The rain in Spain

Our only full day in Madrid was cold and rainy. One of the downsides to traveling in the off-season is that the weather can often catch you. There are still way more upsides, like the lower prices and smaller crowds. And we enjoyed the day anyway. The Royal Palace (who knew Spain has a King??) and the Parque de Berlin (who knew Madrid has a piece of the Berlin Wall!?) were the highlights. And we saw several people get caught for breaking rules, while we were on our best behavior.

Daniel often talks about going to a beach, a real one with sand and not pebbles. Barcelona was meant to be that place. The forecast tomorrow calls for rain. The rain in Spain is not just on the plain, it’s also on the coast apparently, who knew!?

A silly wall that’s out of place and a sillier girl

Temple of Dibod, courtesy of Egypt. That silly family got yelled at for being out there, it was clearly against the rules

“Let’s not go out there, let’s watch TV all day.”

 Congress at night with stormy weather looming, kind of like ours

Either “this is so cool!” or “I am soooo cold!”

Street fightin’ woman

We’re normally rule followers, but there’s something going on this trip that has put us on the other side of the rules many times. Jess has also almost had to throw a few punches.

It started with the rude woman at the Reykjavik airport, which we’ve already talked about here.
The next was in London. We really try to not eat America fast food on these trips, but sometimes it’s really all that works – in this case, it was late at night, we weren’t in a great neighborhood, didn’t have any cash and didn’t want Pounds since we were leaving early the next morning, and it was right there in front of us. Standing in line, a crazy woman picked a fight with another customer and the staff for no apparent reason, which included screaming, shoving, throwing plastic bags, and it was on the verge of Rocky V. We left before Jess had to end the fight (she has years of experience doing this with three kids).

The most recent fight was on the bus to Madrid today, when three of our five reserved seats were filled. One was an honest mistake in the seat number by another foreigner like us. Mistakes happen, we get it (more on that later). The others refused to move. Jess first got the bus driver, but was cinching up her gloves behind him in case he couldn’t handle the situation. There was plenty of agitation, but fortunately no punches.

Now about all those rules. We know there aren’t any photos in art museums, we’ve been to plenty. But for some reason we broke that rule and got yelled at by the guard at the Prado today. It was clearly signed. Jess also nearly got into a fight at the Picasso museum, as I veered off into the gift shop while she got her backpack. As she tried to come tell us she was ready, the guard yelled at her for bringing her backpack into the museum, it was clearly signed. Our kids couldn’t help but grab some fans for sale at the Alhambra and got yelled at by the shop owner. It was clearly signed, in English even: NO TOUCHING BY CHILDREN. And outside food is often not welcome, we’ve broke that one twice so far – once in Gibraltar and once today on the way to Madrid. Again, clearly signed. Mistakes happen. We don’t have a good excuse for any of this, all I can say is it’s a good thing we’re not driving. Can you imagine ignoring all those signs too?

Prado tickets are great fun

I think we followed this rule, though I’m not totally sure what it is...

Dinah loves photos with lions, but this one at the Prado shouldn’t be seen

Approved Dinah lion photo!

The Cave

We’re staying in the Sacramonte part of Granada like cave-dwelling gypsies, which is an incredible experience with views to match. The song lyric is fitting:

Granada, I’m falling under your spell
And if you could speak, what a fascinating tale you would tell

I’ll let the photos tell the story

  

La cucaracha y el Picasso

We learned that Gibraltar has a problem with cockroaches, especially when it rains and floods like it did the week before we arrived. The incident happened in the bathroom. La cucaracha waved gleefully when I stepped inside, leaving me completely stunned.

My first reaction was to run. I held that back, and realized my best move would be to trap it inside the bathroom to avoid terrifying the kids. I shut the door, and then realized I was alone with a giant cockroach who looked like it wanted a kiss. Now wishing I had invoked the Pence rule with this scandalous creature, I looked for a weapon to fend her off. It’s a bathroom, so there wasn’t much – a soft, fluffy pack of toilet paper or a bottle of toilet cleaner. I grabbed the bottle.

The attack felt like it lasted twenty or thirty minutes, I was hacking and smashing all over the little space, la cucaracha was dancing the mariachi and whistling. Finally, a blow struck and knocked her loopy. I struck again, she dodged. I struck and smudged, taking a leg with me. The song lyrics now make sense, “The cockroach can no longer walk because she doesn’t have a hind leg.”

I left her body there to show my wife my conquest and discuss the horrible living conditions in which we now found ourselves. We discussed for a bit, talked to our host who assured us this happens but is rare (the rains, remember) and he sprayed, and then I went back to check on the dead señorita. “Did you move the cockroach?” I asked Jess, surprised that she would have picked up such a giant bug. Alas, the battle raged on for another round, la cucaracha can still walk without a leg. She can also swim really well, even upstream in surge of toilet flush. But not for three flushes. I know we only won the battle, for she undoubtedly swam to another drain and is tormenting another family while you read this.

