Last week was Carnaval, the celebratory beginning of lent. Not a big event in our heathen household but a slightly bigger deal here in Spain, given the importance of Catholicism. The kids’ school celebrated with a party and costumes and a 4 day weekend. We didn’t really celebrate Halloween last fall because we were traveling …
Author Archives: sffamilyinmadrid
Hanging out in hanging houses
The weather is starting to get warmer with just a wisp of spring in the air. I think this is unusually early for Spain and another sign of the changing climate. But it did lead to a nice day trip to Cuenca, a historic town about an hour outside of Madrid. We took the high …
I wish you lots of money! AKA Gong xi fa cai!
Well it’s the year 4718 on the lunar calendar. Not as weighty as 2020 but still impressive. We were sad that we couldn’t spend it with our family, as is tradition so I decided to celebrate it by making my own dumplings 🥟 and having some friends over. The kids were also excited to receive …
Continue reading “I wish you lots of money! AKA Gong xi fa cai!”
Skiing in the Pyrenees
We just got back from a great trip into the mountains for some family ski time. The Pyrenees run along the border between Spain and France. We ended up in a mountain valley called Val D’Aran in Catalonia which has its own language and culture that is distinct from other regions of Spain. Driving there, …
Catch up
With the holidays, things have been a bit busy. There has been a lot of traveling and exploring! The kids had a long weekend break at their school, a puente or bridge, so we took the opportunity to visit the ocean. Valencia is Spain’s third largest city and is situated right on the Mediterranean Sea. …
Baking in a foreign land
Certain things are surprisingly different in Spain. Initially, one of the challenges was knowing where to go to buy essential items like toothpaste (Pharmacy) or bleach (still don’t really know). Or where to get things that we’ve never needed before like salt for the dishwasher. Does anyone else know about this? Apparently there’s a hole …
Off to the boot (Italy)
The kids had a long weekend for All Saint’s Day so we took the opportunity to pop over to Italy. Vance and I have always wanted to visit Venice and take the kids to see Rome. The airport in Venice is built right along the water so we walked along 4 long moving sidewalks to …
Holy Toledo!
Toledo is only a short and very easy 30 minute train ride away from Madrid. The train station is a 10 minute walk from our apartment so the whole thing was really easy. We went there yesterday with our friends, John and Kathy and their kids. Toledo is a charming old Spanish town with a …
Cold snap and hot flamenco
People here say that Madrid only has two seasons, summer and winter. And sure enough, one day we were all wearing tank tops and sandals and the next day, it got really cold. brrr! We were headed out because we heard that there was going to be a parade of sheep through the middle of …
This is how we dry our shoes
We got caught in a major downpour last night after dinner with David and Iñigo’s families
SF family in Madrid 