My 30th- June 1st

Well, this week has been far more laid back. I finally feel like I know where I'm going and even though the language barrier is very rough now I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Nick got his permanent schedule and it turns out that he has Tuesday mornings off until 3pm and then Thursday afternoons off starting at 2:30. So we decided that is when we'd do the bulk off sight seeing around the city leaving the other three days for shopping, parks and pools for the kids and I and the weekends for doing day trips out of the city.

Tuesday we started the day off with Madrid tradition Chocolate con Churros, it was awesome.

We had planed on taking a tram up to the top of Casa de Campo but we got there at 10am and it doesn't open until noon, so we just started walking not really sure what we were going to do. I was pretty annoyed at this point (mostly at myself) for not checking the time of opening, we have a limited time here and I don't want to waste our time. So as we were walking past this beautiful plaza I saw a stone building that looked a tad out of place and thought that perhaps we'd stumbled upon the Egyptian temple here and sure enough we had. My mood then pretty much took a 180 since I realized that even though the day hadn't gone as planed we'd still see a sight that was on my check list and the day was going to not be a waste. (I should know by now that that is how life works the majority of the time) The Temple was beautiful especially with the contrast of the Spanish architecture in the back round. The Debod Temple dates from the 2nd century B.C. Due to the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1960, many valuable monuments and archaeological sites were in danger of being destroyed. The UNESCO made an appeal to countries to help save these monuments, and as thanks for the aid given by Spain, particularly in helping to save the sacred buildings of Abu Simbel, the Egyptian government donated this temple to the Spanish people in 1968. The temple originally stood in Debod in the Nile Valley not too far from the city of Aswan, but the need for the new dam meant that it had to be moved elsewhere or it would have remained underwater forever. So it was dismantled stone by stone in 1969 and shipped to the Spanish port city of Valencia, from where it was then taken by train to Madrid. That's where it was reconstructed and open to the public in 1972.

We ended the day with a walk trough the Royal gardens.

On Wednesday we got together with a mom whom I met the week prior who has a boy Andrews age and a 5 month old baby girl. We went to the park and the kids loved it and played for about two hours before it was time to head back for Sadie's nap. It was also really nice for me to have made a friend to chat with while the kids were so occupied.

When Nick got home Thursday we headed for The Palacio Real (Royal Palace). Although the park we go to is right across the street we hadn't been in yet. It was beautiful as expected, unfortunately you're not allowed to take pictures inside. There was one room that was my favorite, the Gasparini Room (the king's dressing room), covered in mosaics and and the ceiling was exquisitely carved and the design in the marble floors was breath taking.I also loved the Royal Chapel. Nick's favorite part was the Armoury, although Andrew had a major melt down mid Armoury so we never made it upstairs to the more modern weapons.

As you might be able to tell Andrew was the photographer for most of the day.