Just Visiting, part 9

One weekday during the visit Mike took the kids to lunch so I could go look at the housing possibilities. My guide was Marilu, a Spanish lady who’d been married to an American and who caught all the real estate referrals from the American School of Madrid. She showed me around a couple of the neighborhoods near the school that I would come to know well—Somosaguas and Húmera, where there were large, luxurious houses. “I’m not sure I understand what kind of a place you want,” she said. I got the feeling that she wasn’t clear how important Mike’s job was, that she didn’t know if we’d be able to afford a big house, a little adosado or townhouse, or a piso (apartment). But she was full of helpful advice: “Bring lots of nylons,” she said. “The quality here is terrible. And be sure to call me when you get in. I will get you a maid, a gardener—whatever you need.”

I was interested in having an apartment so that there would be no security worries if we went away for a weekend, and I thought it would be nice to have a shared pool, as opposed to having a house with a private pool. I figured this would open opportunities to meet Spaniards.

Mike had told me about one apartment he’d seen and liked. It was on the edge of the park that formed the western boundary of Madrid. I had a vision of a lovely old limestone-faced building overlooking something like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. But the actual building was very different. The park, Casa de Campo, was a big, dry, dusty place with smallish green-gray trees. Like most of the Spanish landscape, it wasn’t very appealing to me at first. It took me many months of living in Madrid before I came to appreciate the desertlike appearance of my surroundings. The building was modern, brick, three stories high. The apartment was spacious, with lovely wood floors and a view onto the pool and soccer field behind the building.

What I learned from a couple hours of house hunting was that most of the houses and apartments had tile floors and small kitchens. The only request I made of Mike, who was going to take care of actually choosing a place for us, was that he look for a better-than-average kitchen, because we were enthusiastic cooks and needed a bit of space to stretch out in.

At any rate, I had decided that indeed I could and wanted to live in Madrid, so I went home excited. I looked for an intensive Spanish class and found the perfect thing—twelve weeks at the local University of Connecticut branch. The class would cover two years’ worth of college-level Spanish, meeting daily for four hours. I knew I’d do better with a regular classroom approach than with the Berlitz method, since I tended to learn a language more by reading and writing than by speaking and listening.

Next we had to tell Julie and Lisa about our move. “Do we have to go?” Julie moaned. “I want to stay here.”

Lisa joined in: “I like it here. I don’t want to go away from my friends.”

“Look, we’ve made this decision, and we’re going to do this together. It’s so we can be with Dad,” I explained. “It’s hard for all of us when he travels so much. I think it’s better when we’re all together. Besides, we can stay in Stamford for the summer, so you can still go to day camp. You have lots of time to be with your friends, and we’ll be back at Christmas for a visit.” They seemed to understand the point about being together, since Mike’s travel was hard on all of us. They accepted the idea without too much difficulty.