Things that we've been contemplating for several months now are finally coming together. I don't know if that is because we are getting more proficient at living in Spain and being pseudo-Spaniards, or, if it just took a long time and the fruits of our labors are finally coming.

One of those things, is to find a Chinese housekeeper here in Madrid. After a lot of searching, and some very awkward 'interviews', our new Ayi started today. Her name is Fang and she is originally from Shandong, China. She spent 5 hours with us today and I really hope it works out. I'm not getting my hopes up too high right now because we went through three ayis in Beijing before we found Xiao Guo.

Olive and I met Fang at the metro station and we walked together to our house so she would know the way. She's very interested to find a bus that will get her near our house but I am completely incompetent about the Madrid bus system. You would think I would've explored the bussing options back when I was walking 6 miles per day (that was pre-car and pre-bicycle) but I never did.

I'm really excited that having Fang in out lives will allow us to have a little more free time to enjoy our lives here in Spain, by liberating us from the drudgery of using the world's smallest washing machine, and ironing our own clothes. It sounds horrible, I know. These are not real problems, but we are definitely hoping to get more free time.

Today went pretty well and we were able to communicate well enough. Our Chinese is definitely rusty! My old Chinese teacher would've been appalled if she heard me interspersing English words, Spanish words, and the occasional pantomime into Chinese sentences. Fang understood mostly. Her mandarin accent is more similar to the Beijing accent that we're familiar with than some of the other people that we interviewed.

Let's hope it works out!