Sunny Madrid

February 22nd --We decided today would be our day to get acclimated to the area. The apartment where we are staying is one block from a metro stop, so we got on the Metro (subway) to head to the Puerta del Sol metro stop. When we stepped out of the station, we were amazed at all the people. We realized quickly that we were in the BIG city. Our goal was to find the Tourist Information office in order to pick up maps and information of the area. Well, we walked around the Plaza Mayor for a little while we no luck. So, we decided to sit down in the beautiful sun and enjoy lunch. The weather is absolutly beautiful right now. It is bright sunny with highs in the low 60s. While we were eating lunch, Opera music started being played throughout the plaza. Then, we saw this guy performing on a excavator...yes an excavator! It was definitely interesting to watch this guy perform with such elegance on a piece of machinery. We later found out that Carnavale (like Mardi Gras) is going on. We had been wondering why we were seeing so many people and a lot of children dressed up like it was Halloween. The performance we had seen at the Plaza Mayor is called Transports Exceptionnels created by Compagnie Beau Geste. It's a duet for a dance and an excavator. After watching the performance, we continued to walk around the plaza and came across several of those people that dress themselves up and paint there faces and stand still like statues. I've seen them a lot in Vegas. Well, the kids got the biggest kick out of this one lady that was dressed all in copper. Austin even let go of his money to drop in her bucket. While we were watching her, Mike discovered the Tourist Information center and picked up some information. We walked back toward the metro station to El Corte Ingles, a huge department store. We walked through it for a while or should I say we rode the escalators all the way to the top (6 floors) and then all the way back down. It goes down to -1 floor. It has to be the biggest department store we've ever seen and it had everything. After leaving the store, we caught the Metro back to our stop and walked to 2 different parks near our apartment. The parks are really pretty here and the kids had a lot of fun playing. We soon discovered that the grocery stores were closed on Sunday so we had to venture out for dinner...and it was an adventure! It was our first big challenge of ordering from a menu we could barely read with a waiter that spoke no English. Having been in a tourist area in Switzerland, we never encountered a restaurant that the waiter didn't also speak English. Mike did an excellent job of deciphering a dish to chicken and luckily they had tapas that you could just go pick from. In the end, it was a very good meal.