afternoon in the park

How do you make a web log interesting by talking about museums? Not very easily. Let's just say our kids have about 2 hours worth of tolerance for a museum. This can be extended a little by ipods, museum benches, and bribery. We have managed to see art in the Prado, Thyssen, Reina Sofia, archeology in the museo arqueológico, and a detailed model of Madrid in the museo municipal. Being the cheapskates we are, we definitely took advantage of the free saturday pm/sunday admission for a few of these.
Well, one of the nice interludes we had was at the Parque del Buen Retiro (park of the good rest). This is the largest park in Madrid and for about 250 years was the private retreat of royaly until it was opened to the public in 1868. There is a large "lake" in the middle, and we were able to go out on the lake in a rowboat. Even more fun was watching all the Madrileños in their boats and walking around the park on an absolutely beautiful spring day. The kids got a chance to burn off a little museum fatigue and mom and dad got a chance to relax as well. A couple of us got slightly sunburned (being a little sunlight deprived in Portland). Also, it would be fair to say that red and gray hair tend to stand out in this country of dark haired, dark eyed folks.
At this point, we are leaving museums behind and heading out to Segovia tommorrow, then Toledo the next day.

España vs. Dinamarca, by guest editor Heidi

How to get the better end of the deal as a parent: Lydia wanted to go to a soccer game and Isabelle wanted to go to a bullfight- so at 10 pm last night Lydia and I were yelling ESPA-ÑA! ESPAÑA! At the top of our lungs with, I’m guessing 70,000, people (mostly men) mostly dressed in red and yellow. The match was a 2008 European Cup qualifier. There were crowds of young men with Spanish flags worn like capes shouting cheers they all seemed to know on the packed Metro getting to the game. Our seats were about 5 rows from the top row (nosebleed), but it was none the less very exciting. Lydia had a Spanish jersey given to her by her school counsellor so we got a few puzzled looks- they must have been wondering what the light haired people speaking English were doing wearing the Spanish jersey. The nice man who sat next to us wondered and after I said “lo siento, no hablo Español, pero mi hija…”- Lydia explained to him the puzzle. It was loud (very) and full of smoke (it wouldn’t be Europe unless you breathe a lot of cigarette smoke). Every good play by the Spanish was riotously praised, and every foul by the Danish or missed call was shouted down by the crowd. Every time Spain almost scored, the crowd said “EEEEE!” in unison, instead of “ooooh!” The score was 2-1, Spain (Denmark played most of the game down a player due to a red card), our ears were pounding, it was past midnight, but we made it back to our apartment and had a fabulous time.