We were glad to leave Gibraltar. Málaga is a beautiful city, the proud birthplace of Pablo Picasso. Tapas, vino, buena vistas y más.

A church, these seem to show up a lot on this blog

Alcazaba, a Moorish palace, the warm-up to the Alhambra

One of our children ignoring the warning that you might slip and crack open your head - I didn’t take a picture of the guy who looked like he did crack open his head, he was being tended to by the police and a photo would have been rude

Roman theater, these seem to show up a lot on this blog 

My favorite Picasso from today, it’s Owl On A Chair, but I think it should be
Fun Little Corn Flake Guy Making Fish Sandwich 

Hey, hey, we’re the monkeys (or the apes)

Several years ago, I paid a ridiculous amount of money to go to the top of 30 Rockefeller in New York, the Top of the Rock. It was foggy and overcast and you couldn’t see what is supposedly one of the best views in the city. I wouldn’t know. Today, upon our arrival in Gibraltar, we paid a ridiculous amount of money to go to the top of the Rock on a cloudy and overcast day. They say it’s one of the best views in Europe and you can see two continents from there. We wouldn’t know. What we do know is that it’s crawling with monkeys, or rather Barbary apes, and they’re all the entertainment one needs.

I was once told that if it doesn’t have a tail, it’s not a monkey, even if it has a monkey-kind of shape. No tail, it’s an ape. Turns out the name Barbary ape is a misnomer, they’re tailless monkeys, which now makes it impossible to really identify monkeys and apes with this rule. In retrospect, I learned this from a cartoon vegetable, so it may not have been true.

The first sign that good things await was the dire warning to the family in front of us at the cable car. “Ma’am, you don’t want to take that bag up, the monkeys are going to think you have food.” She chuckled uncomfortably. He reinforced that this is for real, the monkeys will get them. She didn’t look scared until the monkeys greeted her as the cable car slid in. It was like we landed on the Planet of the Apes.

The monkeys looked docile for a moment, when some guy who at first looked like a staff monkey wrangler, was petting them and encouraging one to climb on his shoulder. Then he started teasing the monkey by pretending he had food in his hand, and the reveal led to a startled face, then anger straight out of Monkey Shines. That guy got bit. The family that was warned, their son got bit. Another woman had a monkey leap into her hair.

Monkeys are not safe. Unless those were apes we saw today, in which case, monkeys may be fine and you should beware of apes. Or just trust the movies, monkeys and apes are both out to kill us.

“I have a bad feeling about this...”

Young Prince Charles feeding the monkeys. It’s amazing he survived.

Not much of a view from here  

I think this sign is saying thanks to the monkeys for not throwing poo, smoking cigars, or using explosives on the humans 

Don’t look back in anger

The first day of travel is always hard. It’s hard to get any sleep on a plane, especially when you’re a kid and that little screen is right in your face beckoning you for hours. It’s even harder when you’re sick, like Jess.

Few of us got any sleep on the first leg to Iceland, and we stumbled off the plane to get on the next flight to London. We were surprised to find only one guy in the boarding line, whereas the gate right next to ours had a fairly long line. “Sally” was visibly angry in that line when we walked on by, and when the boarding time came near, she shoved her way past Jess and snarled, “we were here first!” The only reasonable response to this, on a flight that holds hundreds where you have a reserved seat, is “that’s nice.” An unreasonable response would be to kick her in the shins and yell. Jess chose wisely.

The flight was filled with some surprising weirdness as someone shoving their entire fist in their mouth to eat pumpkin seeds and smacking loudly. At the end of the flight, it’s important to note that luggage in the overhead bins may shift during the flight. I’ve only heard this a hundred times, so it’s still easy to forget. A couple kept out of their seats and had their bags in the aisle so no one else could get out of their seats. I thanked them by opening the bin and dropped a backpack bomb on the woman’s head. “You say sorry!” was her response, as she glared at me in anger. I could have been nicer, but I didn’t kick her in the shins or yell. To follow all this with an hour in the passport control line at Heathrow, it was hard not to be angry.

You know who’s really angry? Brexit protesters in London. Arriving at our Parliament tour, we were greeted by 700,000 of them with signs and yelling. We pushed upstream to get to our tour, seeing democracy in action to get to democracy in practice.

At this point, we were all incredibly tired. Dinah couldn’t fight it and fell asleep with a thud on the table at dinner.

Home for a few days

Probably laughing at a “buttface” joke

Audio tours are AMAZING!
 

Sleeping masks are NOT for sleeping!

Almost sleeping time!