On the Way to France

After spending the morning and afternoon in Barcelona, we headed north into France.  We thought about going through the small country of Andorra, but due to the weather and leaving later than planned, we went the more direct route to Carcassonne, France.

(Sorry for the bad photos in this post...I had a black smudge in the camera and it shows up in a lot of the pictures...and we were driving so there are some blurry ones.)

This is the sign post to show that we passed into France...it came up a lot faster than I thought.  But there you have it.  

Barcelona (part 2)

Sunday morning (April 28th) we spent in Barcelona.  We planned on going to Sacrament meeting there and then doing a bit more sight-seeing.  We found the church and went in.

Barcelona (part 1)

Saturday April 27th in the late afternoon we arrived in Barcelona.  We had some trouble finding our hotel, parking our car, and even checking in.  So we lost some sight-seeing time due to that.  But once we got all of that figured out, we headed out even though it was raining.

(This was the view from our hotel)

Countryside between Valencia and Barcelona

We drove north along the Spanish coastline from Valencia to Barcelona.  It was beautiful!  Not only did we see the Mediterranean Sea, but we also saw castle ruins on the surrounding hilltops, and we saw thousands and thousands of orange trees!  

Valencia (part 2)

Saturday morning, April 27th, we packed up and went to a little patisserie close to our hotel and then headed to the downtown area again.  We drove through the old city of Valencia and it was beautiful and quaint.  We were greeted by the old city gates.  They are huge!

Valencia (part 1)

The next morning we got a late start on our trip.  Paul got up for work at his normal time...but I didn't get up until 10:15; Glenn got up later than that...and Dad got up even later than that!  Needless to say we didn't get off when we expected.  And then after picking up Paul from work, we hit traffic and it was kind of slow-going for awhile.  But we were on our way and there was no turning back!

My Dad Arrives in Spain!

On Thursday, April 25th or "Grandpa Don Day", my Dad arrived in Madrid!

That morning Paul didn't go into work so we all could go to the airport to get my Dad.  We took the metro down to the airport and had assumed that Dad's flight would come in at Terminal 4...but it actually landed in Terminal 1.  We didn't have a way to communicate with him--we had talked prior with him saying that we would meet near the metro entrance at the end of Terminal 4. Poor Dad.  He didn't know what terminal he had arrived in and so he was looking around to find out where he was so he would then know where to go.  After awhile and trying to talk to people and someone selling him a phone card AND THEN telling him there was a FREE bus that connected terminals, he made his way to Terminal 4 and to the metro entrance.  We saw him and then gave him some money to get a metro pass.  It was a bit confusing and he didn't really understand the kiosks very well and had to keep coming over to ask us what to do.  We didn't want to exit the metro area into the airport because it would cost us 3 euros to exit and to enter again.  And we just didn't want to spend that.  So finally Dad got it figured out and we were on the metro again.

Videos from our time in Spain

So I was looking through my pictures and videos and realized I was only able to upload two videos of the many we took while in Spain.  Now that we are back in the USA and things have settled down a little bit, I will upload those now for your viewing pleasure. :D
I'm realizing also that several of them are too big to upload.  So unfortunately you won't be able to see all that I had intended to post here.  But here are some.

This and That

With this post I will be up to date-yay!  Tomorrow my Dad arrives from Utah!  My Mom’s passport didn’t arrive in time for her to make the already-purchased airline tickets.  So we are still hoping and praying that it arrives before her rescheduled flight.  We have been looking forward to my parents visit for a long time.  We have a lot of travel planned and we’ll have a lot more to post about, so I’ve been trying to get caught up.  This post will be a little of this and a little of that.  I will have to do another post when we get to the USA with videos.  The internet here is so slow and it takes forever to upload a video—and most times it won’t ever load completely.  But I wanted to show the day-to-day pictures we’ve taken too—to show what it’s like to live here in Spain.

We found this yummy spread in the store—it’s kind of like Nutella.  We’ve already gone through one and are on a second jar.  We may bring home another jar… :D

Templo de Madrid España

Last Friday—April 19^th—we went to John and Maureen’s house for dinner.  They are from the UK and are here in Madrid for a little while.  We met them at church and wanted to get to know them better—so we had dinner with them.  Maureen made a delicious dinner and we talked and talked until late in the night.  I’m not sure how it came up, but they offered to watch Glenn for us while we went to the temple.  We had wanted to go but didn’t know who we’d get to watch Glenn.  We were happy to know that Glenn would be in good hands while we attended the temple. They have grandkids and were happy to watch Glenn.

Madrid Rio Parque

On April 13^th we had a “Glenn day”.  Glenn had been so good to go with us wherever and whenever we wanted and we figured that he could use a day that was just for him.  We had heard about the Madrid Rio Park from a family in the ward, and we decided to check it out.  This park was created when they moved the M-30 motorway underground!  By doing this the Manzanares River flows again and over 10 kilometers of parks, pedestrian and cycling routes.  This park also had historical monuments and bridges along the river.  We took the metro to one stop near the Puente del Rey and went as far and as long as Glenn wanted. 

We didn’t take pictures of everything, but we did of the oldest bridges and Glenn and the playgrounds.  The Puente de Segovia was built in 1584, which makes it the oldest bridge in Madrid. 

