i'm leaving tomorrow...it's been a fantastic time...i feel like i've done and have seen so much...it's been wonderful being with kerry, austin and cedar...loved seeing where they live...living their lives a little bit with them...i was staying at a little hotel about 3 blocks away from their apartment...but, for the last two days, we came downtown to stay at the hotel ritz!
it's a gorgeous old hotel...i wanted to go out with a bang! it's right across the street from the prado museum...in a gorgeous area of town...after checking in yesterday....cedar's nap....
kerry, cedar and i went over to the prado...it's a very nice museum....saw some beautiful paintings...cedar is into horses and saying 'neigh' whenever he sees one...so every time he saw one he said 'neigh'....we then met up with austin..went back to the hotel...and got ready for the evening...
it was raining last night...fortunately for me, the only rain on the trip...and it wasn't terrible...cold, wet, but, not pouring...we went down to a plaza and walked around...shopped a bit...at 9 pm, we met bryan van scoyk.....he's our friend from thousand oaks...he's been living in madrid for 5 years....we had dinner at a great restaurant with him...the restaurant is run by chef's that are in training...it's good food, but not super expensive....we had a fun time with bryan...he's traveled everywhere and has great stories to tell...
today, kerry, cedar and i went to their appointment to get their 'hie' card....it's the resident card...kerry had been waiting for her appointment for about 2 months...it's like the dmv, but way worse...plus, not one person spoke english! nada! anyway....austin said it was 3 metros away, so we took a taxi which wasn't bad at all...she had to take a photo of her and cedar...cedar did not cooperate with the pics...he wouldn't look into the camera....then, we had a hard time knowing where to go...chose a line...for fingerprints...waited in that line for over an hour...then, when we got inside the building, they made me take cedar in his stroller over to another area....finally kerry got to have her appointment...the girl just kept asking questions and kerry would say...'no se'.....she just sort of grumbled, didn't like cedar's photo...asked where austin was....and finally sent us to another guy...he stamped some papers and we were done...only 2 and 1/2 hours later.....fun!!!!
glad i could be there to help with cedar....we found a taxi...got back to the hotel....everyone took a nap...after our rests, we went to cedar's play group...it's a group of mom's and babies from austin's school...they have play group every friday afternoon...it was fun to meet the mom's...amy from slc, the woman from israel, from russia/portugal, japan, korea...from all over...very fun to talk to them and find out about their lives......then, tonight walked down and had a little dinner at a sandwich place...came home, put cedar to bed and had dessert in my room....so, that's the end of this trip...except for the flight home...it's been wonderful...i can't wait to come back...i still have a list of stuff to see....
Hi, Jolyn! What a great trip! This looks like so much fun. Frank served his mission in Spain (Sevilla). He keeps telling me he'll take me there and I keep waiting. Now we have Italy to look forward to (picking up David from his mission, summer 2016), so maybe after THAT? ha. Anyway thanks for posting photos! I'm living your trips vicariously :)
ReplyDelete