Madrid - palaces and modern art

Madrid Royal Palace * Cookies from Nuns * Reina Sofia

22,000 steps 

Although our apartment has a small A/C unit in the living room, the air has a hard time circulating to the back bedrooms (there are 4 bedrooms down the hall).  In the middle of the night Charlie woke up with a splitting headache, I suspect from the heat.  We thought he had fallen off his bed and hit his head, so I gave him some Ibuprofen that upset his stomach and then he threw up - fun stuff!  We were up with him for a couple of hours and finally ended up sleeping on the couch with him by the A/C unit.  Eric had closed all the blinds so the apartment was pitch black and like sleeping in a cave.   So, I suspect it was no surprise that after a rough night with Charlie and a late night on the town we slept in until 10:00. In fact, I still had to wake up a couple of kids at 11:00.

Charlie seemed to be fine when he woke up - thank heavens.  Also, thank heavens some clouds had rolled in and although hot, the sun wasn't beating down on us. Although it got close, I doubt it reached 100* today.  Our apartment in only about a 10 minute drive from downtown (a 7 minute drive the other way to the temple) and it's actually cheaper to drive into town and pay for parking than to pay for 7 round trip tickets on a bus.  Eric is a masterful European driver now and downtown Madrid does not intimidate him (it's really no worse than driving in Southern CA or Washington DC).

Downtown Madrid is a nothing compared to the other Capitol cities we have visited.  After walking down the main areas for an hour we'd seen it (with the exception of it's museums).  We poked our heads into some shops, enjoyed the pedestrian streets, but after that - not much.  I was underwhelmed by Madrid.

We visited the Royal Palace - which was impressive - 3rd in size after Versailles and Vienna.  In some ways I liked this Palace better than Versailles.  Because the palace is still in use for official events, private parties, etc, etc, it is well maintained and easy to imagine fancy people doing fancy things here.  There was a dining room table that could seat 144 people - that room rivaled the room of mirrors in Versailles.  Because of the cloud cover we were able to sit under a tree and enjoy our picnic of cheese, Jamon Serano, fruit, and a cookie.

Afterwards we searched out a convent I had read about where cloistered nuns sell cookies.  Charlie kept saying, let's go find the Oyster Nuns and buy their cookies.  We had to ring their bell and wait - a long time, I guess they walk slowly in Convents (we kept thinking of the Nuns in the Sound of Music walking slowly to let the German officials inside).  They opened the door and we let ourselves inside - during the entire time we never saw a soul.  We found the exchange area and the nun put the cookies available to buy on a turn stile and we told her which ones we wanted (she talked to us through the wall).  We took our cookies, put our money on the wheel and then let ourselves out.  The cookies were good - a lemon shortbread.  Emma was worried about eating cookies from a faceless Nun.

We wandered through some more downtown streets and Emma and Maren were dying to go shopping at Zara - a Spanish H&M shop.  To keep everyone happy we let them shop for almost an hour while the rest of us sat on some steps inside and enjoyed the air conditioned store.  They both purchased a couple of shirts that I'm sure we could have found at H&M in the mall - but it was a good way to pass some time and get out of the heat.

Our final stop of the day was the Reina Sofia modern art Museum.  It was VERY different from anything we've seen before - ink splotches, white canvases, things Charlie could have drawn in church - BUT, we did get to see early 20th century Modern art from Miro, Kadinskly, Picasso, Rothko, Gris, Dali, and others.  The highlight was Picasso's Guernica which is huge!  We actually drove through the town of Guernica after we picked up Stewart.  (I won't go into details about why Picasso painted this story - but it is the ultimate anti-war art of it's time).

Dinner was involved as Stewart wanted to make a Spanish Tortilla and Maren wanted to make Spanish hot chocolate.  Both were a huge success, but we weren't eating until 10:30 which is just WAY too late for dinner.  I guess it's good we had breakfast at noon and lunch at 4:00.  We leave Madrid tomorrow and hopefully this crazy late schedule.  

Madrid Royal Palace

Reina Sofai

Madrid - Day 2 dodging the heat, The Temple & The Prado

Temple * Gurrea Family * Prado * Plaza Del Sol

13,000 Steps

I'm not sure how much longer we can continue living like Madrilenos - out late, up late, and dodging the heat.  It's tiring.  I don't know how they do it.  Even the Missionaries had a modified schedule to accommodate the Spaniards.  They work until 10:30 p.m., in bed by 11:30 p.m., up at 7:30 a.m. - basically an hour later than all the other missionaries in the world.  Tonight we were in downtown Madrid at 10:30 drinking and eating churros with chocolate (yum - think warm, chocolate pudding) and everyone was out, eating, shopping, hanging - even kids - all over the place.  We're sleeping in tomorrow.

