Notre maison a Paris

A little messy.

Rest and sail boats at Le Jardin du Luxembourg

Thursday, April 21.  Aday to recharge - and sail boats at a park near our apartment.  Ridgely chose the Moroccan ship because she liked the red flag with a star.  Haughton chose the Danish ship.  Denmark was recently  voted the most peaceful country in the world. :)

Louvre & Arc de Triomphe

Thank you, Cyndi!  Today the kids and i had an incredible treasure hunt.  Our friend Cyndi gave us 5 cards of art (4 paintings and 1 sculpture) in the Louvre and challenged the kids to find each piece.  Luckily, Cyndi knows the Louvre well, so 4 of the 5 pieces were on the same floor (& general vicinity) as our beloved Mona Lisa.  Yes, one was the Mona Lisa.  We were at the Louvre for almost 4 hours and the kids were determined to stay until all 5 pieces were found.  Seriously, the satisfaction of finding each piece was incredible.  On a separate note, I had no idea the Louvre would be as magnificent as it was.  I could go every day for a year and not get bored.

Although we were exhausted, we motivated to visit the Arc de Triomphe next.  Haughton really wanted to see it and the metro goes straight there from the Louvre....  The Arc de Triomphe honors those who died in the French Revolution and Neopoleonic wars. It is also home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI.  It's  history is interesting - It was ordered by Napoleon in 1806 to celebrate his victories.  Ironically, Napoleon was kicked out of office and the royals were back in power before the Arc was completed. Luckily, King Louis-Philippe allowed its completion.  

Finally,  the Arc de Triomphe has no elevator.  Only 270 (Haughton counted!) stairs to get up. Wow, we're tired!

Hasta Luego, Espana! Bienvenue, Paris!

Tuesday, April 19.  Today we had an 8 hour train ride to Paris.  No, it wasn't supposed to take that long.  Luckily, the train was only about half filled and very comfortable.  The France countryside was beautiful, so all was well.  We are staying in an adorable place (with a yaed and pet bunny) in Paris and had a yummy sushi dinner.

L'aquarium de Barcelona

Monday, April 18.  When we woke, Ridgely was feeling much better.  Yahoo!  Haughton was feeling a little funny, but okay.  We thought about just exploring the historical area in Barcelona a bit more and maybe seeing the Cathedral. But Ridgely didn't want to walk too much, and I think they were ready to see something other than a church.  So, we decided to see the Aquarium, which one person said (I still don't know if this is true) is the largest in Europe.  We took the bus there, and i have to say, I really feel like we are learning our way around.  The aquarium is very cool.  It's not as large as the Baltimore Aquarium, but still very grand.  My favorite section was where you travel through a tunnel with fish on each side and above you.  Reminded me of the aquarium at Sea World.  The kids loved it.  Afterwards, we fed some goldfish and played in a submarine  (built for kids).  Haughton was then ready to go back to the beach and sightsee a little more.  Since it was 5:00 (or 17:00, as the kids keep correcting me), i wanted to go back to our place and pack.  We ended up getting some ice-cream on the way.  Yum!

Casa Batllo, Casa Mila & a stomach bug

Sunday, April 17. Poor Ridgely.   She came in at 5am not feeling well.  She threw up on and off til 10:00.  Then, she seemed better.  Still didn't eat, but seemed to be in good shape.  Since we already had tickets to see Casa Batllo and then Casa Mila (both houses were designed and built by Gaudi), and Ridgely wanted to go, we headed out.

First we saw Casa Batllo.  The house is like a fairytale.  Walking through it made me feel like we were walking in the sea.  Apparently, the family who hired Gaudi to build it had kids.  The kids asked that the house built like a sea, lake, forest, carnival and legend.  The house satisfied them all!  There were almost no straight lines in the entire house and millions of unique and efficient details everywhere.   The audio tour also had a video, so when the kids aimed the device at the fireplace in a room, you could see the fire in it.  You could also see furniture, rugs, etc through the device that weren't actually in the rooms.  Very cool.

Casa Mila was just as unique.  The roof was really fun for the kids - and very scary for mommy!

Unfortunately,  while playing Uno that night, Ridgely got sick all over again.  This time, she was screaming in pain.  Poor girl!

Nuestra casa en Barcelona

Wow, my Spanish is improving.  Even Haughton today said that after being in Spain for 3 weeks, he thought Spanish was easier than French.... 

The Mediterranean beach

Saturday, April 16.  Ridgely was ready for a day off, so we went to the beach.  The kids played and played in the sand & water for 2.5 hours.  They would have stayed all day and night.  Haughton built a pizza store in the sand, and Ridgely continued to sell me food (made out of sand) for much of the time.  We also ate raw coconuts that someone sold us on the beach.  Yum!  Inerestingly, before the 1992 Olympics,  this area was an industrial wasteland.  Apparently,  the industrial zone was demolished and dumped into the sea.  Sand was then dredged from the seabed to make a long stretch of beautiful beaches. 

From where we were, we could see the Peix, a large fish statue done by Frank Gehry, a Canadian living in Los Angeles.  See photo below.  We also learned some fun facts about the Mediterranean, e.g.: there are 47 different species of sharks, includung the Great White, living in the Mediterranean; 3 sea turtle species frequent the waters; and the sea covers 965,000 sq miles and has an average depth of almost 5000 feet.  Wow.

