I’m a big deal. No seriously, I hold a world record. Okay, technically I share it with about 10,000 other people, one of which is Lauren (hey-oh, shout out to us!) But I am part of a world record and I will be for at least another ten months.
It all started with a dream…and a sign in the metro. La Carrera de Papa Noel. Running? Santa Claus? Well, that’s all I needed to hear. So here’s the deal, the whole purpose of the race is to have the most people running while dressed like Papa Noel (or an elf if you’re a kid). And, of course, to have fun while doing it. So you sign up by paying an incredibly small fee and they give you a Santa suit to wear on the day of the race, complete with hat and beard.
You also receive a swag bag full of magazines, food and the glorious, felt Santa suit. I think there might have been protein powder too. Whatever, I was too focused on the Santa gear.
Race day rolled around and Lauren and I joined the pack of Santas. And, gosh, did we look good doing it….
By the end of the race we were exhausted because it’s hard work to run three miles and look good.
But it was all worth it because we were rewarded with post-race goodies, including this little guy.
He’s just a tiny Coca-Cola reindeer; however, when the time comes, I kind of want to pack him in my suitcase and bring him home with me. He can be a reminder of back when I used to break world records for fun.
Blinding confidence, now brought to you by Coca-Cola.
They say when it rains, it pours. Well it poured this weekend for me. Friday night, check. Saturday night, check. Sunday night, check.
Friday night: movie!
I’ve never really been the going-to-the-movies type although I’m not sure why. I usually have to take a minute (an embarrassingly long minute) to think about the last time I went to the movies. For the longest time, Toy Story 3 was the last movie I had seen in the theaters. That came out in 2010. Now that I think about it I also went to see About Time (based solely on the fact that one of the characters had an Irish accent, true story). And that was in 2013. So I had been averaging one about every three years. I foresee that number getting drastically lower once I’m back stateside. Cough John cough. And dear readers, you’ll be relieved to know that I did see the new Star Wars movie in December. And yet, here it is only two months later that I found myself at another movie: The Big Short (La gran apuesta). Even though we are in Spain, we saw it in English because we figured that the vocabulary for the movie would be a little too specific to be part of our regular vocabulary. Looking back that was a great choice. I mean we probably could have understood it alright but something would have been different. And that something is swearing. Don’t get me wrong, Spaniards are master swearers; they drop them into conversations just like any ol’ preposition. That’s just how they connect thoughts. But there’s something about the way Americans swear, especially in this film, that just can’t be replicated. It’s all about intonation, facial expression and strategic silences. I can’t believe that last sentence was all about swearing, but anyway, English swearing was in full effect and it was glorious. Also the movie was pretty incredible so there’s that.
Saturday night: music!
I may not be a movie person but I dig live music. So when Lauren suggested going to see some jazz/blues, I was in! We went to La Coquette, a cute, little cave of a bar where we were able to snag front row seats. Like too-close-to-the-stage front row seats.
Somehow I felt like the leather jacket gives me a little more street cred for a blues bar
So close we could have been part of the band, The Downtown Alligators. We could have been alligators! The lead singer had that great raspy, bluesy voice and then in between songs he would rattle off some Spanish banter. It was actually very weird to hear him switch between the two.
Sunday night: Football!
You can take the girl out of America but you can’t take America out of the girl. I had to watch the Super Bowl…it was my patriotic duty. Plus it was date night. So I was ready: Skype on my iPad which John pointed towards the tv, FaceTime on my iPhone to chat with John (and judge commercials together…I was mostly unimpressed). The only problem: the game started at 12:30 in the morning so I definitely fell asleep somewhere in the fourth quarter. I woke up in time to see Denver win but I’m pretty sure I missed Helen Mirren scold drunk drivers. And the Clydesdales, were there Clydesdales this year?!
All of my posts so far have shown me outside of Madrid. For some reason I’ve been putting off writing about actual Madrid. I don’t know why but it’s hard to write about; how do I start? Destinations are easy. I went here; I did this; look, pictures! Everything fits so nicely in one post. I’ve been in Madrid for almost three months now; that’s a lot of words and pictures to fit into one post. So what’s the best way to break things up? Where do I begin? Well, let’s start with running. That is the general theme going on here so I’ll start with me running Madrid. Not running Madrid (although I did see the king’s hand once!) but literally running the mean, hilly streets (and parks!) of Madrid.
When I first arrived to town, we lived in Lavapiés so I pretty much had El Retiro in my back yard and quickly learned to get lost (and then found…wow, I’m so deep) in the labyrinth of tiny pathways, all the while admiring the small fountains, the scattered monuments and the golden colors of autumn.
The following month, Lauren and I found our permanent home in Madrid which happened to be right next to the Parque Deheaven Dehesa. Okay, okay, I’ve made that joke elsewhere but let’s just look past that and let me have my fun with words. But seriously, doesn’t this kind of look Iike heaven?
Those views are worth running for if you ask me, but then again so is beer. And so I find myself at that time again: training season. The time of year where Liz and I decide that it’s a good idea to run 13.1 miles (there was that one time that we thought 26.2 miles would be a good idea) motivated only by visions of beer and a medal. If you’re thinking ‘that’s not enough motivation to train for a half marathon’, well, you would be right. By the end, training almost always ends up being replaced by talking about training while looking at motivating pictures. But it turns out that beer and medals are just enough motivation to run 13.1 miles on a Sunday morning while the rest of the world is still sleeping. Although somewhere along the line, we got old learned that mimosas are actually much better rewards. So, eleven weeks from today, that’s where you will find us: chugging up one of Madrid’s many hills and chanting “medals, mimosas, beers…medals, mimosas, beers.”
