the boring blog

If you were hoping to see picture of our new apartment any time soon, you're out of luck. In fact, you might not see any pictures of us for awhile since we don't have an internet connection in our apartment and we can't say with any certainty when we will get it. All our posting will be coming from me, so if you wanted to hear from Eryka (who is clearly much more interesting than me), you are also out of luck.

Here's the deal: in Spain, one company, Telefonica, controls installation of phone lines in all apartments. They will install the line, and the basic monthly fee to have a phone line is between 13-17 euros a month. But just because you have a phone line doesn't mean you can make calls. You have to pay for a calling plan on top of the phone line. Well, conveniently, you can buy a calling plan from Telefonica. You can also get cable TV and internet in one package. The final price after exchange rates is comparable to what we would pay in the states. So that sounds great.

BUT you can choose to get just the phone line for 13-17 euros a month, but you still can't make any calls, so you get a calling plan, internet, and cable TV from a different provider - it is MUCH cheaper to go with another provider. But there's a problem, we can't order installation of TV and Internet from the other provider until our phone line is installed - and we have to wait about 20 days before our line can be installed.

Guess who will be going to school in Spain?

If you guessed Isaac, you're right.

If you guessed Eryka, you're also right.

We're getting Isaac enrolled in a public school about a 20 minute walk north of us where his little friend Nico from Connecticut attends (they'll be in the same class). It's very exciting to think he'll be going to classes and learning Spanish (and getting out of Mom's hair for a few hours during the day). Yes, he is only 3 years old, but they start them early here in Spain, and it's best to blend in with the natives, right?

Eryka has discovered a design school: Il Instituto Europeo di Design which has a campus here in Madrid where she can earn the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree in design in three years. So yes, if she does the course, we'll have a few issues since we'll only be here for two years, not three. She visited the campus (which is about a 15 minute walk west of our apartment) and absolutely loved the campus and the program that is offered. We're going to have to work out several details with scheduling and lifestyle if we're going to make it work, but the cost and the program are so appealing that it seems like too great of an opportunity to pass by.