Picasso and Mammoth Museums

Friday, April 15.  Today we visited the Picasso and Mammoth Museums.  Picasso was born in Malaga (Haughton picked out a small painting of Malaga when we were in Sevilla and is hoping to go there on our next visit).  When he was 14, his family moved to Barcelona.   He lived there for much of the next 10 years.  The museum opened in 1963 and occupies 3 palaces.  We got an audio tour, which was fun.  The kids took turns finding the next number for the recordings.  After about 20 recordings, Ridgely was done.  I carried her through the rest of the collection so that Haughton could continue listening to the tour.  In the bookstore we bought a memory game with 20 different Picasso pictures.  It was so fun when we could identify the paintings from the tour.  Unfortunately,  no photos were allowed in the museum, so i don't have any pictures to share.

On our way back, we stopped to eat and then found the small Mammoth Museum.  What a treat!

Antoni Gaudi

Thursday, April 14.  Today we went to La Sagrada Familia ("The Church of the Sacred Family") and Guell Park, both of which were designed by Antoni Gaudi.   He started working on La Sagrada Familia in 1884 and in 1908 he dedicated himself exclusively to this project.   He died in 1926 and had only completed 20%.  Work continues and is expected to be finished in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi died.  It's huge.  It has a modern flare.  Like all of his work, it incorprates nature and is incredibly unique.  A treat to see.

We then ventured to Guell Park.  We explored and played in every inch of the park.  Stunning.  Fun.  Like nothing we've ever seen.  I was ready to head home long before the kids.  We didn't return to the apartment until 9pm.  They were fine, but I was exhausted!  What a fun day :)

Barcelona, here we come!

We started off early  (see sleepy kids on the train station floor).  After waiting in the train station entirely too long, we tried to get on the train but needed a stamp for our Eurorail pass.  Yikes!  We had 15 minutes til depature.  We ran back down the terminal, back past security, downstairs, found the ticket office, got our stamp, ran back upstairs, went through security again, and actually made it on the train with time to spare!  We then had a peaceful train ride and had no problem finding our cute apartment.  We went out to lunch, walked down La Ramblas, took a 40 minute boat ride on the Meditranian, bought groceries, got ice-cream, and walked through some cute streets.  We concluded with an excellent bottle of wine (for mommy!  I may have converted to red :) ) and about 8 games of Uno.  Great day!

Relax & recharge

Per Ridgely's request, today we did nothing, but relax and recharge.  :)

Parque de El Retiro

Monday, April 11.  Today we went to El Parque del Buen Retiro, a 320-acre royal park originally created for the Real Sito del Buen Retiro palace.  The palace was built in 1632 by King Phillip IV as a retreat for the royal family.  ("Retiro" means retreat.)  In 1808, during the Peninsula War, French troops stationed in Madrid used the palace and accompanying buildings as barracks.  In part because the palace was constructed with low quality materials, the harsh use by the French caused irreparable damage.  The palace was therefore later demolished.

When built, the park was outside of Madrid, but the city has since expanded around and far beyond the park.  The park has a large artificial lake, the Estranque del Retiro.  In 1922, a grand statue of King Alfonso XII was built next to the lake.  See pictures of the kids rowing in front of Alfonso below.  Between here and Sevilla, Haughton is now an expert rower and Ridgely is on her way.

Again, we played at the park near our apartment too.  See photos below.

While in Madrid, we are staying in a residential neighborhood (still within the city), where few people speak English.  We have enjoyed frequenting the fruit stands and supermarket.  We have relied on both the metro and the buses.  It's been a more local experience and a lot of fun. 

Again....Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, park ....

Sunday, April 10.  Okay, so today was a repeat of yesterday.  We actually started the day intending to do nothing.  Ridgely really wanted a break.  So, our morning involved playing Uno and drawing.  I then got hungry (we only have basic food in the apartment), so we ventured out.  Many restaurants were closed (I guess because it's Sunday).  We then passed the metro and Haughton wanted to go back to a toy store near Puerto del Sol that had life-sized Star Wars characters made of legos (see photos below).  He convinced Ridgely to motivate, so off we went.  We ate lunch in Plaza Mayor again and got to know the area a bit better.  We also played at the large park near our apartment....

We concluded the evening by starting a lecture series on my kindle on the history of Spain.  The kids didn't love it, but when I tried to turn it off at bedtime, they insisted we finish lecture 1, covering from about 1200 BC til 600 AD.  Everyone got excited when they discussed Italica. :)

Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor & park

April 9. We started the day with a 26 minute video of Madrid.  We took notes and began planning our adventures.  A special thanks to our friend Danielle Stanko for her great recommendations!

Following Danielle's sage advice, we took the metro to La Puerta del Sol and then walked to Plaza Mayor.  Puerta del Sol was originally the site of one of the city's gates.  It faced east and had an image of the sun, hence it's name.  It's semicircular and owes it's current form to major renovations done between 1854 and 1860.  Today, the place was filled with people doing tricks (see photos below of kids standing in front of two different "statues"; both are actually people).  Pretty cool.

Plaza Mayor was built during Phillip III's reign (1598-1621).  It's surrounded by 3-story residential buildings having 237 balconies face the Plaza.  In the past, it's been used for markets, bullfighting, football (aka soccer), and public executions.  The statue in the middle (see photo of kids taking a picture of it) is Phillip III.   We ate lunch in the Plaza, chased bubbles near the statue, admired artist and other vendors, and bought some postcards, etc in a shop along the edge of the Plaza.  We also used a restaurant bathroom and noticed that even their back hallways had beautiful wall tiles.

While walking back from the metro, we couldn't resist stopping at a playground for a hour or so. 

We then got to Skype with Daddy - We love and miss you, Daddy!