Picturas de Espana!

I was a little excited to be going...so much so that I made Spencer take a picture of my enthusiasm.

Breakfast each morning was a croissant and hot chocolate (and sometimes a clementine, a Spanish clementine, naturally.)

 

Spencer preferred the Choco Krispies or Miel Pops.  And sometimes we would take Amy's decor off the wall to take pictures when she wasn't looking.

Amy took us into Madrid a couple of times to look around and shop.  There are lots of big and little plazas with tons of shops and apartments...all very European looking to little 'ole me (including the not so little boy that we witnessed "relieving himself" on a tree on the street...he felt little need to cover up during his little potty break, or the several minutes following apparently as he walked up the street.) I really didn't intend to start with that story, it just happened.

Everywhere we went was very clean (except for the a fore mentioned urine of course, and dog poop from the many many canines.) They have people cleaning the streets at all hours of the day and night and it always looks pristine and tidy, even people in charge of just the dog poop.  I give Madrid an A+ in tidiness.  Clean is my kind of city.

On the one completely free day that we had she drove us about an hour away to a city called Segovia.  It has a real castle.  I've never seen one of those.  It was a smaller country home for Isabella and Ferdinand...and a whole lot of other monarchs throughout the centuries.

The streets were all stone and narrow with very cool doorways and balconies.

 

 There is a huge cathedral in Segovia that was beautiful, and very chilly.  The architecture for their day just astounds me.  Gorgeous.

 

 This is near the castle on the edge of a hill on the outskirts of the town.

 

 Flat Sally came with us and I made sure to take lots of pictures of her for the girls.  She went to the real North Pole earlier this year and is proving to be quite the traveler.  This is her in front of the castle that we went to.

 

 The view out the windows of the castle were of the beautiful countryside.  The color palette alone looked like it was straight out of a painting.

 

 Gorgeous, beautiful, wish you were here.

 

 This was a huge mural inside the castle.  It is a painting of the coronation of Queen Isabella (I believe.) It was such a pretty painting and most interesting because no one has eyes...so a little creepy too.

 

 The old aqueduct in Segovia.

 

 We went exploring one day to scope out the perfect park for the outside photo sessions that Spencer was doing all week.  This park was a winner and Amy and I quite enjoyed ourselves while Spencer took shots to test lighting.

 

 Just know that if you are standing next to me for a picture, 98% of the time, I will probably make a face.

 

 We went to church on Sunday where they brave an all Spanish speaking ward.  Their family is doing amazingly well among the language.  I was amazed at how well the kids understand and how well they can speak (including amazing accents for 8, 6 and 4 year olds) and for Amy jumping right in even though she is still learning.  The kids go to a Spanish school.  We went to primary (the kids' classes) with Amy for the last part of church where she is in charge of music.  I lent them my meager piano playing skills (as they normally have no piano player) and when Amy left to go do music with the younger kids, Spencer and I found ourselves acting out the nativity under the direction of the Spanish speaking women.  Amy came back into the room to see Spencer with  my coat tied around his head and a baby doll under my shirt as Jose and Maria.  Did I mention we don't speak Spanish? I mean, I could find my way to the discotec or biblioteca (most likely spelled completely different from how I have spelled them but you get my high school Spanish drift, right?) but Luke 2 might as well have been in Greek.

Good times.  Good times.

 

 We enjoyed a delicious treat of hot chocolate and churros...that hot chocolate is the consistency of pudding and oh-so yummy.

 

 I found this little contraption to be just about the funnest (I know that aint a word but thats what it was) playground thingy I had ever been on.  I wish you could have seen us in action.  I almost wet my pants laughing.  We made Amy take us back to this park a second time just so we could play on it again...and so her kids could play too, I suppose.

No explanation needed.

Her kiddos, darn cute in their uniforms even though I made them all squint into the sun like that.

This is how Spencer looked the majority of the time we were there.  He took something like 4000 pictures.

What's a trip to Spain without a little Fanta?  My favorite part about drinking Fanta is that it suddenly becomes a verb, as in "Would you like to Fanta Fanta?"

One morning Spenc and I walked into their little downtown area of their city.  We made a few little stops to buy souvenirs and oogle at the pastries.

I must be my mother's daughter because I was tickled by their street signs.

This is a sign of the name of their town.  We rode the train into Madrid and used the metro a bunch...the US seriously underestimates the value of public transportation in most areas of the country.

I don't think I left much out except for the video of Amy's kids all doing the robot and me pulling her daughter's tooth (I even got a bloodied mouth "thank you", only slightly different from the "please stop, no, I hate you" that I get when pulling my own kids' teeth.)  You'll just have to imagine it all in your mind...or pictures of Spencer and my room on the third floor of their amazing casa rojo with private rooftop balconies and courtyards.

It was amazing and I would go back in a heartbeat, especially to stay with our friends and eat yummy food and get private tours of Europe.

Thank you Amy and family!!!

Muchas gracias indeed.

 

 

 

 

(I seriously apologize for Amy's eyes being closed in this picture.  They are normally open and quite lovely...also, we typically ate at an actual table but this particular night was family movie night.)