Month: December 2025

Off To Visit the Baby, Madrid 2025 Day#2. “We Get to See a Celebrity Today”

by reissmd, posted in Madrid

Any of you parents out there will be able understand why today was so wonderful.  Erica met us at the hotel after breakfast and then it was off to visit the Irish Embassy where she works as the Executive Assistant to the Irish Ambassador to Spain.   And if you don’t know how much I enjoyed writing that sentence or telling it to anyone who will listen then you definitely are not a parent.   When we planned this trip I asked Erica if we could meet the Ambassador and she said definitely.  I asked, how she could be so sure and her answer was “I make his schedule.  Hmmm, Friday December 5th, 11:00 AM: Meet my parents.  There, it’s done”.  If you don’t think that put me in parent ecstasy you are out of touch with reality.   

Meeting Ambassador Brian Glynn was a real treat.  As expected this career diplomat was very diplomatic and said all the things we wanted to hear about our daughter.  We also spoke about world affairs.  He had viewpoints about Ireland, Britain, and the United States that were spell-binding. In addition he gave me a chance to show him a few of my magic tricks.  I was amazed by how much time he devoted to us.  Mr. Glynn is a very impressive person who speaks 6 languages.  That reminds me of a joke you’ve probably already heard.  A person who speaks 3 languages is “trilingual”, someone who speaks 2 languages is “bilingual” and someone who speaks one language is of course an “American”.  

Irish Ambassador to Spain, Brian Glynn, yours truly (aka Proud Papa), Patrice (aka Proud Mama), and Erica (Executive Assistant to the Ambassador).

After leaving the ambassador we stopped for a quick snack.  I was feeling a bit guilty about not exercising so I decided to work out while eating.  See below.  

I guess I was lying when I vowed to never get on a bike again.

We bought our treats at a local market. Here are a couple of pictures from the market.

Poor little piggies hanging in the market.

If that isn’t enough to make you give up meat try looking at this picture.

Poor little piglets.

Then it was off to meet a celebrity.  Wait, did you think I meant Brian Glynn when I wrote about meeting a celebrity?   Absolutely not!  A very prominent and respected software engineer has been in London working on a project and is traveling through Madrid on his way home.   Yes, our son, David made it to Spain.   How lucky we are.  We met David at the airport and cautioned him to try hard to carry on his luggage and avoid the problem we had.  The 1500 steps to baggage claim is another matter but some exercise is actually a good thing.  Unfortunately David was not allowed to carry on his small bag but luckily his wait at baggage claim was a lot shorter than ours.

It was great having 2 of our 3 children with us.  We visited the Museo Arqueológico Nacional and saw some fascinating  exhibits some dating back to about 500-600 BC. 

Patrice and me with 2 of our 3 wonderful children.

That is going to have to be enough for now because we are off to dinner.

Adiós

Off To Visit the Baby, Madrid 2025 Day#1. “The Joys of Travel”

by reissmd, posted in Madrid

We got off to an early start to LAX today, thanks to our good friend Mike.  He has frequently volunteered to give us a ride to the airport and I think it is mostly because he feels guilty about kicking my butt during our weekend cribbage matches.  Today we are beginning a visit to see our daughter, Erica, who lives in Madrid. 

Today I fell victim to the risk of traveling from a warm climate to a cold one. I was very comfortable in Mike’s car but when I exited I realized that my jacket was safely resting on my bed at home.  No problem I thought, I’ll just buy a jacket at the airport.  Ha!  The only thing I found was something that might keep me warm in Northern California but certainly not in Madrid in December.  One thing that did warm me up was looking at the price ($699).  I messaged Erica letting her know we will need to stop at a men’s store soon after arrival.  She said the magic words, El Corte Inglés.  For those who’ve never been to Spain, ECI is the shoppers heaven.  They have everything.  From high end men’s and women’s clothing, sporting goods, jewelry, to groceries.  Mind you, not everything is in one place.  They have multiple stores around the city so you need to know which ECI store has what you need but as I said they have it. 

Our flight was wonderful.  We flew on Iberia Airlines.  The flight crew were very kind and I managed to get a little sleep. We arrived on time to Madrid.  Getting through customs was a breeze.  I went for a run in the morning but got a second work out at the Madrid airport. I’d estimate the walk from the plane to baggage claim to be about 1500 steps.  In spite of that long walk and need to go through customs we still had to wait for our luggage.  I texted Erica an update saying I think our bags might have been on a different plane because we had been waiting such a long time.  We didn’t see anything on the conveyor belt for another 25 minutes after that comment.  Total baggage wait time about 40 minutes.

After finally getting our bags we saw the sight that brought us to the country, our daughter, Erica.  She was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and was very thoughtful to turn up the heat in the car and get me to a store so I could buy a survival jacket.  Instead of ECI we wound up going to another local favorite, H & M (actually based in Sweden and not Spain). They had a variety of jackets for me to choose and I found one that cost less than the tax would have cost me for the jacket at LAX. 

How do we look? 

When I say WE I mean the jacket and me not, Erica, Patrice and me.

Sorry, I’m a little batty. I didn’t sleep much on the plane.  I need a nap.   Erica has plans for us tonight so I’ll say good night and talk to you tomorrow. 

Adios.