I´m Very Much Alive

Time has been passing real fast this week. As of now, it's already been a week since the school holidays started. As for me, it´s been two weeks. Reason is that I had voluntarily took the last week of school off. If you know me well, you'll know that I'm know in the country I love most, Spain. Beautiful .. sunny spain.

As said of the title of this post, i'm doing fine here. Adjusting to time was fast and I absolutly love the cold climate. It's still autumn now and it's 7 hours behind kl here. Temperature today is about 14 degrees celcius. It's been raining though almost every day this week. Sorry for my long absence from blogging.

I'm just enjoying everything out here and there's only one computer here to be shared by everyone at home here. My step-dad's been sick this week so he's not been using the computer as regular as usual giving me more time on it.

I promised myself that I would blog about my journey here as soon as I arrived. Then again promises are meant to be broken. All I did was read other updated blogs. My sis progressed more having already blogged quite a lot on what we've been doing. It will however come up soon maybe sometime next week. Non-aviation enthusiasts need not find any reason for excitement on that ..

As for now, I'll just update you all on what's been going with my life here in madrid so far.

Saturday/Sábado --> 11 Nov 06
Arrived in madrid at about 9.35 am. Was just so effing happy to finally be on spanish soil again. Immigration line was rather long and I found my mum waiting for our bags at baggage belt no.7.

Narrowly passed the customs people who randomly opened the luggage of certain passengers for checking. They would have been shocked if they opened ours. I had brought stuff like some huge whole dried fish, pau, cong (chinese rice dumpling) and some kaya. All those foodstuff would have probably been confiscated if found and immediately INCINERATED. You all know how europeans are wih our asian foodstuffs.

a view of madrid

Anyway, we proceeded back home which is to some new place my mum moved into around august. I stayed in a different condo when I was here last year. I realised that the new place ain't that far from the old one. Just a short walk away. It's just nice to actually walk around madrid which is essentially how europe is.

After packing, we went out to the mall nearby which is Centro Comercial La Vaguada mainly for the paella which I've been dreaming about every single day. One of the best is sold freshly in this huge supermarket there called Alcampo.

Imagine how delighted I was to just enter the place. You people must be finding it funny why the first place I head to is the supermarket but i'm not exactly a tourist .. Knowing my mum we bought like almost a full cart of stuff.

Went back for lunch. I felt kind of sleepy later on so I went for nap. Was kinda tired coz I had no proper rest for nearly 24 hours. Next thing I knew it was the next morning.

Sunday/Domingo --> 12 Nov 06
When I opened my eyes it was already 9 am the next morning. Imagine how shocked I was. I slept like almost 15 hours continously without realising. No one had even bothered to wake me up for dinner the night before .. just my luck.

Still everything was just normal. "Good morning" greetings and breakfast. I was not very hungry despite missing dinner. Didn't do much that day just like the lazy spanish on sundays. All we did was take the dogs for a walk dropping buy a cake shop for pastries and baguettes.

Monday/Lunes --> 13 Nov 06
It was another normal day. Did nothing much. I did accompany my mum to the supermarket (yup, again) around the area, Caprabo. Before that, I met up with her in the bank, Caja Madrid down the road. I kinda just helped carry all the stuff back home. Lots of coke, beer, alcohol ..

the oficina laboral filipinas, madrid

We did folow my mum later on to my step-dad's office which is the Oficina Laboral Filipinas in Goya. I finally got to take the public transportation here again. I just love the buses and metro here. It's so not like kl. Clean, consistent, systematic and can be found anywhere. Needless to say, there's almost a metro station every 500m so it's not easy to totally get lost. Went home in step-dad's car.

Tuesday/Martes --> 14 Nov 06
Yet another uneventful day. Generally there's lots of relaxing involved here in madrid. Everything's just cool and fresh here.

In the evening, I accompanied for her medical check-up's and results at the hospital she goes to, Ruber Internacional. For you info Ruber Internacional is the hospital where the Crown Princess of Spain delivered her first child last year. They have some preety modern tests here not like the backward ones in Asia. Hospital's nice but spent a lot of time there. I just read whatever that I brought.

Wednesday/Miércoles --> 15 Nov 06
Woke up a little earlier. Both me and my sis followed my mum to the hospital again. She had some short tests. She was also told that she had allergies to moulds. I told her to ignore it coz she would have been dead by now consuming so much cheese, wine and beer. She had to go back in a weeks time again for some results.

me and mum in the bus

Then she told us she would treat us out for lunch today. Giving us a choice of lasagne or some mexican buffet. Opted for mexican buffet at this place called Sí Señor. My mum came to this place for one of her female friend's 'bachelor' party.

She funnily recounted what she did there as we entered. Her girlfriends and her were drunk. There was something rather embarrasing involved which you can find out if you sincerely ask me personally ..

Sí Señor

Sí Señor was truly mexican and delicious. Really filled me up. Won't mind recommending people to eat there. Nice buffet at an affordable price. 10 euros per head which includes drinks ie. soft drinks and even beer.

After lunch, we went to the El Corte Ingles on the opposite side of the road. I must mention again that this area is relatively near the Malaysian Embassy. Lots of shopping in El Corte Ingles which is one of the biggest departmental store chains in Madrid.

You'll find these green-themed stores all around Madrid. I bought a few sweaters for like daily use. The ones I got were like about 9 euros each. Considerably cheap when compared to european standards.

We went to step-dad's office again in the evening. All of us went home together. Spent the night finishing my mum's hong kong serials together. I'm such a serial drama addict ..

