Dad and Julie visit Madrid!

^Dad and Julie in front of Palacio Real de Madrid

THEY FINALLY MADE IT!! After an 8 hour delay, they finally made it to Madrid! My dad truly has the worst travel luck, but at least they got to Madrid safe and sound, albeit, VERY tired. Because of how tired Julie was especially and because they got in so much later, we ended up going more slow paced and seeing less than I had initially planned, but that worked out for us.

I took them to eat lots of good food, like tortilla at El Buo, pizza at NAP, Cuban food at El Rincon (their favorite), tapas at El Sur and ice cream at La Pecera.

^only picture I have of El Rincon. It's definitely a hole in the wall. The food is AMAZING. Picapollo -- basically fried chicken, is to die for.

^Dad confused about the picture lolol

For Father's day, I also took dad to a place my Spanish tutor had recommended called "Almacén de Vinos". Ironically, my dad ended up enjoying the food more than the wine.

^they didn't have the cheese out because it was so hot!

I still dragged them around the city and made them go see museums. They saw the Prado and the Reina Sofia, El Mercado de San Miguel, El Palacio Real, Plaza Mayor, Puerto del Sol, Templo de Debod, El Retiro, Lavapies, Malasaña and Cheuca. As you can tell from the photo below, Julie was not amused by the amount of walking we did. But she did like the fact we could metro to places instead of walking often.

I also took them to El Escorial, where I worked, and showed them the Monastery, the gardens and summer palace, and my school! It was really cool to show them where I spend my days, although the school is far below the Monastery. Just in general, thinking about it, I was really lucky to be placed in such a nice town!

^of course Julie closes her eyes for the picture...

And lastly...while my dad and Julie were visiting, we moved out! I actually moved out a few days early because I had this nasty chest infection. After my dad visited the place, he was fairly confident that there was mold in the apartment (he went around smelling the walls haha) and preferred that I stay in the Airbnb. I preferred it too, so I was okay with that. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to our apartment. It was a really a cute apartment in a great location. While the heating was not great in the winter, and winter lasted much longer than expected, our apartment really did get us through. For a first job and a first apartment, it really did us well. We also were pressed for time getting out of the apartment as it wasn't completely cleaned, so at least we didn't have time to get super sentimental about it. Kim (Erin's mom) did have a chance to take a picture of Los Tres Peces (us) before we all went off to do our own things; I had to go pick up my dad and Julie from a flamenco show I had booked for them (which they LOVED and talked about so much -- I'm so glad!), Willa had errands to do and Erin was off to dinner with her family.

Leaving the apartment really was the thing that made leaving Madrid feel real. At the same time...being with my family was so nice again that I still felt at home. I guess we will see how I feel in a couple weeks! Off to Valencia for the relaxing beach part of our family Spanish vacation!