Friday, October 24th
Leon is where Alfonso received his PhD. We met up with his mentor Jose Antonio, his wife, and his son. His poor wife was in a cast, due to surgery. It was very interesting to see a woman get around ancient Spain with a wheel chair and crutches. I had met his mentor and I sat across from his wife during a dinner Brent had on my first visit to Spain. At that time, she was just a PhD student working on kids with muscular dystrophy and exercise. I had no idea that they were an item when they were at the dinner three years ago. They were wonderfully charming people - typical of Spain.

Alfonso walked us through the center of town at about 7:30. It was completely desolate. We walked by a Gaudi building and they had a statue of Gaudi admiring his work while sitting on a park bench - photo opportunity!! We continued to check out the center of the city and there was no one. We also walked by the cathedral which is a sister to the Notre Dame, Alfonso said we would be back tomorrow. He also explained that this part of Leon is called the watering hole, because it has 1 bar per 17 people. He also said, “Just wait, the people will come.” Right he was, come 8:00, that area was swamped with people.

The first tapas bar, we got drinks and they gave us meatballs for free tapas. The girls liked eating with toothpicks - yes, we were bar hopping with our children. The next place was packed and we ate chips and drank outside on counters surrounding the building. Then we headed to La Bicha. This place is well known for their morcilla. Morcilla is blood sausage, Ana wouldn’t tell us what is was until we were done eating. This La Bicha place was literally a hole in the wall. Only one guy was working, the boss. The place was packed - the fire marshall would have kicked half of us out. The guy was very grumpy and Ana said that he won’t serve you if he doesn’t like you. He never has anyone help him, because he is a tyrant - but has the best morcilla around. I concur and the place was entertaining in the people watching to say the least. We then headed back to the hotel for the night.

The next day, Brent and Alfonso had the conference. Ana, the girls, and I went and toured a mid evil church. It had tombs of kings and queens of the regions since the 12th century here. The thing is, Napoleon took over the crypt as stables and then buried his own people in the same tombs. So researchers haven’t tried to tackle this issue yet.

We met Alfonso and Brent in the downtown city center. We did some shopping. Brent and Alfonso got hats; Jocelyn, Ana, and I got boots. We then toured the cathedral with its flying buttresses. It was great, because it was during the day and we could see the stained glass. The girls kissed the statues out front and played on the LEON sign. We then toured the monastery, which is still active. We also found a traveling museum depicting the Moorish life, which was such a fabulous recap of our trip to Granada. We learned even more!!!

That night we went to dinner with Jose Antonio and his family. They took us to the caves. This is in the wine country were the families drilled caves to store their wine reserves. The restaurant was in a bunch of abandoned caves that they had drilled together. It was really cool eating. The food was more of the “interesting” Spanish cuisine.

Sunday, we got up and headed to Valladolid. This is where one of Alfonso’s closest friends lives. We met up with him and his two sons. The city was crazy. They have their own film festival every year, and place doubles in size. We had tappas with Juan throughout the city, because it was crazy finding any place to sit and visit. He took us on a tour of the cathedral. This cathedral was started by Carlos the fifth and was to be finished by his son, Felipe. Felipe decided to stop working on Valladolid, and instead started El Escorial in Madrid. There is some tension still on that matter.

Thursday, October 30th
Today, Bryce wore her Halloween shirt from Aunt Jen to school (She has been sleeping in Grandma‘s). We also found her a witch’s hat that matched. All of the little kids got to parade through the school, so the big kids could see them dressed up. Jocelyn and our neighbor friend Lucia both saw Bryce all dressed up. Jocelyn watched Halloween movies English, during English class.

The girls didn’t have school on Halloween. We got up and went into Madrid. Off of our train, there is a stop that has a MacDonald’s, an American Rib Place, and a movie theater. We planned a family date.

Bryce chose MacDonald’s for lunch - surprisingly good - I don’t even eat it in the US. Then we went to see High School Musical Three - per Jocelyn’s request. This was the perfect movie to see in espanol. We had seen the previous two, we knew the characters, it was the senior year so we had a clue about the story line, and the songs were in English. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and can’t wait to see if what I thought happened really did in English!!!

We then met up with Kelly and Chelsea at the Rib place - Jocelyn’s request. Steve and Laurie were away touring Rome. The rib place was all decorated and very cool. The thing is, Halloween in Spain is scary - we didn’t really like it. The video in the restaurant continued to place scary scenes from every horror film. The service was yucky. We left only to have freaky people about. We rushed home as quickly as possible.

At home we had our own Halloween. Everyone dressed up. Jocelyn and Bryce put on makeup and the Ladies’ shoes. I dressed up as a beggar in Puerta Del Sol. The Ladies’ looked like jacked up ballerinas. Very Funny. Everyone had their door and their candy, and Jocelyn and Bryce went trick or treating to everyone’s door. We then sat about and ate our stash. A lovely Halloween!!!