Yo, Robot and Cups of Chocolate

We are getting pretty accustomed to this Spanish lifestyle. After staying out way, way too late last night in Madrid (3:30 to be exact...and there were still plenty of people out the streets), we woke up today at 1:30 in the afternoon!! Needless to say, today has been a little slothy. Is that a word? We just finished watching "I, Robot" with Will Smith...however, in Spanish it is called "Yo, Robot". Fun title huh? Better film than we anticipated.

<-----Chocolate con churros - the Spanish often eat this treat for breakfast and swear that it is the best hangover cure.

We stayed up late last night with an friend from Cory's high school, Elizabeth, and dined with her and her friends from an art program in London. It was fun to chat it up with these gals - they are art crazy and had a total blast here in Madrid at the Prado and other fabulous art history sights close at hand. We took them to our favorite restaurant in Madrid - an outrageous and colorful seafood restaurant, called Maceira Pulperia, where they serve wine in bowls! Who doesn't want to drink wine out of bowls!? Following this fine food, we headed over to La Chocolateria San Gines...where we got drunk off of cups of chocolate and used churros for spoons...it's like a dream we all had when we were kids. However, it almost never fails that when Tim and I sip down one of these cups of rich, dark cocoa that our faces have a breakout the next week. It's worth it though.

On Friday we traveled with our roomie, Karin, to a town southeast of Madrid called Cuenca. Las Casas Colgadas, "The Hanging Houses", are this town's claim to fame. It was another charming Spanish town that had some fun local art and is built on a series of cliffs...the houses were constructed in the 14th century. From there we went on our long weekend training run in some hills not far from Cuenca. It was great to be outdoors amoungst the trees and "mountains"... much of the Spain we live life in from day to day surrounds us with concrete.

Es todo para ahora...
Besos...

timothymichael&corybrooke

<---Us with "Las Casas Colgadas" and some really dry land in the background. Click HERE for a few more pics...

Que Pasa?

Echamos de menos todo el mundo!

So, you haven't heard from us in a little while? Well, that's because we are staying at home in our comfortable little flat, where we save money.

We didn't travel much in January because we were dealing with the woes of home ownership. A chunk of our travel money was spent on flaky tenants back in Montrose. But, no worries - things are on the upswing and we are still having a good time here in central Spain on these quiet weekends.

"Quiet weekends" here mean exploring more of Alcala and Madrid, watching Spanish movies (I highly recommend the Spanish film Mar Adentro), doing overtime on the language study, planning for English classes, kicking around the "futbol", going to local cafes and actually starting to appreciate the traditional fare; yeah that's right Jamon Serrano is really hitting the spot these days.

On our balcony in Alcala!---->

Recently, we started training for the Maraton de Madrid (just the half maraton) which is at the end of April. We had a really fun training run this past Friday in Parque de Retiro - Madrid's version of Central Park in Nuevo York. So cool! Our friends Kelly (from Ohio) and Keely (current Prague dweller) will be flying out to join Team Lyons and our roomie, Karin, for the 13.1 mile run around the city. It's gonna be a party and anyone is welcome to join in the fun - come run a half with us in Spain!

Some of our favorite things about this country are the holidays and parties and days off. These people celebrate whenever and whatever they can. So, last week, with the Lent season quickly approaching, Spain celebrated Carnaval! Carnaval is a deep rooted tradition much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans (except family oriented). The Spanish reserve this festive 5 day holiday as a time to party, dress up, eat-and-be-merry before Lent begins. Carnaval is actually very family driven with dozens of parades, music, dancing and dress up times for the kiddoes (and many adults). We attended a concert in our town's central plaza, Plaza de Cervantes, and smiled the whole time as we watched the lively segregated dance zone - under 12 in front of the stage, 12-60 on stage right, and 60+ on stage left, where we happened to be hanging/dancing. We attached some pics from this event and from the parade that was right out our windows - they paraded every night from Saturday through Wednesday.

We also thought we would take you on a virtual tour of Alcala de Henares, our home away from home. To see the virtual tour and some pics of our "quiet weekends"...click here.

These are a couple of videos from this year's Carnaval!