A Royal Day

February 27th--Today was our day to visit the Royal Palace (Palacio Real) in Madrid. We took the metro down to the Opera stop and walked over to the Plaza de Oriente, a people-friendly plaza next to the palace. We decided to eat lunch before touring the Palace, but since "lunchtime" here is later (2:00-4:00), and most restaurants don't open until 1:30, so we found a playground in the plaza and let the kids play there first. At about 1:30, we walked to Casa Ciriaco where we ate lunch. Casa Ciriaco is a local restaurant that has traditional cooking. We had beef tips, roasted chicken, artichoke hearts and a salad. It was all very good! We did notice on the menu that they had "tortillas". If we hadn't been forewarned by Aunt Reta, we would of thought we had actually found tortillas on the menu. But, it is actually an omelet dish. We had a good laugh. After lunch, we walked to the Royal Palace. There was actually a line to get inside, but luckily, it wasn't too long. Once entering the palace, we followed Rick Steve's walking tour. It's amazing to think that King's and Queen's once lived in this big 2,000 room Palace. It's known as Europe's third-greatest palace with tons of tapestries, chandeliers, and porcelain. The royal family now lives in a mansion nearby, but it still functions as a royal palace for formal events. Upon leaving the fantasy of a royal life, we decided to walk toward Puerta del Sol on the hunt for Chocolateria San Gines. We sat outside and enjoyed churros con chocolate. You dunk your churros into chocolate pudding. It definitely met our expectations of being really good. Then, we walked in to the Puerta del Sol area where there are lots of shops and lots of action going on. There were people singing, playing instruments, handing out balloons, etc. Definitely caters to the tourist! Anyway, we did some shopping for little Austin's birthday tomorrow. Mission accomplished and we headed back to the apartment.

Pig Out!

February 25th--Today we took a day trip to Segovia. It's about 30 minutes (via train) north of Madrid. We made reservations and our train was to leave at 10:30. Well...our train did leave at 10:30, we just weren't on it. Apparently, we misjudged our time from the apartment to the train station. We left the apartment and had to take 2 subways to the train station. We arrived at the station about 10:28 but had no idea where we were to go. Mike was holding Austin and I was dragging Abby behind me as we ran through the train station. All that running and we still missed it. We went to the ticket window and were able to get on the next train which left at noon, so no big deal. In the end, it actually turned out better that we caught the later train because had we arrived in Segovia as planned, we would of had too much time to kill before our train departed back to Madrid. So, we arrived at the Segovia train station at 12:30 and took bus #11 (per Rick Steve's) into the town which was about a 20 minute ride. The bus dropped us off right in front of the Roman aqueduct. Segovia was a Roman military base and needed water. Emperor Trajan's engineers built a nine-mile aqueduct to channel water from the Rio Frio to the city. The exposed section, which we walked, is 2,500 feet long and 100 feet high. It was an amazing thing to see especially since it was all built with 20,000 granite blocks without any mortar. From the aqueduct, we walked to Plaza Mayor where we decided to have lunch. We ate at La Concepcion Restaurante (again, thanks Rick Steve's) where we experienced Segovia's culinary claim to fame, roast suckling pig (cochinillo asado) and judiones de La Granja (a popular soup made with flat white beans from the region and pig ears). Along with our meal, we enjoyed a wonderful bottle of red wine while watching the kids play in the square with several other kids. After a nice 2 hour lunch and with our bellies full, we went into the Cathedral. The church was absolutely beautiful...again, we are amazed at the fine architecture and construction from the 1500's. It was definitely a educational experience for all; especially Abby. She asked a lot of really good questions about Jesus, his death and resurrection based on the many paintings and sculptures. After leaving the Cathedral, we walked to see the Alcazar. The Alcazar is a fortified castle that has also served as a prison and a Royal Artillery School. The kids loved entering on the "grumpy ole troll's bridge" and finding the Princess room. After touring the castle, we climbed 152 stairs up to the tower. It was a little rough climbing all those stairs, but well worth the view from atop. We could see the town of Segovia and the snow capped mountains in the distance. Apparently, after seeing the palace, we had walked off our lunch and went looking for a dessert. Rick Steve's recommends a place called Limon y Menta so we didn't want to leave anything out of our culinary experience so we tried his 2 recommendations...ponche segoviano (mazapan) cake and the honey-and-almond crocantinos. They were both good, but the cake was to die for. Loved it!!! After enjoying our snack in Plaza Mayor, we walked back to the bus stop where we boarded the bus back to the train station. Our train left Segovia at 8:13 back to Madrid. We got back to the apartment about 9;30 and all headed for bed after a wonderful day in Spain!

