MenkensInMadrid

Saturday, December 17, 2011

National Day of Spain October 12 2011

On Spain's National Day there is always a huge army parade through the streets of Madrid with large crowds watching. We went to see it with the Recartes, some family friends of the Recartes and the Butlers. This year the parade had changed its route so we ended up not having a good view or at least some of us did.

Great view but some oficial asked them to get down before the parade began

Sky display opening

Billy was the only one with a front row view the other children were stopped everytime they tried to move forward.

Vehicles came first then the infantry and then the cavalry. There were many different ranks and uniforms going past of which Harry and Charley loved taking photos. Here are some of them:

Our party with the Bank of Spain and the street Gran Via behind us.

Cibeles Fountain

Spanish lunch afterwards

Friday, December 16, 2011

Santiago Bernabeu

We have been to Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium (with 81,000 seats compared to Target Field’s 39,000) twice and both times with the Butlers. Once to see Real Madrid play against Rayo Vallencano and once to see youth soccer being played by teams from all over the world.

September 24 2011 Real Madrid v. Rayo Vallencano:
The Butlers had prepurchased tickets, I had looked on line to see pricing and positioning of seats but in the end I decided to wing it and buy them when we arrived at the Stadium. That way we had a chance of getting seats near the Butlers.

Before the game

Sydney, Kyle, Harry, Ellie, Billy and Charley looking forward to the game

Still warming up - many empty spaces

Stadium was packed when the game was on

At the start of the match it seemed like Real Madrid weren't ready to play when they let the other team score in the first few minutes. But that got them going and they won 6:3. We all enjoyed the great experience. Billy said it was the best day of his life seeing Ronaldo score three goals LIVE!

After the game

October 9th 2011 Danone Nations Cup for Youth Soccer:
The Recartes had kindly given us four free stadium tickets that they had won or earned from shopping at the Corte Ingles. We watched the final matches of the Danone Nations Cup, the world’s largest youth soccer tournament for kids born in calendar years 1999 and 2000. There were 40 countries represented. We sat in the sixth row on the sunny side of the stadium and the boys talked with several players on the field from English and Spanish speaking countries.

The stadium was divided in half with two matches going simultaneously. We saw many of our favorite countries play on our side of the Stadium. The only ones that we would have like to have seen that we did not were Germany and Argentina who played on the other side of the Stadium. Here are some of the teams in the order that we saw them play:

Spain happy after their win.
Spain played Romania in the match for 17th place (3-0)

USA coming on for warmups.
USA played Switzerland in the match for 13th place (1-0)

Mexico played Saudi Arabia in the match for 7th place (4-0)

England played Canada in the match for 5th place (1-1)

England and Canada

Chile played Russia in the match for 3rd place (2 -1)

Chile played Russia in the match for 3rd place and won 2-1. Brazil played Thailand in the final and won 4-0.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Our first visitor

Wednesday September 28th 2011
The boys' grandpa, my father arrived on September 28th and stayed for a week. During the day he would visit the museums in Madrid while the boys and I were at school and then we spent the evenings and weekend together.
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The boys helping Grandpa find the correct door

Supper at our favorite inexpensive restaurant (everything 1 euro on a Wednesday) and invited the Butlers (our American friends who were staying in Madrid for three months) to come too.

Waiting to collect the food

Enjoying the french fries and montaditos (sandwiches made with French bread)

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Wot no montaditos yet?

Montadito with chocolate and jam

Then our second visitors when the Butlers came over after the restaurant.

The Menkens' home

Friday September 30th 2011
Friday night we went to Corte Ingles (a large department store) in Pozuelo to look for a printer.

Distracted while shopping for a printer 30-09-2011

El Barrial train station near the Corte Ingles 30-09-2011

Saturday October 1st 2011
Grandpa went to his first live soccer match of his grandsons.

Team before the uniform arrived 01-Oct-2011

Pablo (tallest) is one year older than H & C and two years older than Billy -all on the same team

Dessert is ice cream and M&Ms

Sunday October 2nd 2011
We travelled to Toledo by train for the day. The boys really enjoyed seeing all the weapons and tried to convince me to buy a small souvenir, but I was not budging on that request.

The Alcázar former imperial residence now the National Military Museum

The boys and grandpa outside the Bisagra Gate (16th century) with coat of arms of Emperor Charles V

Charles with Emperor Charles V

Toledo has been a sword-making and steel-working center since approx. 500BC. Hannibal made Rome aware of the weapons when he used them during the Punic Wars. Soon thereafter Toledo became a standard source of weaponry for Roman Legions. Harry who's named after Hannibal was pleased to read about him. But all the boys loved visiting the souvenir shops filled with weapons and armour.

Toledo is full of shops like this and the boys couldn't stay out of them

Both big and little

Wot more armor!

Puerta del Sol (12th century) built to reinforce the wall.

McDonald's just happened to be next door so we could all have what we wanted.

Alley to one of the Cathedral entrances

Inside the Cathedral

Walking back to the train to take us to Madrid

With their secret recipe and their history of accidently coming across how to keep food for longer(much needed after the King Alfonso VIII's battle v. The Moors in 1212) Toldedo is also famous for its finest Marzipan. Unfortunately we did not try it. We could have used some with all the walking we did - up to the town from the station, around it and back.

Tuesday October 4th 2011
Grandpa celebrated his 75th birthday with us.

October 4 2011 Grandpa's 75th Birthday!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Enjoying the Recartes' pool 9-9-11

One week of school for the Recartes, Butlers and me (my boys had not yet started) and we had our first bank holiday. We visited the Recartes with the Butlers and met Teddy (old student of Montse staying with the Recartes) from the USA who was here trying out for the Spanish Basket Ball teams.