Sometimes I think we are just on one big European food tour. So much of the day is focused on food. Not a bad thing, but I'm either eating, thinking about eating, about to eat, or just over-ate. We got off to another late start today, but everyone had more sleep so at least it was a more pleasant start to the day. The plan was to walk thru the section of Malasaña (the neighborhood we are in) that J & I had been in last night (which was super cool), and then walk to the Prado Museum.
Our stroll thru the neighborhood took 4 hours, and included lots of snacking (stops for Kombucha, strawberries and coffee along the way). We got to step into one amazing church, tucked away and unexciting from the outside, the church of San Antonio De Los Alemanes, which had the most elaborate and beautiful paintings all over the walls and ceilings (built in 1624.) It was small, but so incredibly beautiful. We then had lunch at this cool restaurant called Ojalá, which had fantastic food, in this funky, eccletic atmosphere. My salad was amazing, I could have eaten two of them. Downstairs was a "lounge" type atmosphere with sand on the floor, low seating and mood lighting. The unisex bathrooms had a transgender theme, with this video installation hidden in the wall that had a streaming of seamless morphing of men into women, and women into men. There was a cool quote about transgender rights on the ceiling to tie it all together. So as you waited for the stalls in this dimly lit room, you watched this great black and white video stream that was so well done.
We had some detours into stores where Ava and Lucia felt the need to try on everything, and the rest of us milled around. Lucia found tiger print, fitted and flared pants that she she couldn't live without (who can blame her, they were tiger print.) All in all it took us 4 hours to get to the Prado museum, which couldn't have been more than 2 miles away. Museums and kids are hit and miss, we marked off the artists we wanted to see most, knowing that we'd be lucky to get thru a handful. Goya, Raphael and Rubens were top of my list. We squeezed as much time as we could out of the kids. Romeo lasted longer than I thought but only because so many of the paintings are gory, with arrows piecing Saints, Saints being stoned, and loads of beheadings....there is a lot of immortalization of the grizzly and of course any 8 year old boy would want to know ALL the juicy details.
We came home around 6:30 so that John could do a conference call for work, and then the two of us took a short 2 mile run. Our goal is short runs, only 2 miles just to get our cardio going, and to improve our speed during the trip. Right now we are at a 13 minute miles, so as you can see, there's a LOT of room for improvement on speed. I've got to do something to stay in shape during this trip, because there is a LOT of food being eaten, and an equal amount of alcohol being drank. It's crazy that wine is 2.5 euros, basically the same price as the lemonade the kids get. It also feels like late night glasses of wine (as in midnight) is kind of norm here, but so is a glass with lunch and a glass with dinner (one at each is the modest approach.) That adds up to a lot of glasses real quick. I woke up this morning and did a short 20 minutes of yoga, with emphasis on the arms, and I am hoping to pair that with the short runs, and the days of walking and maybe, just maybe, I can balance out some (about half) of the wine consumption.
Dinner wasn't until 9:30 p.m with the kids, and we had Mexican. I know, I know...eventually we'll force them to actually eat Spanish food, but we figured in Madrid where there is actually a huge selection of international food, we'd take advantage. It was a madhouse, the Mexican place, while having great food, was also too busy--Friday night is just generally insane I think. We walked back thru loads of people walking, standing outside restaurants, sitting in cafés, basically it's the weekend and the whole world here is partying. The kids definitely weren't in bed before 11:00 p.m. Tomorrow will force us to get on a slightly better schedule because we head out of Madrid and drive to Cordoba, and then Seville. We're hoping to be up, packed and out by 10:00 a.m. which will mean an early morning for us. John leaves to pick the rental car up at 8:30 a.m. and right now that feels real, real early.
Overall, Madrid is awesome. I'm sad it was our first city and we were slower on our game because there is a ton to do here and it's super cool. I feel like the travel gods smiled on us because the weather couldn't have been better the entire time. Never hotter than 83 degrees which made everything totally easy (but literally tomorrow it bumps up to 93 and I can see that it would make moving around the city harder). I could spend lots more time here, it's got a really mellow vibe, great shops (and things seemed super affordable), and it's definitely a foodie's city.
The kids were about 25% less whiney and demanding today, so I'm hoping that by tomorrow it will be even better and maybe actually closer to norma (which doesn't mean zero, but it's tolerable). The first days of these long trips can be a little intense, the kids don't have the routine down, and basically operate entirely out of hunger and fatigue. I've got high hopes for destination #2.
Signed, ME {lv}
Comments