Jesus has a boo-boo

February 24th--Today we tried to adapt to the Spanish lifestyle of sleeping in and staying out later. We didn't leave the apartment until about noon to head for the park by the apartment to have a picnic and do some playing. After the park, Austin was forced to take a nap because we knew we were going to be up late. After our siesta, we took the Metro to the Atocha train station. We needed to make some train arrangements for our future travel. That was fairly pain-free, especially since the lady helping us spoke English. That always helps! We then walked from the station to the Prado Museum, one of the world's great art museums. The Prado is free between 6 and 8 p.m. and we decided with 2 kids (who could care less about looking at paintings), 2 hours and free sounded perfect. Free also sounded right within our budget. We followed Rick Steve's walking guide through the museum which allowed us to quickly navigate the 3,000+ canvases and see the true masterpieces. Honestly, we are not "art people" so we had never heard of the artists or their work. However, what we found amazing is that these paintings were done hundreds of years ago. We have a hard time imagining someone in the 21st century doing some of these paintings. Unbelievable! The kids were troopers through the museum. Abby has decided she wants to be an artist and Austin loved the "poo-poo" picture. It was a picture of a naked kid with just a leaf over his privates and Austin thought it was poo-poo. One of our favorite paintings was by Diego Velazquez titled Cristo Crucificado. It was a very life like painting of the crucifixion. When Austin saw it, he said "Jesus has a boo-boo". After that, every time he saw a picture of Jesus (or any man for that matter), he would say "Jesus has a boo-boo". We found the art through the kids eyes much more entertaining then the guide books. After we left the Prado, we walked to another of Rick Steve's recommendations for dinner. It was a quaint little restaurant called La Plateria Bar Museo. We sat at the outside tables in the Plaza de Platerias de Martinez and enjoyed some cheeses, meats and chorizo pasta (along with a little red wine).

Potty in the Park

February 23rd -- We had a slow start to the day because we spent a big part of the morning looking into future places to stay. Once we got going, we decided to take the Metro to Retiro Park. Wow! It is a huge park (comparable to Central Park in NY), and we only saw a small portion of it today. When we arrived at the park, we walked around for a little bit looking for a place to eat. We ended up leaving the park and eating lunch at VIPS...it's a chain restaurant with Friday's. Not exactly traditional Spanish cuisine, but the kids were starving and we were trying to avoid any meltdowns. After lunch, we walked back to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. Soon after reentering the park, we noticed 2 outdoor eating places on site. We were a little bummed that we hadn't seen them earlier. Oh well, we'll know for next time. There will definitely be more visits to this awesome park. The kids started playing on one of the many playgrounds when Abby announced she had to go potty. So, she and I took off walking for a bano. In our attempt to find a place to go potty, we discovered a lot more of the park including the beautiful lake in the middle where you can rent boats and paddle around. She quickly didn't have to go potty anymore and wanted to rush back to get Mike and Austin to go ride on the boats. We got Mike and Austin and headed for the boats. You could rent a boat for 45 minutes at a time. So, off we went, paddling a way into this beautiful pond of water. Right after we got on the boat, Austin decided to "dirty" his diaper (he hadn't gone since arriving in Spain). Need I say more! The boat ride was very relaxing and enjoyable by all. Unfortunately, after we left the boat we realized that we left the dirty diaper under the seat on the boat. We felt so sorry for the next people. Oh well! The kids wanted to play on one of the playgrounds in the park just a little bit longer. After they started playing, Abby quickly remembered how badly she had to go to the bathroom. Unfortunatly, We didn't know where to take her to the bathroom. She announced that she could just squat in the park, but Mike kept telling her no, you can't. Well, all of a sudden, she started screaming I'm going to have an accident and before we knew it, she was squatting behind the bench. It was so funny! Both of tour kids definitely left their mark at Retiro Park today! Besides, their potty experiences, they both enjoyed playing on the playground equipment and with the other kids too...language is not a factor with kids, they were laughing and playing. It's really fun to watch.

