Fire-breathing dragons are bigger than whales and I should be married.

I've been an Au Pair in Madrid for a week now. Despite this short time span, it seems like I've been here much longer, considering the fact that I feel like I know everything about this family I'm living with already. I won't start from day one but let me just give you some quick recaps and general background information:

Who: The De Frutos family: Dad, Mom, Ivàn (7 years old), Hector (1.5 years old)

What: Me, nannying/teaching the older boy English while living with the family 24/7.

Where: About 25 minutes (by train) outside of the center of Madrid in an area called Las Rozas and even more specifically called Las Matas. They live in this little townhome (they call them chalets...) that is attached to 5 or 6 other ones and then surrounded by 2 other little strips like that and then surrounded by a gate. There are no cars inside the gate because everyone parks their car in their respective garage underground in the parking deck type thing. This way the kiddies can run around freely without worrying about getting you-know-what by vehicles and the spanish armada (jk), etc.

When: I'll be here until I fly to Rome (and specifically Siena) for my study abroad on September 5th.

Why: Cool experience, I would say. More on that business later, though.

How: My friend Marieta au paired for a family in this neighborhood last summer and she hooked me up with this family! Shout out to herrrr :)

Now for the nitty gritty... I work Monday through Friday from about 10:00 AM to 11:00 PM with random off time sometimes during the day. For example, a typical day starts off with breakfast in the morning--I help feed the baby and try to get the 7 year old excited for his English lesson that day (his usual morning response? a rolling of the eyes while watching Spider Man cartoons or the ever so famous Bob Esponja...Spongebob for those of you non-spanish folk). From about 10:30 to Noon I give Ivàn English lessons and we also do some work in his summer don't-forget-what-you've-learned-during-the-year-even-though-you-most-likely-will packet. He is pretty good at English, he is simply very stubborn and likes to pretend like he doesn't know anything at all when if he would just stop and think for one second he would remember that we've gone over his likes and dislikes and how to say them about one trillion times. For the record, he LOVES lasagna but HATES tomatoes. Phew, good thing we got that one out in the open. Next, there's usually this period of time where I don't know if I should be taking care of the baby or Ivàn or doing whatever I want, because the Mom doesn't work, so usually she's with the baby. And sometimes Ivàn goes out into the "calle" (well actually it's not the street because there aren't cars... but whatever) to play with his friends. So the past couple days during this time I've gotten to sunbathe on the back deck while kind of playing with the baby and talking with the mom. You would think it would lunchtime by now, but little did you know that the Spanish have the most insane bizarre eating habits of anyone you've ever met in your life (even weirder than the Baetti family, gasp!). Lunch doesn't go down until approximately 3:45pm. Let me spell that out for you: THREE FORTY FIVE. Talk about an adjustment to my normal summer east cobb noonish salad type lunch...(OH- and don't even get me started on vegetables... they basically don't exist in the entire country of Spain. Except potatoes. Potatoes at every meal. It's only been a week and I might be turning into a spud.) One of the reasons we eat this late (I presume at least) is because we wait for the Dad to get home from work. Lucky duck gets home from work at around 3:30 everyday! So finally it's around 4:30 and it's siesta time. Since I'm not much of a napper (shout out to nap expert Miss Stephanie Phelps!) I usually just retreat to my room (the only room in the "basement" of the house---no windows, i'm not a fan, but it's big and has a tv and my own bathroom so that's good!) and read or get on the computer. When I feel like I've had an appropriate amount of ME time, I head back upstairs for the long haul of playtime until dinner. During these hours I'm usually in charge of Ivàn but sometimes if the mom and dad need to go grocery shopping or run other errands, I'm on my own with both. The past couple of days have been SO hot here that we've usually played outside with water guns and the hose since the pool that's in the neighborhood has been closed due to some leak (luckily it's supposed to open by this weekend). There have been the occasional cowboy and indian games that I've had to participate in (gunshot noises included) with Ivàn and that definitely reminded me how different it is to take care of little boys than little girls. Snacktime is around 7pm (whaaaa???) and then around 8 is baths and waiting time until dinner. Luckily there have been some world cup games on to keep me sane and I watch them with the dad because no one else really cares (why would they? a 7 year old, baby, and mom... SuperMarioGalaxy on the Wii is to Ivàn what the World Cup is to me haha). Dinner time is around 10:30. Sometimes later. That's even late for our Argentine Baetti standards. I also just don't like going to sleep with a full stomach. Cannot be good for you. So usually I stay up and skype with friends (shout out to Miss Kathleen Gates, volleyball starrrr). That's basically an average day. Longest paragraph ever. Perdoname por favor.

I get Saturdays and Sundays off. This past Saturday I woke up late and hung around with the family because I had yet to figure out how to get to Madrid on my own with the public transportation. Sunday I got my act together and went into the city by train (which takes about 30 minutes) and then around with the Metro. I went to the Prado Museum and later met up with some high school friends who are studying in France but came to Spain for the weekend. We walked around Plaza Mayor and checked out the huge Retiro Park. It was fun to do some sight seeing but the heat is unrealllll and very tiring. My legs hurt real bad after such a long day.

Ok well there's a start to what's going on here in MAD... there's more I should explain but I need to get ready to go! I'm heading into Madrid (on a WEDNESDAY woooooo i'm so crazy...and by this day of the week I already need a break from kiddie land) to meet up with my friend Christina who is also living here this summer working. We're going to a bar to watch the Spain vs Germany match! It's going to be packed everywhere because the Spanish have never gotten this far into the Cup. Can't wait! Vamos España!!

Hasta luego,

G

Ps. The title of this post are things that Iván has said to me. Children are hilarious!