We spent the evening of Dec 30 packing and preparing to leave Madrid.  We really enjoyed Madrid and all the people we met and everything we learned.  At the same time, it was about time to move on.  (Not least because our very basic, “student slums” style apartment had begun to seriously degrade and was accumulating failures.  The prinicipal one of which was that the clothes washer had conked out a couple of weeks before and hadn’t been replaced, so we were running on patchwork remnants of clean and semi-clean clothes.)

Here’s a picture of Susan during our final hours in the Madrid apartment, with our bags packed and ready to roll.

Madrid apartment

We had already dropped our cats off with a local vet who’s boarding them until their paperwork can be finalized and they can be sent.  (Therein itself lies a long and frustrating story.)

We slept poorly that night, worrying about things undone, the cats, travel the next day…  All the niggling things that crawl up in the dark reaches of the night and drive sleep away, leaving only fatigue and stress in its place.

New Year’s Eve dawned clear and bright in Madrid.  We were up early, with our bags arranged and ready to roll.  Our flight was at about noon-thirty, so at least we didn’t have to scream off to the airport before the crack of dawn.  We even had time for breakfast.

More importantly, we had time to say farewell to a couple of our neighbors at our apartment building.  Matilde was the woman who cleaned the public spaces in our building.  We saw her out there every morning, cheerfully sweeping up and mopping spaces, chatting with other residents, fiddling with the plants in the courtyard, and so on.  We had also recently discovered that she’s extremely friendly and helpful and willing to speak very slowly, in baby Spanish to us.  Luisa is the little old lady across the courtyard from us, with whom we shared a clothes line.  Negotiating who had “clothesline rights” on any particular day was one of our great Spanish challenges, because Luisa never did process how to speak to us slowly and simply enough for us to fully get what she was saying.  But she was always very cheerful and nice about it, and always seemed concerned about us and how we were getting along.  (She came to check on us when a random cat was loose in the apartment complex at one point, just to be sure that it was not one of our cats.)

So we got to say farewell to Matilde and Luisa, which was delightful.  We broke out our four words of Spanish to tell them that they had been very nice to us and we had enjoyed living there, and they replied that we were all friends and wished us well on our trip to London.  It was a very touching farewell.

Soon, Mike and Eliana, the apartment agents who had helped us find this place originally, dropped by to pick up the keys and see us on our way.  It was good to see them again one last time.  On the way out, they asked whether we had lost weight, which was pleasant to consider.  Eliana suggested that it was the food.  We think more likely it’s all about walking.  A lot.  (Don’t get me wrong — I have really enjoyed learning about the cuisine in Spain, and we have discovered many new, delicious dishes.  But any cuisine in which lunch can consist of deep fried cheese-and-ham croquettes, fried lamb steaks, flan, and beer is not precisely on the crash-diet short list.)

So, off to the airport.  Where we discovered that our bags were over weight.  Of course.  You would think that 23 kg (50 lbs) would be plenty of weight allowance.  That you could fit all your clothes in there, with room to spare.  You’d be wrong.  Even having ditched belongings in Indianapolis and then sent home a variety of boxes from Madrid and packing everything heavy we could into carry-on bags, we were still over by about 2 kg/bag.

Fortunately, the nice woman at the Iberia check in desk pointed out that we could have another carry-on and that we might be able to shuffle a couple of kilos out of each of our main suitcases into a spare carry-on.  We had a light duffel stuffed into the bags, for just such an eventuality.  So we scooted over to the side and transferred a certain amount of heavy items and dense clothes into it until we made all the weight limits.  It was something of a triumph to finally be able to check our main suitcases through, given that we’d had to pay weight surcharges on them from ABQ to IND in the first place.  And we just ended up with extra weight to schlep around Barajas airport and then Gatwick.

On to Gatwick.  The plane flies.  No events. Thankfully.  Landed, made it past the bored passport control agent by flashing our brand-shiny-new visas at him.  Retrieved suitcases which were, thankfully, not lost this time.  Re-compressed duffel back into suitcases, then on to the train.

Gatwick is South of London and is further out than Heathrow.  It is possible to get to our new London place from Gatwick entirely by public transit.  But it’s considerably longer and involves more changes.  That wouldn’t be such a big deal if (a) we weren’t hauling heavy carry-ons plus suitcases that weighed in at 25 kg each and (b) if the London public transit system were more uniform and more accessible and didn’t involve random flights of stairs between any two points.

