When you name your blog "2 years in Madrid" you would think that the person writing it would be enjoying the beautiful plains of central Spain. Unfortunately for the meantime I'm pecking away at my desk in dreary Dover, Ohio. Sure, the Madrid thing will happen, albeit probably not for another month or two.
Anyways, I see this as an excellent opportunity to introduce myself and try to explain what in the world I was thinking when I thought my life was interesting enough to fill the pages of a blog.
In my real life, here in Ohio, I work as a museum director at the the amazing J.E. Reeves Home and Musuem. I'm married, sorry ladies, and I have two amazing boys age 5 and 7. My passions include running, reading, travel, family, great food and long walks on the beach at sunset. Ok, the last part isn't true. I got caught up in writing a blog entry that looks more like a personal ad.
The reason I've decided to write this blog is that I'm moving to Madrid, Spain in early 2011. I'm hoping that that friends, family, acquitances, and even total strangers will be able to follow my activities and inevitable blunders as I attempt to learn Spanish and adapt to a completely foreign culture and country. Think Green Acres meets House Hunters International. My goal over the next year is to post pretty regularly about running (more on this one later), and life in general.
To give you an idea, this whole process started for me nearly six months ago when my wife began traveling back and forth to Madrid. She works in finance and was initially only helping with the company's operations in Spain. After the first trip what began as only helping turned into taking on the position full time. After much discussion, we agreed that the opportunity was too great to pass up. Excited and a little scared, we began to make plans to turn our world upside down. Of course that is where things came to a screeching halt. The process of visas and work permits has slowed to a pace similiar to a ninety year-old woman climbing stairs at the Reeves Home.
During this loooooong waiting period we did have the chance to visit Madrid for the first time as a family. During that trip alot of the aforementioned fear and apprehension left. For those of you who haven't been there, the country is beautiful, safe, and fillled with great architecture, art, food, and people. It also has amazing trails and parks. So, with that initial trip, I was ready to go. Unfortunately, grandma was still struggling up the stairs and nowhere near the top.
Today it been over three months since our trip. Although I know the move is going to happen, I feel like it's somewhere out there just out of my reach. Kind of like trying to imagine your kids as adults. Until it does happen, we are making progress. We officially have an apartment/flat in La Moraleja, just north of Madrid. Hopefully we will in the near future have plane tickets and Visas to go with our appartment. Until then I'll continue to update this blog as to our progress and to go off on tangents on various topics, including the fact that I'm thinking of running a 50K or 50 mile race next weekend. We'll see.....
