Memorial Day in Madrid

Hola!

In my last blog, I mentioned at the end something about booking our next adventure. Well, I'm still not going to write about that one. :)

Instead, I'm going to tell you about a little weekend jaunt we took to Madrid, Spain, over the Memorial Day three-day weekend holiday.

It was fun. The end.

Just kidding. :) It really was fun! We realized quickly how little Spanish we actually do know, and it was quite odd to find ourselves honestly thinking and trying to answer in German when people would talk to us. Guess our Deutch is going much better than we thought, even though it still doesn't seem like it!

Madrid is a beautiful city. I did tons of research beforehand by internet and guidebooks from the library to make sure our hotel was in a good location, and it was, right by a metro stop. From there we were able to get pretty much anywhere we wanted to go in the city. It is a huge city and we walked a lot!! Our hotel was nice -- the room was small, as most European hotel rooms are, and the toilet and sink were square! Yeah, imagine that one... haha!

My favorite part was the fact that they serve churros for breakfast - all you can eat! Can you imagine?! I was in heaven. Their sweets and pastries are delicious too, and I must admit I liked them more than the German bakeries. Probably because they are much sweeter and I do have a bit of a wicked sweet tooth.

Before we arrived, we both picked one thing we wanted to do for sure, and then from there after that I picked lots of random things near each other to try to make it to.

My pick was the Royal Palace.

I'm trying to upload a picture here but it doesn't seem to be working. Hmm. Anyway, the palace was amazing! I mean, simply stunning. I think my jaw was on the floor every time we turned a corner and went into another room! We waited in line for about an hour to get inside, in the rain of course, but it was completely worth it. No pictures were allowed inside, of course, but we took a few on the outside.

After that, we went to Carl's pick, the Zoo and Aquarium. It was a phenomenal zoo. The animals were unbelievable friendly, reaching through the fencing and such. Lots of people were feeding them, which is not actually allowed but they were doing it anyway. I'm sure that's part of the reason why they are so friendly toward humans! We got slightly lost on our way to the zoo as coming out of the metro you are in a big open parkland with no signs. But, we found it eventually. (We spent lots of extra time on this trip wandering around. Despite all the research we did beforehand and having our handy-dandy Frommer's travel guide book along with us, for some reason the exact locations of places kept finding a way to deceive us. It's okay though, the more walking we did throughout the city and the parks, the more of the city we got to experience!)

We also visited the museum of the Royal Navy, which could easily have been a top ten museum of all time probably for both of us, except it was all in Spanish! It was free so we couldn't complain. It even had a map drawn by the first mate of the Santa Maria, showing the route Columbus took, for Isabella and Ferdinand. Amazing.

We went to El Rastro on Sunday morning, which is the largest flea market in Spain. It was cool because it was all throughout some city streets. We didn't buy anything because it was mostly fabrics, clothing, leather goods, etc. We also visited the Parque del Retiro, which is the largest parkland in the city, and it was neat because there were lots of performers and vendors. The weather Sunday was beautiful so we stayed outside almost the whole time. We took the Teleferico cable car over the city too, which offered nice views of the Royal Palace and the skyline. That cable car provided us probably the longest and most confusing "where the heck is it?!" experience of the weekend... but, we found it finally.

There were so many parks, statues, fountains and buildings that we saw and admired but have no clue what they were! I know, that's kind of sad, but it was a beautiful city and it was so packed with stuff like that, that it was easier to admire and take some pics and keep moving.

As far as food, rest assured that Carl's taste for raw meat is still missing. Ha! No kidding, they like their meat almost like raw cold cuts, and even he was grossed out. (He hasn't been the same since the tar tar... hahaha!!) We found two yummy restaurants just by wandering the streets and looking at menus and also went to one vegetarian restaurant I had scouted out in the guidebook that was indescribably good. Even Carl loved that one, honestly!

Yep, we had a great time exploring Madrid and being able to experience a little of the Spanish culture. Would we go back? probably not. Did we need more time there to experience it all? definitely. Would we recommend it to others? Yes, but visit Stockholm first, that one still wins right now for coolest city. :)

All in all, a wonderful weekend. And let's not forget to stop and say thank you to all our service men and women, and remember the fallen, since it was Memorial Day weekend that we were traveling. God Bless America and our troops.

Don't forget to check out our Flickr page for more photos!!

Life in the 'hood... the 'parenthood'

Ok ok before anyone gets excited from the title of this blog posting, we are not going to be having a little one any time soon! Just had to say that right off the bat!!

We did, however, become 'parents' last week to a 10-year old and 13-year old as Lira, my boss, had to go to the States for a conference and left the kiddos with us! Yes, it was an experience to say the least. We get along great with them though, and they are so busy during the week with school and practices that it's not like we had to entertain them too much.