We figured out the recipe to avoid the Madrid heat (it got over 100* today).  Spend 2 1/2 hours in the air conditioned Temple, have a 2 hour lunch with Stewart's friends, spend 2 1/2 hour in the air conditioned Prado museum, eat dinner inside an air conditioned restaurant, then walk around town at 9:30 at night.

This morning we went to the temple for baptisms.  Stewart lost his wallet this week so he stayed outside with Charlie and read, played games, drew pictures of the temple etc while the rest of us did baptisms.  I was surprised by how many people were there for the 10:00 baptismal session - probably 20 women and 3 men.  Languages spoken were Spanish, French, Portuguese & English.  Eric was one of the few priesthood leaders so he performed most of the baptisms (in Spanish).  The temple president gave a great devotional on the sacrifice we give to the Lord when we come to the temple - not only a broken heart and a contrite spirit, but our own family names.  Thanks to Catherine Frazier and Ray Springer's granddaughter we had 18 family names with us.  We were in the temple for over 2 hours and it was really nice.  We even ran into a family from the Philippines that we had met in Verona.

A family from Stewart's area in Alcala invited us over for lunch.  One of Stewart's former companions from Portugal is living with them right now while he is back in Spain working and dating a Spanish girl.  The family is from Argentina and actually lived in Utah for 8 years before moving to Spain.  They have 3 children, one of whom is Ian, the boy that Charlie met on Sunday.  Charlie and Ian ran around outside after lunch having a water gun fight while we visited.  It's humbling to meet such good people who become family to these young missionaries while they are far from home.

After lunch we went to the Prado museum in downtown Madrid.  The Prado rivals the Uffizi as far as a true art museum goes (only paintings).  In some ways I liked it better than the Uffizi.  I love looking at traditional Renaissance Art - but in addition to the typical paintings you'd expect from the Renaissance we saw many paintings from El Greco, Velasquez, and Goya.  We only walked 13,000 steps today (we walked 26,000 steps when we went to the Louvre) - but our feet were still tired (the heat I'm sure).

After the Prado and dinner at a very Americanesque diner (sometimes easy is better than traditional with 7 people) we wander the streets of Madrid to find the best churros con chocolate recommended from our guide book.  It was ridiculously hot to be having hot chocolate, but there was air conditioning and there's never a really good reason not to eat chocolate.

Lunch with the Gurrea Family

Madrid/Toledo - dodging the heat and buying swords

Toledo

Eric and Stewart spent 4 hours this morning trying to send Stewart's suitcases from his mission back to the states.  They were trying to find a FedEx, DHL, or UPS that would ship something that big and kept being directed to other places.  They finally ended up at the airport where it took them 45 minutes to fill out all the paper work, weigh and measure the bags, and sign their lives away before the bags could be shipped.  I suppose we should have expected nothing less from Spain.

After that adventure we drove to Toledo about 1 hour south of Madrid and the former Capitol of Spain.  Apparently Toledo is famous for its steel and thus its swords - and because of this there are many swords that are floating around in Missionary apartments in the Madrid Mission.  (Stewart bought 2 himself that gratefully he shipped home weeks ago - they were so long they didn't even fit in his large suitcase).  Well - of course Charlie needed a dagger (we'll be checking his luggage all the way home) and he and Stewart spent a long time picking out just the right one.  While shopping we stumbled into a sword shop where the swords are actually made - pretty cool as we watched them sharpen the real swords (Charlie's dagger is not sharp).

In Toledo the temperature reached 107* - ouch.  We dodged the heat by visiting 2 museums and a very impressive cathedral (one of the larger ones in Europe) during the hottest parts of the day and then eating dinner at the Burger King which was air conditioned and thanks to Stewart, very cheap.  He knew how to order and get all the 2 for 1 specials with free drinks, etc, etc, etc.  So glad my kids are cheap (well at least Stewart and possibly Maren and Sydney - Charlie and Emma don't seem to have any problem spending their money on souvenirs and food).

The museums we visited were the Army Museum - a 5 floor museum dedicated to all the wars in Spanish History, the stuff was cool to look at but WAY too much reading!  It was housed in the Alcazar - the old fortress.  The other museum was an Art museum with El Greco's, ceramics, and other cool stuff - housed in a Renaissance era orphanage.  During the Spanish Civil war these two building housed opposite forces and the outsides are riddled with bullet holes to this day.

