Sarah’s phone reports 105, but mine is more conservative. Temps will continue rising for the next few hours, potentially hitting 107 by 5:00 PM.
Being in direct sun is pretty rough, but shade with a breeze isn’t so bad. Just moving slowly.
Hot
Spain, day 3 — Palacio Real de Madrid
We visited the Royal Palace on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty over-the-top. Over 3000 rooms. Gilded everything. Frescoes on the ceilings. Enormous paintings. All the things.
There was also an armory, but I’ll post those pics separately.
The two close-ups of the ceiling corners (before the piano)are worth looking at more closely. The artist combined 2D and 3D techniques to make some of the painted figures in the fresco become sculpted plaster as they crossed onto the wall.
Spain, day 3 — Griffin!
We met Griffin at the airport with the rest of the exchange students, both from SPA and Colegio Malvar.
Griffin is in great spirits and is far more confident in his Spanish. He had a great time on the trip, and seemed excited to keep exploring for another two weeks.
He chose a great Philippine restaurant for dinner.
Spain, day 2
We embarked on a mega-walk today through many lovely Madrid neighborhoods. We stopped for amazing chocolate dipped churros, lots of people watching, and pauses in the shade. (Have I mentioned the blazing summer heat?)
Eventually, we made our way to the Royal Palace where we had 4:30 tickets. After running into one of my students in the plaza, we wended our way through the security line only to learn that our tickets were for tomorrow. They wouldn’t budge. Fortunately, we are on vacation, so who cares? We’ll try again tomorrow.
It was a great adventure, but after more than 20,000 steps, we were worn out by the time we got home.
Spain, day 1
Left home early Wednesday. Arrived in Madrid early Thursday. Managed to successfully use public buses to get to the Arganzuela neighborhood. Too early to check into our Airbnb, we trundled our luggage along the sidewalks until we found a little cafe/bakery where we picked up some pastries. We perched on a sidewalk bench, in a jet lagged fugue.
A highlight involved an elderly woman marching up and asking us to make room for her. Apparently she likes to sit on this bench in the morning. She proceeded to happily regale us with stories, despite our extremely limited understanding of Spanish. Apparently she’s 80 years old. Her family has lived in the apartment above the cafe for the past seven decades. She was casually racist when she learned that Maggie speaks Chinese, saying that she didn’t like Chinese people. Despite this sour note, I think we all felt lucky to get this unexpectedly intimate introduction to an unvarnished local.
We proceeded to our Airbnb. Small but well-decorated. We took a siesta for a few hours and then headed out on our first adventure to the Museo Reina Sofia, a wonderful art museum where we got to see Picasso’s Guernica.
Dined at a street cafe at 9:30 PM. As we had been told, nights run very late in Madrid!
Griffin, of course, is still with his host family. We’ll rendezvous with him on Saturday morning.
Concrete Action
The next step in our deck project was to pour a concrete pad for the bottom of the stairs. We’d been putting it off because it seemed intimidating. Not only do we not have much experience with concrete, but getting the math right was challenging. It wouldn’t do much good if the stairs don’t land on the pad.
We finally tackled it last week. We think we got it right, though there is as much art to the process as science.
Once we build the staircase and see how the pad handles rain, we will adjust the edging as needed.
This was the biggest hurdle for finishing the deck. The project is back on track.
Griffin’s in Spain!
The second half of Griffin’s Spanish exchange has begun. He flew off to Madrid on Monday, June 8, and we’ve gotten a few pictures from his first two days. He is staying with Irene, the student who lived with us for two weeks in September. In one of Griffin’s first texts, he wrote, “I already feel my confidence in Spanish improving over the course of an hour. Irene’s little brother is asking me so many questions lol!” Thank goodness for inquisitive kids!
Here are some of the first pictures we’ve received.
Unexpected Hiatus
Since this blog’s birth in 2009, we’ve never gone longer than a month without posting until now. This spring has been particularly heavy. A combination of external events (ICE activity), family health scares, and unexpected challenges at school pulled my attention away from this online family scrapbook.
The good news, however, is that the health scares are behind us, ICE has mostly departed (with plenty of caveats), and the school year has ended.
I’ve got some additional posts coming soon. (I may backdate some posts so they fit into the sequence properly, but this is my first actual post since February.)
End of Third Grade
Oliver wraps up his third grade year this week. This is a big transition year in Montessori from “Lower Elementary” to “Upper Elementary.” Oliver has spend the past three years in the same classroom. At this point, he is one of the leaders. Next year he will enter a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classroom as one of the newcomers. He is, of course, both ready and excited for the change.
The final days of school have dress up themes. Wednesday’s theme was “Fancy.” Alas, Oliver discovered that he had outgrown his suit, but we think he came up with a pretty good substitute. And the hat! Love the hat.
Garden
Despite all the land around our house, we haven’t grown many vegetables yet. We’ve planted a few tomato and pepper plants around the edges of other plots, and a few herbs, but nothing like the small farm we had at our old place.
With her characteristic energy, Sarah decided to do something about that this summer. Using recovered cedar and some redwood from our old deck, we built two new raised beds. Sarah came up with the box design and built the first one. Oliver and I then tackled the second, larger one. In addition, Sarah has been extending the existing mulched plantings in the yard to introduce local prairie grasses, milkweed for the monarchs, and native flowers.
