Odds and ends

While Josh was showing Bill his former mission stomping grounds, Zoë and I accompanied my parents and students to this cute little castle outside of Madrid.

Outside grew lovely poppies--which are all over Spain.

An attempt at a self-portrait of Zoë and me--didn't succeed there, but I did catch her lovely Josh-given eyelashes.

Fun castle tile textures

My cousin Amanda through the keyhole window

You can probably tell this is back in Madrid. I wish I would have taken more photos here--Sharon color coordinated so well with the graffiti.

Our favorite Madrid playground. I wish that Americans weren't so sue-happy so that we could have fun toys like this in our parks.

The Plaza de Colon

I could really dig living in one of these apartments across the street from the Retiro.

Yes, Josh and I were actually in Europe together at the same time.

One of our favorite places to take people--the crystal palace in the Retiro.

And its sleek black swans

An interesting Madrid wall

From the roof of the Reina Sofia--Madrid's modern art museum

One of the fun things about Alcala are all of the storks everywhere--nests on every major building. If you've never seen a stork or its nest before, they are HUGE. It's totally believable that multiple babies could fit in those suckers. And the storks themselves? Small airplane size.

Sharon sitting pretty in her new headwrap in our good old Alcala plaza

Plaza nighttime tap dancing. Yes, that's right.

It feels so good to be a pair of nerds.

One Saturday we happened to catch some traditional regional Spanish dancing in the square

It even included bagpipes

A bit of our day-to-day Alcala life: Lots of dogs (which Zoë loved).

Pretty walks at dusk

Roses galore

Delicious meals like this one (yes the shrip have eyes--you get used to it. Well, I did, anyway). Madrid actually has some of the freshest seafood in the country.

The walkway over the train tracks by our house.

The tantalizing pool next door that was mostly closed during our stay (no matter what the weather, summer--and swimming--don't start till mid-June!). The Spanish are funny about seasons.

The reason we didn't let Zoë practice crawling on the stairs at the house--there were four stories of marble!