Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We'll be spending Christmas and the New Year with my family in Wales so we'll get back to posting more exciting Scottish adventures in 2009. Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year!

What did you have for breakfast?

It's too bad I don't have a kilt and a shot put to go and display the abundance of energy I have from eating these oats for breakfast.

Nos Gusta Madrid

Last week, Nick and I took a short vacation to Madrid to see my friend Sabrina and her family and to tour the city. When you think of Spain, you think of sunny and therefore warm, right? Well, it was sunny but it wasn't much warmer than Dundee. The temperature was mainly in the 30's. But the sunshine was a nice addition and the day was longer too. Right now, it starts getting dark here around 3 but in Madrid, the sun was out until past 5. Definitely a nice change.

We arrived in Madrid on Saturday and spent the weekend walking around Madrid with Sabrina, Antón, and their 2 year old son, Iago (who is a real cutie). We saw a lot of cool things, but I thought this statue for the writer Cervantes was pretty cool.

Notice the gigantic advertisement in the background (how could you not?). There were quite a few of these ads placed around Madrid where they were doing construction. But for the most part, Madrid is a beautiful city and extremely clean. We both loved the architecture and the buildings looked so clean compared to the black sooted buildings in Edinburgh and Dundee.

On Monday, we took the metro to the Palacio Real where the kings and queens used to live. The current king and queen live somewhere on the outskirts of Madrid...maybe the palace is too drafty?

We then walked over to the Reina Sofía museum which is mainly 20th century Spanish art. One of the highlights was Picasso's Guernica. You really have to see it in person to see how impressive it is. There was also a lot of interesting Dalí pieces but he sometimes creeps me out. Then Nick and I attempted to find places to kill time while we waited for the early Spanish dinner hour which we estimated to be 8:30. Let me tell you, it was difficult. At 7:00, we finally ended up eating a small meal of a Spanish tortilla (read: quiche) and a jamón filled sandwich (which Nick loves). Since that was not nearly enough food, we then stopped at a grocery store and bought a bunch of Valencia oranges, which were the best tasting oranges ever. We scarfed down three each. I only wish we would have bought more to bring back with us. I think Spain is great but I really don't understand eating so late. I wonder how many tourists were like us, wandering around trying to find a warm place to spend time until the restaurants opened.

On Tuesday, we spent the entire day at the Prado museum. Yes, the entire day...but with a break for lunch. Thank goodness for all of the benches by the artwork! There was a lot of beautiful art there but one of the most memorable was Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. If you've ever had Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale, you would recognize the crazy picture on the label as being taken from this painting (he's the Prince of Hell if you check out the Wiki link).

One common theme of the trip was that all of the museums did not allow any photography. This did not make Nick happy. You can see what he thought of that policy in the captions of the rest of the pictures shown here.

Thanks again to Sabrina, Antón, and Iago for being so generous and letting us stay with them for a few days even though they were working. We really had a great time and hope to go back someday soon (perhaps when it's warmer)!