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.

Leaving Switzerland...Arriving in Spain

February 21st--

Our travel day started early with a bus ride into Lauterbrunnen at 8:15 a.m. We had a funny story from last night in preparing for the bus ride. We have had a bus pass for the last 2 weeks that expired on the 19th. So we needed money to ride the bus into Lauterbrunnen. However, we have been trying to leave with no Swiss Francs so as not to loose money in a second currency exchange. We cut it a little close. Last night we spent about 20 minutes going through the apartment trying to find enough loose change to pay for the bus ride. I finally found some money in my ski jacket that put us over the top. Whew! After the bus ride into Lauterbrunnen, we caught a 30 minute train ride into Interlaken where we switched trains for Bern. It was about a 50 minute ride to Bern where we switched trains for Geneva. About 2 hours later, we arrived at Geneva Airport. The switching of trains was easy in comparison to arriving in Switzerland. We think we might be pros now. It helped that the kids hoped on our 2 rolling duffel bags. It was the funniest thing...they would grasp hold and ride on them as we pulled them along. It is a great way of keeping up with them and our luggage at the same time. Who needs strollers? Anyway, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time before our flight left so we checked in and grabbed some lunch. I tried a Rivella which is a Swiss made carbonated drink. I'm not even sure how to describe it because it's nothing like anything I've ever had. Mike tried it and said it tasted like Jagermeister. I can neither confirm nor deny that since I've never tasted Jagermeister. Anyway, after lunch, we headed through security and to our gate. We had no problems with any of the airport process including boarding the plane. It was all fairly simple. The airline we flew was easyJet...very comparable to Southwest Airlines. Our plane left on time about 14:45, and we landed in Madrid a little after 16:00. It was about a 1 1/2 hour flight. The interesting thing about the flight was drinks weren't included. Abby and Austin have already gotten accustomed to getting a drink on planes. Austin definitely didn't understand the concept that they cost and we hadn't exchanged our Swiss Francs for Euros yet, but luckily the airlines accepted credit cards. Whew...Crisis adverted! After getting our bags at the Madrid airport, we took a taxi to our "home away from home" apartment for the next 2 weeks. When we arrived, the owner's nephew was here to greet us. He spoke excellent English and was so helpful about the apartment. This apartment is awesome! It sits up on the 2nd floor of a complex, has Internet, Internet TV (many Disney channels that can be converted to English) and a washing machine. It'll be nice to not have to wash by hand for the next 2 weeks. After we got a little settled in, it was already 18:00 and we had no food. So, we took off walking and found a grocery store (Simply Market). We picked up a couple of essentials and some food for dinner. We are looking forward to our time in Madrid, but have quickly realized that it is going to be very different from Switzerland. Our last 2 weeks have been spent in a rural location with lots of "vacation" activities (skiing, sledging, ice skating, etc.). We are now downtown in a large city with endless "conveniences" (such as grocery stores, restaurants, etc.) within walking distance. However, outdoor activities will be a little harder to come by. We will be looking for parks, zoos, museums, etc.