Madrid

 Madrid was our last stop on our Spanish adventure and it was full of adventure for sure! We dropped our bags at the hotel and hit the road. First up was the palace. I'm always a sucker for a good palace and always wishing I could go back to the day when it was actually being lived in.

 While we were at the palace we this little yellow car drive past us with its own little recorded tour guide. Dianna and I decided we HAD to find them. Little did we know the adventure and momentary fear it would bring! After driving around in circles we soon found out the GPS guided tour was not as easy as we thought. It was still a fun way to see the city and hear a little bit about it. We didn't see but maybe half of the tour we were supposed to but we didn't want to pay extra so we headed back to the garage. Once back we needed to get to the other side of the street so we just Uturned at the light passed the garage. Next thing we know we see police lights pulling us over! Literally 20 yards from where we were turning it in. We were told Uturns are illegal and asked to see Dianna's drivers license. She hands it to him only to be asked where her international license was! International what?!? You know when you signed the papers to rent these cars, you said you had an international license. They followed us to the garage and then back to the office of the car rental company. Meanwhile mom, Carter and aunt Lynnie come running up. Mom thinks running up with a cute baby should definitely get us out of trouble right? No! The lady in the office quickly pulls out the paper Dianna signed. Where mixed in with lots of other jarggon says "Must have a valid drivers license translated in Spanish." What does that mean? Now we know. Anyway Dianna talks her way through it and despite telling us he should give us a 500 Euro fine, we walk away with no ticket. I let the lady know how irresponsible it was on her part not to make sure tourist understand that and for wording it to where people don't understand it. How hard is it to say "You do have an international license don't you?" They knew if they made it clear they would lose money because we wouldn't be able to do it. Any way it was an experience and we didn't get a ticket.
 

We got lots of stares and laughs and a few people even stopped us to ask where we got the car because they wanted to do it too!

 After our GoCar expedition we found the market we had heard about. It was really neat. They had all different kinds of food booths inside. It was a neat little hang out.

 We would randomly see people all dressed up. It was another holiday of some sort but I don't remember what.

  Always fun to watch street entertainers dancing in the square.

 And even more fun when they are joined by dancing Asian tourists!!

One thing we noticed about all the cities we went to were the nice parks. Each city had really nice parks full of people hanging out and relaxing.

 

 With great parks comes great people watching.

 Trying to get back to our hotel we stumbled across another protest. Being in big crouds like this with a baby sure makes you a lot more jumpy.

 The sign in our hotel.

 Our view from our balcony, during the day. Our nighttime view has its own post following this one!!

 More awesome people watching! Which is better the awesome pink pants or the old man wearing a clown nose!!

 Random guy sitting next to us at the restaurant taunting people walking by. Everyone stopped and looked at him like he was crazy, we really wish we knew what all he was saying to them!

 Much anticipated show our walking tour guide told us about. We sat at this restaurant having snacks and sangria a good 30 minutes waiting for this "show". The first video is us guessing what it was going to be. The second is a clip of the excitement!

Madrid was interesting and full of randomness and excitement.