Madrid

We stayed at the Trypp Washington Hotel on Gran Via. The first day we took a little walk and saw some adorable French Bulldogs, my new favorite kind of dog. We saw the outside of the Royal Palace. Later we ate at La Cocina de Neptuno, a basement restaurant where they played what seemed like ALL of Phil Collins' songs. I had a yummy salad with tuna and then I had a plain old omelet and some potatoes. Aidan made the mistake of ordering green beans with bacon, it looked gross and he had a very hard time eating it. Ian and Emma split a plate of chicken drumsticks. Afterwards, we went to the Reina Sofia museum. There were a lot of exhibits that had to do with the Spanish Civil War: art, photographs and propaganda from that time period. We saw Guernica by Picasso as well as many other paintings and sketches by him. There was also a Dali exhibit, I went in and then quickly went out with the kids because Aidan asked me, "Why is that lady smelling that man's penis?"(in one of the painting). I decided that that particular exhibit was totally inappropriate for children. I just kept thinking that Dali was messed up in the head to paint the crazy, creepy, weird stuff he painted. The melting clocks I can handle, but not the sexual stuff.

We met Dale and Valerie, some former professors of Collin's when he was at BYU. We went with them to VIPS. The restaurant kind of reminds me of Denny's but better. Aidan, Emma and Ian had a lot of fun playing with Joseph, Dale and Valerie's son who is about a year older than Aidan. They were playing a game where they created pause buttons on each other's foreheads and whenever anyone pushed another person's pause button that person had to freeze and the other people could move the frozen person around however they wanted to. I wish we could have visited with them for a longer amount of time.

The next day I stayed at the hotel with the kids and watched cartoons for hours while Collin, Fatima and the students went to Palace. Collin got yelled at for explaining something to his students. I guess it is against the rules to talk out loud in the Palace unless you are an official guide. Afterwards we all went to the Museo de Jamon for lunch. It was just OK. The entire restaurant was wall to wall Jamon Serrano. They served us jamon serrano, manchego and bread first, then paella (which didn't even come close to the one we had in Nerja) and then a fish and potato dish which most of us didn't eat because we were full from the other stuff. I guess they eat more fuerte in Madrid than we are used to. When we were done eating we went to the Retiro park and fed the giant fish in the lake leftover bread from lunch. We watched some street performers and then let the kids play at the playground. Collin left to go to the Prado with the students. I had been to the Prado before and decided it wouldn't be worth it to take the kids in there, plus it is too stressful when we are trying to go around with the students. I stayed at the playground for as long as I could with the kids. Aidan and Emma collected probably 5-10 pounds of horse chestnuts between the two of them. Later, Emma accidently locked hers in the hotel safe and couldn't get them out again. Ian was free running and almost kicked an older gentleman who I was sharing a bench with. He said, "Oye, ten cuidado!" to Ian and Ian was embarrassed. I felt it would be in everyone's best interest to switch over to another bench after that.

I went out with Fatima that night to public, a nice tranquil restaurant near the hotel. I had tempura veggies with chicken. The dessert wasn't good, it was homemade ice cream, but it was awful. There were a lot of prostitutes standing around outside on the road. We also walked through the Medieval Fair, but didn't have time to stop. The tea, goodies and wooden item stalls looked really cool though. Right now, I think the same fair is in Granada. Collin took the kids to get pizza from a place he would go to with Manda, his friend from Modesto who used to live in Madrid. Collin bought some gourmet macaroons for me. I absolutely love them, I wish they weren't so hard to make!

We saw a building that has one entire side covered with living plants. It looks really cool.