To finish off our Toledo tour we hiked to a nearby lookout so we could see the sun set over this pretty hill town in central Spain.  

Toledo Cathedral

Madrid - Sunday in Alcala

Madrid * Alcala * Schwartz Family

We had a 12 hour missionary Sunday.  Stewart wanted to be 30 minutes early to church to meet and greet before the meetings started - we managed to be 15 minutes early, which is an accomplishment with the schedule we are keeping.  People aren't going to bed until well after 11:00 p.m. (We've turned Spaniard).  

We attended church in Alcala, a suburb of Madrid, where Stewart served for 6 months. It was obviously an area where Stewart made many friends had such a positive impact on the members.  I was touched by comments I received from the Relief Society and Young Men's President about Stewart's missionary service in this Ward.  I had several proud Mama moments.  I also learned that Stewart thinks he can sing - when the ward announced there would be a volunteer Priesthood choir, Stewart jumped up and sang at the top of his lungs "Ye Elders of Israel" with the other men in the ward.

Alcala is the biggest ward we've attended yet.  Charlie found a friend, Ian, and ran around after church with him for an hour while we chatted with Stewart's friends.  It's awesome to see Charlie using his Spanish so confidently - the immersion program has it's merits.  Emma and Sydney are not quite so confident with their Jr. High Spanish classes.  The girls attended Young Women's with about 9 other girls - a new record.

After church we had lunch with a Senior Missionary Couple from Lindon Utah who are in Spain photocopying old records for Family Search.  The sister missionary while here has also been able to find the records of her Spanish ancestors - she has found over 350 names back to the 1600s.  Before coming on her mission, she had no genealogy records from her family who immigrated from a small village in Spain to California in 1950.  My kids must be starving for American food as they inhaled the tacos she prepared for us and downed a full container of ice cream.

Stewart walked us around Alcala after our lunch appointment in the 100+ degree heat - summer has finally arrived for us.  We've skipped all the 30* centigrade and have gone right for 40*+ (our car said 42 when we jumped in).  At least it's a dry heat - true, there are cactus plants just outside our apartment.

We stopped by to visit Stewart's Mission President as well tonight and really enjoyed learning about President and Sister Pack's family, adjustments to Spain, being missionaries, living here with 2 teenage children, etc, etc.  I really enjoyed Sister Pack - she is fun, laid back, loving, and made some awesome homemade chocolate chip cookies that we all inhaled with fresh cows milk delivered by the milkman weekly.  Wow - a bit of heaven!

We returned home at 9:30 - just like a missionary would do!

Schwartz Family

Alcala and Don Quixote

President & Sister Pack

Bananagrams

Traveling Segovia to Madrid

Errand day

Emma woke up still feeling yucky so it's a good thing we had a super lazy day.  We managed to get out of bed by 10:00, then eat breakfast and a pastry by noon, phew.  While most of us were eating pastries, Charlie and Eric got their hair cut.   Segovia is so little they had no problem finding a barber within walking distance, incidentally he had been cutting hair since the age of 15.  

We drove the quick 90 minutes to Madrid and had to wait 30 minutes for the landlord to let us in.  Never fear - we had our Rook cards handy and we played on the steps of the apartment complex until he came.

After lunch of tapas that Stewart made for us (bread, Jamon, tomatoes and cheese grilled to perfection, cherries, and chips) Stewart and Eric drove to the Mission Office to get Stewart's Mission luggage that we have to figure out how to ship to SLC before we leave Madrid.  There will be a serious cost analysis that has to happen as shipping home the luggage will not be cheap (we'll deal with that Monday).

Sydney, Charlie, and I did the grocery shopping while Maren and Emma stayed home so Emma could get ready to tape her dance audition.  (We found out this week that she has to tape a dance audition for her Dance Company and it's due today - Saturday).  So we rolled back the carpet, moved the coffee table, and she took a Tylenol, gritted her teeth and practiced.

After dinner we spent an hour on the plaza just outside our apartment taping Emma while Spanish grandmas looked on and young kids playing soccer as Emma jumped, twirled, and leaped her Ballet, Jazz, and Contemporary dances to music Maren had downloaded from Apple Music that we then blared on a speaker Stewart had from his mission.  I'm sure it'll be the most memorable dance audition she does - hopefully the the Madrid scenery will give her an edge over the other dancers - at least it's unique and memorable.

Spanish hair cut

trying to put the luggage in the car

Madrid lunch - tapas

relaxing in the only room that had "A/C"