Spring time in Madrid is just awesome
Spring time in Madrid is just awesome
Even though we've been struggling with Spain for the past couple of months, we are still trying to enjoy the spring time like the Madrileños do. Typically the weather is warm, sunny and beautiful. In fact, the weather reminds me a lot of Boulder, although it's a little warmer and the air isn't quite as clear. And clearly the Rocky Mountains are way better than the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains that surround Madrid. No bias here!
We thoroughly enjoyed our Andalucian Easter vacation during April. However the eight or so working days we've had since Easter have been pretty taxing. Luckily, estamos en España during spring time so a public holiday is never too far away. Most of Europe gets May 1 as a public holiday honoring workers and organized labor. May 2 is what is called a "squeeze day", or a day between a public holiday and a weekend, so most people are on vacation. In Madrid, May 2 is Day of Madrid, to commemorate an uprising against Napoleon's troops. Napoleon wasn't a nice guy, but without him, I'd probably have to work on May 2, so my hats off to him.
This morning we slept in and lounged around. Jess and I had coffee and breakfast on our patio and enjoyed the sun. I normally get up at 5:00 in the morning, so sleeping in this morning was magnificent. In fact, I was the last one in our house to wake up today. Awesome. The kids also enjoyed their holiday and watched TV and movies all morning. They don't get a lot of quality TV time since we don't own one, so during non-school days they like to glue themselves to the computer and watch youtube and DVDs. I try not to notice since I have a hardline about TV watching.
While we were outside on the patio, we worked on paperwork and plans for the summer. Unfortunately, we have plunged back into paperwork hell, since it is time to renew our Spanish residency. Oh yeah, it's also Spanish tax time so we're scrambling to get all that done on time. Spanish tax forms are similar to American tax forms, but they are poorly translated, so you're constantly trying to decipher what they really want to know. I'm convinced that to efficiently file taxes in multiple countries requires more organization that we currently have. Maybe next year.
Our big move for the day was to visit Parque Europa, which Jess has been scoping out for a few weeks on the internet. It's a park east of Madrid that is themed to represent famous sites at many of the countries in the European Union. The day trip took longer than we originally planned since we took several wrong turns on the way there and on the way back. Nothing new there. At least they had a modern parking lot and we didn't have to fight for parking. We hung out at the park with Flat Carson and then made it back home by 9:00pm for dinner.
Spring time in Madrid is just awesome.
Jess, behind the scenes
Spanish dinner
I found this nice glass of wine when we got home. It would've been a shame to let it go to waste.