Sabbatical Day 1: Midway to Madrid

My sabbatical started on Monday, June 19. Since I’m off for three entire months overlapped with László’s and Danielle’s summer breaks, we decided to take a big old trip to Europe. Our first international trip as a family, and my first since the 2019 VIP Grand Meetup in Rotterdam. The first day started with a drive down to Chicago Midway Airport where we had a healthy lunch of pizza and Nuts on Clark before boarding our flight to Atlanta and then Madrid, Spain.

8:45 on a Tuesday was a good time to arrive in Madrid. Customs and passport control was a breeze. László got his first passport stamper and we were off to our AirBnB in Barrio de la Latina. We’re about a five minute walk from an entrance to Casa de Campo park. László made a friend named Mateo on a playground there but the hit of the day had to be the Balloon Museum. This is a traveling exhibition that was apparently in an episode of the show Emily in Paris. It features artists from around the world who create works “in which ‘air’ is a distinctive element.” It turns out it leaves Madrid the same day we leave, so we were lucky to see it.

You might call it a pop up museum. I dunno, just a thought.

The exhibition is called Pop Air and was awesome and I’m really glad we got to see it. If it’s coming to a city near you, you should check it out! Or if you’re visiting a city that will have it, go visit while you’re in town.

For us, it was a great way to restimulate our brains that thought it’s still 7:00 in the morning when it’s actually 2:00 in the afternoon. We left the museum in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day snacking and trying to stay awake until a reasonable bed time. We mostly succeeded.

Anyway, a strong start to Madrid is in the bag and we’ll have more tomorrow!