The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain

After a spending a harrowing Christmas 2005 cuddled up on the couch together crying in a deserted apartment block in an even more deserted city centre, we decided to escape to sunny Spain for Christmas 2006 because, while Christmas is a meaningful time in and of itself, the fact is that, on a cultural level, nothing says Merry Christmas quite like good company, good weather, and great snacks.

Kristy's childhood best friend, Amy, (the one from the marshmallow story, the underwear story, the locked in the bathroom closet story, and many others…) welcomed us into her fabulous Madrid flat on Christmas Eve just in time to meet the whole gang for brunch and church. Ian immediately set about displaying his highly tuned sociability when half a bowl of pumpkin soup that was placed next to him somehow found its way into the handbag of one of the attendees. "It's fine as long as none got on the gift," she said. "…," said Ian (it was a baseball shirt she had brought all the way over from the States). However, the incident was not as it appeared, and Ian will tell you a tale of the horrifying facts if you email him and ask.

However, everything else went swimmingly, and we were happily invited to the home of the wonderful Cady family to sleep over for Christmas Eve and share the giddy excitement (they have young children) of Christmas morning. It brought back warm memories of what it was like when we were children on Christmas morning, waking up and running out to the Christmas tree to get all of the coal out of the stocking and play with it, lighting fires and trying to eat it and stuff, except these kids got all kinds of other presents too! (must be a Spanish thing) The Cadys were so welcoming and really made us feel like part of the family that day, which is such a gracious thing to do on a special family day like that. We were very humbled and grateful and will always remember the happiness we shared. And the fantastic coffee.

The following days entailed lots of lounging around at Amy's place, sleeping in, eating olives and cheese, getting beaten again and again by Ian at Uno, and taking the occasional trip to the local market to pick up ingredients for cooking. Amy gave us the insider's tour of Madrid complete with tips for navigating streets with the best Christmas lights, recommendations on the best olives, and introduction to the most amazing hot chocolate in the world (It is so thick, you have to eat it with a spoon like pudding!) It seemed like almost every day we were there some kind of random bizarre parade would go down her street featuring Hari Krishnas, people dressed like clowns on stilts, monks playing Christmas carols atonally, or even the grim reaper with a flame thrower. These parades often only comprised of 4 or 5 people.

We did a couple of day-trips to Avila and Toledo, some highlights of which were eating a weird pseudo-cookie made from egg yolk, sugar, milk & almonds invented by a (subsequently) famous nun; watching waiters pretend not to understand an impolite foreigner who was trying to pay for a meal by waving about a credit card while yelling "Mastercard! International language!" (priceless); walking the town walls at Avila; seeing the amazing cathedral at Toledo; and overdosing on chorizo.

We came home on New Year's Eve and had a wild night! Ian had a left-over party popper that he stole from a work function, so we counted down at 9pm for New Year in Uzbekistan or somewhere, pulled the party popper, nearly set fire to the bed, and went to sleep.