Thursday/Jueves --> 16 Nov 06
It was raining today. I don't exactly like the rain here in madrid. Very much similar to kl. When it rains here, it's just bloody cold and gloomy. Worse still rain here generally continues on for two days. Not like cats and dogs but just minimal water droplets falling continuously .. you can imagine it.

me and mum in the metro

All me and my mum did today was kinda visit this malaysian lady who stays at the Plaza de Castilla area. Her name's, Chan Che and she rents out the TVB Hong Kong serials here. She's a long timer here in madrid and speaks spanish like she was born with it. Her job may not seem so glamorous but being the only authorised dealer in madrid, she's commisioned by the head office in London to catch those selling these serials illegally. Sounds fun to me ..

Friday/Viernes --> 17 Nov 06
As planned today, my mum would have her usual happy hour in tgif with her malaysian friends. Had been loking forward to it the past week. Before that, we went to my step-dad's office again.

the metro

This time me and my sis went ourselves to the office. Trust me it's very safe here and everything's just systematic. Yup, we do it all the time. We had lunch at KFC. I must admit that their chicken here tastes better than the KFC back in malaysia.

Only at about 5pm did we leave for tgif very near the santiago bernabeu stadium which is the real madrid stadium by the way. Seeing those malaysians again was delightful. Rather fun ones to mingle with even the malays.

Mereka tidak terlalu konservatif di luar .. haha. Without naming them, some even consume alcohol. No tudungs mind u for the ladies. No indians in the group though. I just forgot to snap some group pics together.

Had some food like my fav. potato skins. I've had better trust me. Had a number of cocktails. I first ordered a strawberry daquiri and next a piña colada. I also had some of my mum's tasty margarita. Still I was very much stable unlike some I know who would already be drunk. *cough cough*

metro station

By the time we reached home, it was almost 8pm. We had dinner later on. We're just like the spanish here who have dinner at about 9pm daily ..

Saturday/Sábado --> 18 Nov 06
Today's schedule was just spent over lunch at a friend's place. It was this nice Filipino couple, Chema and Shantha who have been residing in Spain for a long time. In fact, Chema was born in Spain while Shantha's actually a British-Indian. Chema who's a great cook actually prepared the lunch. They also have a daughter who's like almost 24 named Pellar, i think that's how it's spelt.

It was the first time meeting them as I had ony heard of them during my last trip. They had such a nice place which was small yet spacious. You could have imagined how glad I was when I was told that Chema had worked for Phillipine Airlines and that he knew lots about the aviation industry. He was even once the airline Head Manager for the Middle East.

There was a different look on his face when my step-dad told him that my ambition was to be a pilot. It was like he felt better that he could talk about those stuff with me. We had a few short convos here and there. He even convinced me to instead join the airline marketing sector like him. That was when he was told that I wanted to see the world.

Apparently, you still get to travel a LOT without being a pilot. Chema added that almost 90 % of his job involved travelling. He spent little time at home. Travel times just took up all the time. He even gained a fear of flying to some extent as a result. He said that being the top executives who knew the 'going-ons' just made him fear the reality of that industry. Furthermore, he said that pilots would only be able to make friends with other pilots .. so its kind of limited.

From stuff like how the in-flight food was prepared and how pilots sometimes flew the planes just shocked him. Upon mentioning the fact that Phil. Airlines had stopped its KL route, he was kind of surprised. He later explained that MAS ain't that bad. His MAS friends were apparently immediately snapped up by Qantas when they migrated to aussie.

I'll definitely consider Chema's advice in case my eyesight deteriorates badly or a barrier of some sort. We only left their place at like 7pm. My step-dad had so much to talk about with Chema while me and my sis just sat with my mum listening to her talking to Shantha. I think even my mum got bored. Believe it or not, I spent nearly 5 hours listening to two ladies blab about rubbish ..

Sunday/Domingo --> 19 Nov 06
Our malaysian friends had invited us to go for a picnic with them at some place near some stream at Navacerrada. It's scenic and apparently you can pick mushrooms nearby. However, we couldn't go as my step-dad had some other event to attend plus it started raining the night before. Thus it was cancelled.

in the bus

While my step-dad was not at home, we had the computer to ourselves. Later in the evening, we took the bus to the chinese store as my mum wanted to buy some foodstuff. The 124 bus brings us to the Tetuan area where it is located and back home.

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As for this week, there's not been much to talk about. Step-dad fell sick so he didn't go to work from monday to wednesday. He sleeps all day making me wonder how he'd manage to fall asleep at night. Furthermore, it's been raining almost every other day this week. Thank god this ain't my first visit to Madrid or else we wouldn't be able to go see the sights around madrid.

Preety much stuck at home. Did lots of reading and watched some korean dramas. Shockingly, I'm currently kind of hooked on 'My Lovely Samsoon' being rather interesting which was originally my sis's idea. Have been doing lots of surfing online but its usually done at night so I finish really late. Latest being 6 am .. haha

Other than the above, there were short visits to the supermarket and my step-dad's office. Something I ought to mention is me helping my mum completing my step-dad's annual reports. His secretary was sent back to manila and he doesn't get a new one. She finds it tedious but it's kind of just similar to projects that I ussually do.

Finally, I think I need to start regularly talking the dogs out for walks. I need the exercise especially when I'm constantly being bugged by mummy's cooking.

Congrats to my sis, Brenda for her 3A's in her UPSR exam ! You did your best ..

-adios-