10 April - A not-so-rainy-after-all stroll through Madrid

We were up at 9 on our first day in Madrid and on the road by 10:30. We had kept the agenda for Day 1 pretty light - a stroll through Madrid, seeing as many sights as we felt we wanted to. The problem was that the forecast was for rain (in fact, the forecast was for rain the entire trip in Madrid). In fact, the first 5 minutes after we left our apartment it did downpour - we had a plastic dropcloth and a fwe clothespins to put over the stroller, adn soon discovered that wouldn't work... but by the time we reached our first stop (Puerta del Sol) the sun was out and we celebrated with a pastry treat. The weather cooperated with us the rest of the day - we had sun and lots of puddles to stomp in in Plaza Mayor and at the Royal Palace, and sun for a stroll through the Jardines de Sabatini.

One of the highlights of teh day was a tasty tapas lunch at Casa Mingo during which we discovered that harper and Cam love chorizo (especially since we told them it was a brat) and jamon. We loved the Sidras Mingo too! The first of many drinking lunches while in Spain...

After lunch we strolled back to the center of Madrid and got ice cream - Cam fell asleep right before so he didnt get any. He also slept through our trip to our first playground at Plaza de Tirso de Molina, where Harper first got to play on the Spanish teeter totter. Harper napped on the way to the Prado, then both kids had to wake up. Harper liked the Prado more than Cam - she would walk from picture to picture and ask "What is this?". She really liked pictures of "baby Jesus". Cam liked a ramp they had from one room to antoher and nursing, and eventually I had to take him out of the galleries.

We had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and decided that we would rather try more tapas dinners.

Harper kept asking "Are we in Spain?" When she was going to bed, she asked "Do I have a bookshelf in my room?" When we told her no, she said "I have one at home." She must be a little homesick.
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For a rainy day, this was about as good as it could have gone.

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