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!