Another very interesting weekend abroad! Chris is the Director of the Model United Nations Club at our school and they had a Conference in Madrid this weekend. It required a female chaperone, so I was able to go along. We left Friday morning at 6am in an Uber for the airport, and met 14 students there to board a flight to Madrid. These are intellectual 12-14  year olds and because of their age, it is like we are living a comedy show…they are really too funny for words! Basically ‘young teen’ versions of the characters in Big Bang Theory.

Anyway, we landed in Madrid and had a luxurious coach bus meet us at the airport and take us to our hotel to check in. Only Chris and I stay at a hotel and the students are all housed with families from the conference.

After we checked in, we walked them to a nearby Botanical garden in an old train station and we had lunch there.  Then we returned to the hotel after some souvenier shopping and took our shuttle bus out to the American School of Madrid. The students went to their conference rooms and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. After returning to the hotel, Chris and I walked to a restaurant and had some Spanish croquettes and Dougall’s.

Saturday was a full day, 9am to 9pm at the American School of Madrid, although we are not required to ‘do’ anything during that time, so we went to a nearby shopping centre and found a Tim Hortons.  By the time we got into the hotel that night it was too late to go into the old city centre so we stayed close to the hotel district.

The next day the conference ended at 1pm and so we had the rest of the day until 5:30 in the old centre. It was a magnificent surprise. Madrid has some beautiful squares and a great vibe. Here are some pics of the palace and cathedral.

More than any other city we’ve been to in the EU, Madrid had the most human sculptures in the city (with real humans who set themselves up as statues). I only took a small # of photos of them, but they were everywhere we went!

One of our favourite places was Plaza Mayor and I enjoyed San Miguel market and walking in the old centre. It was a highlight of the trip, this area.

There were so many street performers too and we stopped to watch a couple of them. Here is a very short video of one…

Thank you Madrid and ASP- it was a fun weekend away!