Still, we made it.  At the last leg, as we hauled our heavy suitcases up the stairs out of the Manor House station, a passing good samaritan gave Susan a hand hauling her bag up and out.  We were exhaustedly grateful.

And into the new flat — a house that we’re renting from a London couple who are, themselves, on sabbatical.  It is beautiful and far larger and more comfortable than our place in Madrid.  (Pictures presently, we hope.)

After a day of travel and who knows how long of stress, it was heaven.

We fell inside, dropped all our stuff, and collapsed with fatigue and joy for having made it.

Our great achievement for the afternoon was getting laundry done and casting “Summon delivery Indian food”.  (The joys of the Internet and of speaking the same language!)

The big debate, after some recovery, was whether we had any energy to do anything else with the evening.  Whether we could muster effort to try to ring in the New Year, or whether we should just crash at home.

In the end, we decided that this was probably the only time we’d be in London on New Year’s Eve in our lives, so we should do our best to make the most of it.

A little Internet research revealed that the city was throwing a big midnight fireworks display over the Thames.  And one of the prime viewing spots was right near the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and Terran’s aspiration was to hear Big Ben chime the New Year.  The paper warned that viewing spots filled up early, so we rushed out at a quarter of 10.

We made it to the tube station just in time to hear the PA system announce that all of the viewing areas for fireworks were full.  We were crushed.  It seemed cruel, somehow, even though our other plan had only been to sleep early.

But then fate and kindness struck again.  We needed to put more money on our transit cards anyway, so we dashed inside the station to do so.  In there, we ran into the fellow who was manning the information desk.  As it turns out, he’s the same guy who was running the desk the night that Terran first came through to visit the landlords.  (In between Vancouver and Italy.  Long trip, that.  whew)  And he recognized me, and seemed really excited to talk.

We had a great conversation with him.  When we told him about trying to see the fireworks and the announcement of viewing areas being full, he said, “Oh, don’t pay attention to that.  Those are just the official, roped off viewing areas.  You can get a great view outside them, though.”  He gave us detailed directions on how to get to a great viewing location and cheerfully sent us on our way.

Five minutes to midnight

And it worked out just as he said.  We took the Piccadilly line to Finsbury Park, changed to Victoria line, on to Victoria station, and then out to street level.  Walked down Victoria street — literally down the middle of it, as the police had all the traffic cordoned off and pedestrians were just streaming down it.  How often do you get to do that!?

After a little re-routing around the official viewing areas, we ended up at the edge of a crowd just between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, beneath the clock tower of Big Ben.  Made it there about 30 min before midnight, so we rested and enjoyed the beautiful, clear night and just watching people.

Susan below Big Ben -- three minutes 'til midnight!

In the end, we both got what we were looking for.  The fireworkswere fabulous and, even if we didn’t get the best seat in town, we did have an incredible view.  And we got to hear Big Ben chime in 2009!

We sang Auld Lang Syne with the crowd (only some of whom were so drunk as to butcher it utterly.) And the feeling of good cheer and camaraderie lasted all the way back through the tube to our lovely flat, where we crashed immediately.

But the night wasn’t quite over yet.  We hauled ourselves to semi-consciousness a7:40 AM local time, which just happened to be 11:40 PM in US West Coast time.  We Skyped over to our friends Tim and Emily, who were throwing their own New Year’s bash, reaching them in time to ring in 2009 all over again!  The power of the Internet — faster than the New Year itself.  :-)

All in all, we could not have asked for a better New Year’s eve.  While tiring and stressful in places, it marked a big set of changes for us — leaving one stage of sabbatical and on to another; on to a new country and new city and new things to learn.  And most of all, it was surrounded by good cheer and much kindness.  We were touched to have had the chance to meet so

Fireworks over the Thames, heralding in 2009

many wonderful and helpful people.  In many ways, our New Year’s eve was a microcosm of all of 2008 for us.

We look forward eagerly to 2009, with as many new and wonderful people and as many new things to discover.

Our best wishes to all for a wonderful new year, filled with joy, success, and kindness.

