Parque de Buen Retiro (by Michelle)

We love the Parque de Buen Retiro. It is a huge park (350 acres) in Madrid. Here is a picture of me and the kids rowing on the lake a couple of months ago (back in short-sleeve-weather-
days). Everybody took a turn rowing and discovering that it is harder than it looks. We were lucky we didn't ram into any of the other boats. It was a perfect day and there were lots of boats out on the pond (though they magically disappeared for the picture).

Recently we went to the park to check out the "Crystal Palace." As we got closer I explained that sometimes the building houses art exhibits.
Simon: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Sometimes they have exhibits of art like . . . (then I get distracted) . . . LOGS!"
Simon: "What do you mean?!"
Me: "Logs, just look!"

We had just come around the corner and could see the Crystal Palace. It is a large hallow building made of glass and sure enough there were huge piles of logs inside. We discovered that they were featuring the art of Andy Goldsworthy who had created huge log structures that you could go inside of -- very strange and interesting. Guards wouldn't let us take any pictures inside, but here is one from outside.

Anyway, we had fun checking the logs and I had fun taking pictures of the day. The leaves were falling and the whole area was stunning. The kids got tired of me saying, "This is beautiful! Just look at it. Ok, let's stop and just look at all this."








This funny tree is a favorite; we call it the Dr. Suess tree.