But enough dwelling on the negative; fortunately my stuff was stolen at the very end of my week in Madrid and I had a little time to enjoy the city. I arrived on a Sunday morning and had most of the day to go wandering around: I wanted to see the famous Prada museum, but this line-up convinced me otherwise:
Instead I went off to see the huge public park directly behind the museum which was pretty lively on a Sunday afternoon:
I noticed a curious phenomenon in my wanderings; Madrid parents seem to have a penchant for dressing their children identically. This is only one of about a dozen examples I saw and that I managed to capture on film. Even the Mom is into pink…
This was by far the best conference I’ve ever been to when it comes to the social program. Wednesday we only had a half-day until 1 pm and then took off for a day-trip to Toledo, a quaint little city with well-preserved old city walls, a cathedral and multiple historical synagogues:
The conference also had a fabulous banquet one evening where they drove us way out of town to a hacienda (ranch). Unfortunately I was too busy snapping tapas off of the plates the waiters came by with to take any pictures of the food, but the tapas and main course paella were delicious. They even make their own (very strong) brandy which they store in bottles inlaid into the ceiling of the wine cellar (I didn’t really get a good explanation of why). In addition to the food there was an impressive Arabian horse show, with the horses displaying some amazing crossing-over footwork. If that weren’t enough after the meal there was professional flamenco dancing and Spanish guitar. Olé!
