple of weeks ago). Besides, the part of the restaurant where we were was tiny.
There was, however, some 'entertainment' that I'm glad I didn't have to watch as I was sitting with my back to the door and the tables behind. While we were eating, a woman with four young children, two of which were twin babies, came into the restaurant. The first thing one of my friends noticed was the waiter gave one of the babies a lighter to play with. The baby, like all babies, immediately stuck the lighter in his mouth. Who would give a baby a lighter to play with? The worst is yet to come. The mother changes one of the babies' soiled nappy (diaper), puts the dirty wipes and nappy on the table and does the same with the other baby. Thank goodness some of us only got the description of the scene. We deduced that the woman and children were probably the waiter's family. Still, such behaviour has no place in public where people are eating. Don't worry, we won't be going back to that place. Should I write a review of this restaurant and put it on the page of reservations for restaurants that I use? You remember I'm the social secretary for my group.
Other news and wonderful news at that: my friend, who is continuing with our old language academy, has decided to start up a smaller version in my neighbourhood. I won't be working there, but I'm very happy for them and imagine they will do well. I won't be here when they start enrollment for classes, but hope she, or somebody, finds time to send me a Whatsapp. I'm so pleased that they're getting on their feet and would love to see the ex-director's reaction when she hears about it. She closed the institute just because she wanted to retire, disregarding other people's desire to continue.
That's about it for this week. Nothing to say except hope everyone has a good week. Oh, it's the end of July! Tomorrow is my baby sister's birthday.
Not too long ago I saw a video of the chaotic traffic in San Francisco in the 1930's. Although the traffic in the Gran Via, our Main Street/High Street, wasn't nearly as chaotic in this photo as it usually is now, you can see the pedestrians crossing the street wherever they want - some people still do. This photo was taken in 1949. Yesterday when we were in the Gran Via, we saw a group that we imagined to be pickpockets. Needless to say, everyone held onto their bags. According to one of the newspapers, the police have identified 25 different groups operating in the centre. The thieves would have had slim pickings at the outdoor cafes because we had a very cool day and the cafes were empty. I heard one girl exclaim, "Qué frio hace!" Spanish people don't always dress for the weather.
All last week was blazing hot in most parts of Spain. A couple of days I saw over 100º F on Yahoo. In Écija, a town near Seville, the other day they showed an egg frying on the street. I kid you not! Then yesterday we had that lovely cool day, so we didn't try to walk on the shady side of the streets as there wasn't any sun until about 6 p.m. Today it's still pleasant out, but no fears the temperatures are going up again. Oh, and our Indian meal was nice - not many customers though.
To those of you who've been blogging for a while, do you remember those posts that started Out my window... I'm wearing...? Well, the fire brigade were down the street from my house. I'm not sure why and from my windows I couldn't see anything except the vehicle.
This is me for the week. Since it's not too hot, I'm going to do some things that need doing round the house. I managed to clean the tiles in the bathroom last week and had a sauna at the same time. I think I've mentioned that here the tiles go from the floor to the ceiling. That's a lot of tiles to clean, not to mention I have tiles in the kitchen which logically I have to clean more often.
Wishing everyone a happy week. July is slipping away, isn't it?
I've just commented on my friend Terri's page that I use the same bag all the time. It's not stylish and it's not leather, but it serves its purpose. Not only does it serve its purpose of containing all the things I have to carry, but it's served me well these past two years. The only complaint I have is about the weight. I've taken out my phone yet I see no difference in weight. Another thing I'll have to see if I can de-clutter!
The past two Saturdays I've had lunch out in the centre. If you've read my post from last week, you know that we didn't have the best experience. Yesterday we ate at the Mexican again and somebody probably had too many margaritas. It's the only place I'll have margaritas because they're sour and not sweet. Over the years the size of the glasses has got smaller. Next Saturday we're going to an Indian. I'm going to look at the restaurant page online and see if they offer a discount. If I'd booked the Mexican online, we could have got a 30% discount, except on drinks. The problem is we never know how many people are going to show up.
As you can see from my title, it's finally getting hot. As a matter of fact, by Wednesday it's supposed to get up to 100º F according to the internet, and my friend Jenny says the weather forecast on the internet is always right. I love seeing the Mediterranean blue skies but don't love the heat. I'm going to try and keep my place as cool as possible for as long as possible. I shouldn't complain though, because so far I haven't had to put on the air.
I hope everyone has had a more exciting week than I, and that you have a good week ahead.
It's so strange how what starts out happy and fun can turn out badly. Yesterday I was having lunch with a group of friends and ex-colleagues at a restaurant in the centre of town. It's a restaurant in a pedestrian street, one that we've eaten at numerous times before. Since it wasn't too hot, we decided to eat outside. We were laughing about the English translations of the dishes, especially the 'menestra de verduras', or mixed vegetables, was translated 'pottage gives vegetables'. This was especially funny because Pottage is the surname of one of our group who wasn't there with us. I'm not sure if you can see this page of the menu. I've scanned it and a couple more pages and will give it to my friend to use in her language school.
To make a long story short, because I know some of you have already seen this update on facebook, some time during the meal one of my friends' bag was stolen. Apparently there was a guy sitting behind us who didn't order anything. He had a leather jacket which would have been the perfect hiding place. A waitress in the restaurant thought he was Columbian, but somebody at our table thought he was Eastern European. I didn't see him as he was sitting behind me. I accompanied my friend to the police station, because I have the keys to her house and also to pay for her transport home. As we were getting ready to leave after reporting the theft, her bag turned up with everything in it except the money. mobile phone, tablet and some pens.
Ironically during the meal, we were discussing how safe Madrid was, or that we weren't worried about getting shot down in the street by some crazy packing an arsenal of weapons. However, it doesn't matter how careful you try to be if someone is intent on robbing you, they will. We had also talked about meeting up every Saturday for lunch at the restaurant when the institute closes at 2 p.m. I don't know if we will now.
Our weather is still fairly nice. I touch wood as I say that my house continues to be cool. I posted a newspaper photo of the storm that we had on Thursday in Madrid on facebook. Some people I think thought all the hail was snow. My area didn't get it too badly. However, I know the farmers in a town called Villaconejos will probably lose most of their melon crop. Villaconejos (Rabbit Villa) is famous for its melons. I'd just seen a documentary a few days before about how they care for the melons by hiding them under the leaves so they don't get too much sun.
I hope everybody in the US had a good and safe holiday weekend. Hope your Monday isn't too bad and hope the rest of your week goes well.