We went there specifically to visit our good friends Jared and Julia and their new son Zander, who are there on Jared’s sabbatical.  Jared and Terran started UNM at the same time, and by chance we ended up both spending the first half of sabbatical in the same country.  We had a wonderful time visiting, and it was great to spend time just hanging out with friends.  Unfortunately, the picture we took of us (sans Terran) completely failed to come out, or I’d post it here.  Sigh.  We should have thought to take more pictures together, but we were having a good time visiting and didn’t think of it.

So, I have heard that Barcelona is a grand old city, much older than Madrid, which really only dates as a city of significance to the 1700s.  So I expected to see a lot more old architecture.  But I completely failed to realize that Barcelona’s architectural claim to fame is Gaudi the Modernista.  So, instead of looking at more old buildings, we spent a lot of time looking at (relatively) NEW buildings.

Now, I have to say that I’m not generally a fan of weird modern architecture.  MIT, for example, is all about impractical ultramodern buildings now that it has recovered from its craze for large concrete blocks.  These buildings are wild to look at, but the all seem to be the kind of thing that is great to look at but lousy to try to use: poor acoustics, bad ventilation, unusable office spaces, no privacy, you name it.  And usually these things aren’t just mild annoyances but actual work-stoppers.  Before we left, they were planning to build a cubical farm for grad students out of cardboard.  No foolin’.  I don’t know how that worked out.

But I have to say that Gaudi absolutely blew me away.  Now THIS is a man who got it right.  Some of his buildings look like Chihuly seaforms or stranger, but he put meticulous care into the practicalities of life: ventilation, privacy, direction of natural and artificial light, chimney exhaust, air direction so that you don’t smell the clothes that are hung up to dry, all of it.  Exotically beautiful AND impeccably practical.  I didn’t know you could have both together.  We toured his townhome Casa Botlló and were blown away.

Here are some Gaudi pictures:

La Sagrada Familia

Possibly Gaudi’s most famous architectural project was La Sagrada Familia, or Temple of the Holy Family.  This project was unfinished when Gaudi died in 1926, and work has been progressing in dribs and drabs until now.  We’re not sure, but we think we heard a tour guide say that it was projected for completion in 30 years.  That means that the total construction time will fall in around 150 years.

The wild thing is that with modern stoneworking techniques, the whole thing looks like it could probably be done in a year or two.  Apparently, the issue is that it’s privately funded, so the limitation is the speed of fundraising rather than technology.  I don’t know if the city of Barcelona has tried to buy it up from the private group that owns it now.  I’m sure the city would love to have control of this tourist attraction.  I have to assume that they just ain’t sellin’.

The interior features columns in different shades of stone modeled to look like trees.

Interior of La Segrada Familia

The funny thing is that when I was talking to Dad after we got home, he immediately brought up the unfinished cathedral.  It doesn’t look like all that much work has been done on it since he was there in the 60s. If it actually gets done after we retire, we absolutely have to come out to see it.  It will be amazing.

The tour of Casa Batlló was more than we wanted to pay, but it turned out to be well worth it.

Exterior of Casa Batlló

We think we like Gaudi’s interiors better than his exteriors.  The interior of Casa Batlló was done in underwater themes.

A chandelier in Casa Batlló

Oh, and we also got a chance to see the traditional Castillian dancing in front of the Barcelona Cathedral at noon on Sunday.  Apparently this has been going on for a while too because Dad saw it while he was there.  It was kind of exciting that we both got to see it.

Rings of Castilian dancers

We also visited the Gothic Barcelona Cathedral during mass.  I thought it was kind but weird that they would allow tourists come in and wander around their cathedral during services.  The cathedral has a famous cloister that was just as beautiful as it said in our tour book.  It was almost impossible to photograph, though.  Here’s an attempt to show a piece of it:

A bit of the cloister at the Barcelona Cathedral

I’d never seen a cloister with an ornamental pond, a fountain, and a flock of (VERY mean) geese in it before.

We finished the weekend with a classical guitar concert with Jared and Julia in another old Gothic church.  The music was incredible, and old stone churches are fantastic places to listen to it.

All in all, a good time.

We are heartbroken that we couldn’t make it to either wedding.  One of the suck parts about being in Europe this year is being so far from everybody we care for.