Fire! Fire!

April 8th had started out just like any other day here in Spain.  That evening after work we ate dinner and then had FHE.  We then watched Despicable Me, which we borrowed from our friends.  Glenn loved it, by the way.  It is funny to watch a funny movie with a child--to see which parts he thinks are funny.  

Anyway, while we were watching the movie we had heard a siren on our street.  I remember thinking that it sounded really close and how that was kind of strange.  There is a much larger street parallel to ours so we can usually hear the sirens, but they are usually on the other street.  

Well after the movie I saw a bright light and so I looked out the window to see what that was...little did we know what was going on right outside our window!  We saw several fire trucks and police cars--all right outside our hotel. 

General Conference Weekend

General Conference this Spring was a bit interesting.  Since we are 8 hours ahead of Salt Lake City, we couldn't just watch as normal.  And with our slow internet we knew we wouldn't be able to stream the video.  We had been talking with a family in the ward that we have become friends with, and they invited us over.  We had planned to do something with them on Easter, but they hadn't received their things from the USA yet and it would've have been as enjoyable they said.  But we did get together for General Conference.  So Sunday morning we walked probably 2 miles to the bus station and then took a bus to their little town just outside of Madrid--it's called Saint Augustine.  

Glenn was so happy to play with his friends.  Franki said the kids had been talking all morning about how Glenn would be coming later that day.  He sure had a lot of fun!

We ate lunch first, then we went for a walk around their town.  They showed us their church and some parks near their house.  Then we came back and started watching some of the Saturday morning session.  They had downloaded it so we could watch it whenever.  But then it was time to actually stream the Sunday morning session.  So that's really the only session that we watched in its entirety.  When that session was over it was 8pm.  We also ate dinner during that session too.  

I forgot to take pictures all day, except just before we got ready to go home.

Madrid Zoo & Aquarium

The first Saturday in April—April 6^th—we went to the Madrid Zoo & Aquarium.  We met up with one of Paul’s co-workers and his family, Sergie, Bea and their son Lluis.  It was a pretty nice day and we were happy to be outside on such a day. 

Cheryl's Visit Day Five: Easter

Happy Easter!

Cheryl was with us for Easter as well.  

It was nice to have her with us to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  How grateful we are that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, that He died for us, and that He was resurrected the third day, and that He lives still today!  

One thing we've noticed about other churches is how they portray Christ.  He is almost always hanging on the cross or just after--they show Him as dead.  And while our Church does believe He died for us, we like to rejoice in the fact that He was resurrected--He lives again!  

Cheryl's Visit Day Four: Avila and Segovia

Remember when we went to Toledo with a tour company?  Well this same company also had a full-day tour of the towns of Avila and Segovia.  So we bought our tickets for Saturday and early that morning we were up and ready to go.  We had a much larger group this time—there were a lot of people visiting and touring because of Santa Semana.  But soon enough we were on the road to Avila.  Here are a few pictures we took on bus as we left Madrid. 

 

Cheryl's Visit Day Three: Madrid City Tour Bus, Palacio Real, the Templo de Debod, and the Plazas

Friday of Cheryl's visit was a somewhat cold and rainy one.  But we had already made plans to be on the Madrid City Tour Bus, so that's what we did.  We brought our umbrellas and just planned to be a little wet and cold all day.  

Sorry for the blurry picture, but it’s the only one we got that showed what the bus looked like.  So that’s why I’m posting it. :D

Cheryl's Visit Day Two: Parque del Retiro and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

The next day, Paul and Cheryl went back to the Prado Museum for a few hours.  Glenn and I met them in the early afternoon at the Parque del Retiro.  We met them at the Monumento al Rey Alfonso XII which is along the edge of the man-made lake/pond.

Cheryl's Visit Day One: The Prado Museum

Cheryl came out to Spain to visit us during her Spring Break.  

We were so excited to have her come!

The day she arrived--Wednesday, March 27th--she took a short nap after a long and somewhat frustrating set of flights, and then we got doners for lunch. Yum!

After that she slept again for a bit before we headed out to the Museo del Prado.

They have a free time in the evening, which was great!

A Day at the Park

On March 23rd we went to a nearby park.  We found it when we were walking home from my doctor's visit and realized that it was just north of us!  Perfect for Glenn and I to easily walk to during the day.  

We have had a lot of rain here in Madrid.  People here say all this rain is uncommon.  I'm sure it'll make it nice and green and pretty, but I'm kind of done with it.  We haven't ventured out much due to it.  If I had more clothes and could easily wash my clothes here, then maybe I wouldn't mind going out and jumping in puddles, etc.  But we don't..so we haven't.  Plus it has been chilly, so it's not as much fun to get wet and cold.

Anyway, we did have a nice-ish day on March 23rd.  So we went to the park and let Glenn play.  We've noticed that Google maps show green spaces where the parks are...but it isn't really green.  Sure there are some trees, but there isn't any grass at these parks.  It's just pavement and dirt/sand/gravel.  It kind of reminds us of kitty litter...hehehe...but yeah.  They don't have grass at these parks.  I look forward to seeing grass again. : D

So I took some pictures of Glenn and Paul playing at the park.