Mom and Dad in Madrid!!!

Hi everyone! I'm back! Sorry for the unplanned hiatus, but I have a really good excuse--my mom and dad are in Madrid visiting! So we've been really really busy. Lots of long blog posts coming up. Here's Friday's:

I had class until 10 and then left from school to meet up with my parents!!!

We started walking around--the goal for the day was for them to stay awake and beat jet lag. They had churros while they were waiting for me, but I was hungry, so we stopped at San Miguel on the way to the Palacio Real and I got a snack (grilled peppers). (Also we have some guest Elizabeth in Madrid interns for the next few days: my mom and dad.)

We got to the Palacio Real and the line to get in was insane. We booked a tour for later that afternoon, hung out around the palace, and then went to eat lunch.

Here's the cathedral of Madrid. It's right next to the royal palace.

Me and my mom in front of the palace.

There is also a vista right by the palace, so we looked at that.

Eagle-eyed viewers might remember this (and the vista) from the day of the walking tour--it's the wall that the Muslims made when Madrid was founded in 850.

Here's that wall with the cathedral in the background. A good shot from my mom. Very symbolic.

After that we left the Palacio Real area. My mom bought shoes from Casa Hernanz. (My mom just read this post and said, "So you're not going to show my cute new shoes?") She got the jaguar print ones that are next to the zebra ones.

I found a lunch place nearby with good reviews so we went there and got the menú del día. I got paella for my first plate.

My mom got hummus and my dad got some sort of soup with seafood and chickpeas that the waiter recommended. I'll ask him what it was.

My second plate was eggplant parm<3

My mom got chicken and my dad got some sort of pasta with a ton of meat in it (that the waiter also recommended, my dad is big on recommendations).

We passed through Plaza Mayor on the walk back to the palace.

Inside the palace gates!

Inside the palace!

Pictures were only allowed in the first couple rooms, so no pictures from most of the tour. But it was really cool! We had a good tour guide. I knew/had heard a lot of the information before from my classes, but it was good to hear it again and get it reinforced. Here's some thoughts (I figured out how to use the bullet point feature on the Segovia post, so the blog is about to get way more nonsensical going forward):

• We walked into a room with four paintings on the wall and I said, "These are Goya, I'm calling it," and then they were, which was awesome for me.

• They just had "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist" by Caravaggio in the palace? Insane.

• Every Spanish monarch for the last like several hundred years has been killed, exiled, deposed, overthrown, or otherwise deposed. Including the last one--he abdicated and is in Abu Dhabi. The current one is holding it down though.

• If I were going to make a palace, I would use more hallways--every room was directly connected to the next.

Here's the courtyard of the palace. I love a palace courtyard.

My mom took a bunch of pictures of me outside the palace.

Here's my dad while my mom took pictures of me.

Sitting outside the palace after the tour.

Here is me holding hands with my mommy <3

After the palace we just went and bought some snacks and other stuff for the airbnb and then went to the apartment for the night.