Because of the awesomeness of the French school year calendar, we work for 6 weeks (which, especially at 12 hours a week, isn't much!) and then we get 2 weeks of paid vacation. YES PLEASE. I'm sorely going to miss that scheduling; it's been so nice to be so greatly rewarded for our "work" (read: entertaining adorable French children by pronouncing funny words from a language they've never heard before) by being given frequent vacations. American workaholics could really learn a thing or two ;)
After our Christmas vacation, we worked for 6 weeks and then had our confusingly-named "winter vacation;" I kept referring to it as "spring vacation" until I realized that we had one of those, too! For winter vacation, a fellow English assistant, Therese, and I flew into Madrid to visit a friend-of-a-friend whom I'd never met but whom I loved instantly :)
We flew out of Paris, but first had a café and visited the still-drab (but soon to be magnificent) Jardin des Plantes.
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| Why even bother asking what my favorite part was? You know it was the dinosaur out front. |
Even in the dead of winter, it has such a relaxing effect in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world! Spending an hour or so there before the stress of traveling was a great idea.
Our plane arrived safely in Madrid several hours later. This picture proves what a long day of travel it was.
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| I'm a pretty pretty princess?! |
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The following day we slept in late, had coffee for breakfast, and traipsed out into the world in real Spanish time: around lunch. We stumbled upon Plaza Mayor, bought a 3-day public transportation pass, and had seafood paella for lunch in a courtyard full of people in costume.
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| As for the people in costume? Not... |
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| even... |
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| kidding. |
On our way out of the plaza we saw a flamenco dancer; she wasn't particularly talented, but she danced with a passion that made it hard to look away. It also helped that she was tap dancing on a piece of plywood and thus making a lot of noise.
We wound our way through the Barrio des Letras, or Neighborhood of Words. It reminded me a lot of
La Charité sur Loire, France's answer to the call for lexicographic cities, but in Spain the words are written on the ground.
We arrived at the Botanical Gardens and were pleasantly surprised to discover that our Education National ID cards--the ones that get us in to all Paris museums for free--actually worked similarly in Spain; we didn't pay a cent to wander through mazes, marvel at bonsai, or smell the cherry trees :)
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| A beautiful time of day to stroll |
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| It's official: spring has arrived in Madrid |
From the botanical gardens we crossed the street to the Parque del Buen Retiro, a 350-acre set of lungs in the giant city of Madrid. Besides being a park good for the obvious--jogging, playing frisbee, makin' out--this park also had some unique features, like...
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| ...the Palacio de Cristal (at sunset)... |
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| ...a live jazz/blues band that sounded like it came straight out of the French Quarter... |
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| ...and a statue of the Fallen Angel, the only known public sculpture of the Devil, permanently surrounded by people rollerblading. Wait, is this what hell is like? |
During the rest of our stay in Madrid we also: ate fantastic tapas and drank delicious wine offered by our host and hostess, two very dear (and awfully new) friends; we got lost a couple of times, shopped at Desigual(!!), and were given free shots at lunchtime. Score.
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