chocolate solves a host of problems

What do you do when you can't get money out of your account because the ATM says something in Spanish about your institution is not permitting the withdrawal, the kids are fighting, and feet are getting tired? Have some chocolate of course! San Ginés is a very famous local place in Madrid to get "Churros con chocolate". They give you a cup of almost pudding thick chocolate and some churros (sitck like donuts) for dipping, and pretty soon kids are getting along and ATM cards are working again (actually we had just run into a 24-hr lockout).
We are looking forward to tomorrow, when we hope to visit the Spanish Royal Palace in Madrid. Also coming up in the week: Spain vs. Denmark (national teams) at the local fútbol stadium and Chris & Isabelle go to the bullfights.

siesta is the besta

We managed to discover Continental Airlines has a secret time machine that will transport you 9 hours into the future and only takes 19 hours to accomplish. We agreed to be human trial subjects on this time machine, but we did not realize that when we came out we would have the same bodies, except a lot more tired. Thank goodness for the Spanish siesta, the afternoon nap which runs from about 3-5 in the afternoon. Imagine if we in the United States adopted such a lifestyle of actually taking an afternoon nap, kind of like during kindergarten. We might even have lower stress levels!
Speaking of stress, we are having a little technical difficulty navigating la vida Madreileño, primarily not having any money. Not to worry, we are working it out, asking our landlady for patience while we wire the money, being very good at looking for a "VISA" sticker on store and restaurant windows. So many years ago, you could just take traveler's checks with you, but now, you just need a valid (keyword) piece of plastic to get cash.
Guess what! We made a record! Coldest March 21st on record in Madrid! Actually, it was a little windy, but the sun was shining and our apartment is nice and warm.
More pictures to come. Chris, Heidi, Lydia, Isabelle, Liam

how to start a trip to spain - not

Step 1: Get your kids to fight on opposite sides of a glass paned door. Step 2: Have one child attempt to force their had through a pane of glass. Step 3: Stand back and watch as blood and screams flow freely. Step 4: Bring child to their father's work to patch them up. (if you work with chris, there was abslolutely no supplies used from work). Step 5: Once child is patched up, send them to bed and wake them up at 3am to get up and take taxi to the airport.

off 2 Spain

OK, so maybe it's a little cheap to add a picture to your web log before you've actually been in the place. I guess we could have taken a picture of us packing our bags (wow!). So far, all of our focus has been in preparation, figuring out where we are going and where we are staying. We did manage to find an apartment online (see links), hopefully it is not in the red light district. After about 20 e-mails back and forth between us and Sonia, the rental manager (do you accept visa? no we don't accept visa! can we pay by check? no, but you can wire the money with western union!), we finally managed to reserve the apartment. don't ask me with everything going wireless why you have to wire money to rent an apartment in spain. Sonia has it planned that we will arrive precisely 80 minutes after we land and will be waiting outside. I tried to find the proper words in spanish to say, "yes but we are dragging 3 children that are still bound and gagged for 12 hours on the plane" but to no avail. She just wrote "yo espero" (I wait) and "call me".

So, to summarize, the plane leaves 6am tuesday, we get there 8am wednesday, and then to navigate to meet Sonia. Our plan is to post updates every other day or so, hopefully interesting pictures and reads. feel free to write to us via posting messages, We will write back as we are able. Oh, yes, our picture-this is the Plaza de España (platha day espanya). The white statue is Miguel de Cervantes. In front are his two literary creations, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. to the left and right is bipolar Dulcinea (left is depressed/right is manic). I counted 5 blocks from the apartment to the platha.