The Stitch Up

She's Crafty...she gets around...she's crafty

They hold a Vendor's Day at the embassy each year before Christmas. Different crafters come with goods and sell to the embassy employees and their families. They don't get a whole lot of people there as it's limited to those people who are associated with the embassy, but a few of us in our crafting club thought it might be fun to take down our projects and see if we could make some sales. I had stitched up a few tea towels using patterns from the Sublime Stitching site:

My friend Tara, a talented knitter, card maker and founder of our little crafting club also brought some goods and we hung out, drinking a little cocoa and chatting. Ultimately we didn't sell much but we had a good time.

The craft group has been fun. These women are all really talented and have lots of great ideas. After seeing Tara's handmade Christmas cards, I'm ready to give paper crafts a try! Another couple ladies want give embroidery a try and I've already picked up knitting and crocheting techniques from the group. I think all we need now is someone to teach woodworking and we'll pretty much have every craft covered.

Oh yes it's Ladies Night and the Feelin's Right...

Last week I met up with some of the ladies I've met at the European Professional Womens Association. It was a nice chance to talk to a few of the women I've met before in a smaller group and to meet a few new people. We decided to do drinks and dinner (and then drinks again - this is Spain after all, you can't just go home after dinner!) at a couple of places that were new to me. So in addition to some great networking I also was able to try out some nice new places in Madrid.

First up was the bar in the Hotel de Las Letras. This is a very cool and hip boutique hotel and it's bar was also stylish. Here are a couple pics from their web site of the hotel and the bar:

We all enjoyed it.

I think the hotel is pretty popular with tourists. There were a couple of girls who were meeting up with this group for the first time and had asked over email how they would know us. We said "Oh, don't worry, we'll be the group over in the corner speaking English!" Turns out pretty much everyone in the hotel bar that night was speaking English, but she spotted us anyhow!

After drinks it was off to La Finca de Susana - a restaurant not far off of Gran Via.

One of the girls told me that this restaurant is part of a chain of 4 or 5 around Madrid that are staffed by cooking school students. I'm not sure whether that's accurate, BUT the prices at La Finca de Susana are really low. Generally when the Hubby and I go out to eat here in Madrid we pay around 40 euro each for dinner. (don't even convert it into dollars - it's too painful). And that 40 euros may or may not include appetizers, dessert or a bottle of wine. At La Finca we all had appetizers, a main course, dessert and a bottle of wine and each paid a little under 15 euros. Remarkable in this town! The food is good, but I think hit and miss. Some dishes were fantastic (the tempura vegetables for instance), some were not much better than what you could get at the local cervezaria (shrimp in garlic sauce), and some were just "fine" (my chicken in roquefurt sauce). We had a great time and I think I might drag hubby to try out some of the other restaurants in this chain. (Actually another friend and I HAVE tried another of the restaurants in this chain - Bazaar. It's in the Chueca district and I actually thought the food was better - a little more interesting and consistent. But the prices were equally reasonable.) Here are a couple shots of us enjoying the cheap food:

After dinner we walked around a little looking for a place to relax, talk and have some cava (Spanish sparkling wine). We stopped into a bar that looked very mod but I can not for the life of me remember it's name. I was feeling pretty wild being out at 11:30 at night on a Thursday and even wilder as we sat, sipped cava and chatted about everything from work to travel until 1 am. But this being Spain, that bar was basically empty until about 1 am. As we left, the party crowd in Spain began to arrive and I'm sure they did not wind up until 5 am. While I enjoy getting into the food, culture and general spirit of Spain - those kind of late nights are something I'm pretty sure I'll never get used to. But - that means I don't have to fight for space at the bar at midnight! Cheers!

Morella

Last weekend the hubby and I took a trip to a little known city in Madrid: Morella. Our visit was in celebration of the baptism of our friends' new baby - Isabelle. This is the new arrival for the friend whose baby shower I went to a couple of months ago. This little girl is a perfect angel - beautiful and mellow. Our friends have been visiting Morella for years - its a special town for them and they thought it would be the perfect spot for the baptism. The city is about 4 1/2 hours from Madrid by car and about an hour outside of Valencia. I was surprised that not too many Spaniards I asked were familiar with the city but, having visited now, I'm going to recommend that they check it out.

As our friend told us, Morella is "a town of about 3,000 inhabitants that dates back to the indigenous Iberians and that has seen the Romans, Moors, the Christian Reconquest, the Carlist Wars, Napoleon's occupation, and the Spanish Civil War. Even El Cid fought battles through here." The whole town is enclosed in the ancient castle walls.

It's a cute city and the hotel we stayed at was The Hotel Cardenal Ram. It is the former palace of Cardinal Ram, the senior clergy member of Morella in the 15th century. It was pretty - but we ended up with two twin beds that were a little small for us. Still, the general history of the place made up for it:

After checking in to the hotel, the hubby and I walked around a little bit and then had dinner in a pretty good restaurant:

I liked the grey and orange decor of the place and the dishes all had a nice presentation. Voila:

We had carpaccio and pulpa (octopus). The carpaccio was great but the octopus was a little bland - one of my consistent complaints about Spanish food. It's usually prepared grilled with a lot of paprika and can be great when done right, but this was just eh.

The next day was the baptism and it was held in the beautiful cathedral in Morella:

The inside of the church was also really beautiful:

The first picture there was of the star of our story, little Isabelle. She didn't make a peep through the whole service. After the baptism everyone headed down to the main street of Morella. There is a custom in Morella that the parents of a newly baptized baby throw candy and coinds to all the local kids. It was a melee.

I seriously thought someone was going to lose an eye - especially when they started chucking the coins. Despite being told this was a tradition, I'm not quite sure how well known this "tradition" is. Apparently one of the guests of the baptism over heard two locals talking. One asked the other what all the hubbub in the street with the candy was all about. The other responded "oh, I think one of the Americans converted to catholicism!" Awesome.

We had some time after the baptism to walk around the town a bit. There are some really adorable shops - Morella seems to specialize in honey and sheep cheese. I'm not sure what that's about - but every othe store sold honey and cheese. There were a lot of pretty little streets and corners:

We finished off the weekend with a brunch in the hotel and then a drive back to Madrid. It was a relaxing weekend and great to spend time with friends in such a pretty setting.