Five of Us Riding Nowhere: 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?