I did, however, learn how to brush someone else's hair, make fruit salad, make peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, do homework, pack lunches, study for spelling tests, sign parent permission slips, drop off at school and pick up at practices after school, and, of course, get the call from the school nurse saying "Leslie needs to go home because she's got a runny nose and due to the swine flu scare, I can't let her stay at school." Sheesh! Busy week!

We all ate dinner together every night and I was so surprised and pleased at how easy they were to feed - they ate whatever we offered, including asparagus, edamame beans, vegetarian corn dogs, spagetti, soy milk, etc. (not all at the same time though haha) They also loved Carl's new signature specialty - smoothies. Every night before bed we all got a smoothie made purely of frozen fruit and vanilla soy milk, nothing more, nothing less, and they were delicious!

It was really fun having the around though. They're very well-behaved and fun kids and are self-sufficient enough that they were not a burden in any way. We have two very lovely guest rooms now so they each got their own room, too. Thomas and Carl mostly played video games for a little while before bed while Leslie and I did homework or played online math trivia games. Good times. I know they were anxious for Lira to get home though, but I am pretty sure they'll be back again in the future, which is definitely fine with us.

Also, Saturday, May 2, Kelli and Dan had a Kentucky Derby party at their house. Now, if you've known me for any amount of years you know I love me some horses, and growing up I was plopped in front of the tv alllllll day on Derby day. The party was mostly for their German friends to learn about the Derby. We all got dressed up and the girls all even wore fancy hats in the tradition of the Derby. Because of the time change though, the race didn't run till 12:30 a.m. our time, and we had the kids coming over early the next morning, so we left about 11:30 p.m. and I watched the race half in and out of sleep on our couch at home. No, I will admit, I did not pick the winner. I was hoping for a little General Quarters or Dunkirk action myself. Maybe for the Preakness?

And, this evening we booked our next big adventure.... stay tuned to find out the details of that one in a later post!! ( I have to have something to keep you coming back!)

Memorial Day poll winner!

Wow, thanks to everyone who voted on the little poll for "Where should we go for Memorial Day?" How fun is that?! People actually read this blog! haha :)

Anyway, I am happy to announce we have a winner! I booked the flight and hotel package yesterday evening....... and the winner is..... Madrid, Spain!

Haha! I know, it wasn't even a choice, sorry! Originally, we were choosing among the four cities I had put in the poll. We were going to book a train +hotel package through our Army travel agency here. We had actually decided on Brussels (main reason: it was the cheapest!) even though we want to go to all of them and I really appreciate the words of advice from those of you who offered suggestions! It was very helpful, especially since I stink at making decisions!

However, when we went to the agency to actually book the package, they were all sold out of those deals! ughhh!! We didn't know it was also a German holiday weekend and those deals are also sold by other travel agencies all throughout Europe. Bummer!

So, we backed up and started at square one. Hmm. Where do we want to go? The beauty of living here is that we can go to so many places! Jen and Nate wanted to go with us, so one day Jen and I got on the computer and literally went city-by-city on where the cheap airline flies and what flights were available. Oslo? No. Wroklaw? No. Zadar? Where the heck is that? No. Madrid? Yes, cool!

Long story sort of short, Jen and Nate can't go with us due to Nate's job. So I started looking at hotel+flight packages thru all the travel Web sites. I did lots of research and comparisons on hotels, metro access, saftey, traveler reviews, etc. and finally, finally, finally was able to book a flight+hotel package for us to Madrid for the weekend. Now we just have to narrow down what we want to do in the little time we'll have there!

In other news, times have been super busy around here lately as we've been trying to plan ahead for summer travel and work has been obnoxious with co-workers being out, etc. Wednesday night Jen and I had a girls' night where we went shopping in Speyer and found a very yummy Mexican restaraunt!! Yes, it was Mexican and it was good! Definitely going back again soon. Last night we went to Lira's to celebrate her birthday. Sunday, her kids are coming to stay with us for the week while she travels to the States. Should be interesting as I'll learn how to juggle all the things that come with the kids -- dropping off at school, getting to and from soccer and softball practices, eating dinner, doing homework, making lunches, oh yeah and going to work and making sure the doggies aren't cooped up too long in the meantime. Should be fun!

Last week we picked up a new-to-us bedroom set from one of Carl's co-workers. It's very nice!! So tomorrow morning we'll go get the bedding and then we will officially have two (nice, if I may say so) guest rooms. :)

A couple weekends ago we also ventured out to the botanical gardens downtown and the zoo. Both were fun!

All in all, we've been busy enjoying all the beautiful weather we've been having, too. Each evening we have been walking the doggies on a 2-mile route we found thru the woods near the house. They have loved it and it's been nice and relaxing for us as well, not to mention good for our health.

Take care all and I'll update again soon! Thanks again for reading and also for voting. I will try to come up with another poll question soon!