"Oh, the Places We'll Go!": Ling

So as of today I have been here exactly one week!! I wish I could say that this past week has flew by, but actually it has been quite the opposite... the week felt as if it crept on forever! Probably because my kids are still in school (this week is their last week, they finish friday). So I literally have all day and then the children don't get home till about 6pm, and of course time goes by a lot faster when I am constantly playing with them until bedtime. I can tell they are testing me a lot of the time to see what they can get away with, and I will say I am pretty lenient. However I think I have found the key to making them mind me (and lets hope this works for awhile). The kids absolutely LOVE to play games on my iPad, so now I have learned to bribe them with iPad time for good behavior... they don't listen to me or misbehave, I threaten their iPad time for the day or the following day- and so far it has worked great ( haha whatever works!). But other then that the kids have been great, Ana (the youngest) has really grown on me, she loves to hug on me and always wants to be by me! And in reference to my title of this post, my kids do not call me Lynlee, instead they call me "Ling" which is pretty funny, if its not ling its "Leeen", but I pretty much answer to anything!

My family lives in Las Matas which is about 20 min north of Madrid. So during my free time I have traveled into the city (Madrid) because obviously that is where all the action is! This past monday and tuesday I caught up on my sleep and adjusted to everything so by Wednesday I was going crazy to get out of the house! So on Wednesday my host mom dropped me off in Madrid before work and I met up with another au pair, Liz, who was from Utah. Liz had already been here a few weeks so it was SO nice and such a relief to have someone who kind of knew the city (If I had gone by myself the first time I literally would of felt like a lost puppy!). The first thing we did was walk to this beautiful park called Parque de Retiro, which is basically like the central park of Madrid, it was beautiful and nice to walk around and see the landscaping and statues, there was also a biggg pond in the middle where people were canoeing and such. After walking around the park we went to the Museo Thyssen- Bornemisza, which is one of three very popular museums in Madrid. This museum had over 800 paintings from the 13th century to present, I can honestly say I don't think I have ever been to a museum before this (crazy I know)! It was pretty cool to see how trends and art and paintings have changed over time, many if not most of the earlier paintings were very religious or were taken after bible stories. However, once you look at over 800 paintings (it seemed like way more) for about 2 1/2 hours, they all start to look the same! haha I recognized a few artist like Van Gogh and Monet, but of course you couldn't take any pictures in there! After that we stopped at a small cafe for some tapas (which means like small snack-very popular her in spain) and relaxed. Thank god for Liz she really helped me figure out the city, like how to use the underground metro to get around, that way I don't die walking place to place within the city (which is pretty large). After Liz left I then went to do a little shopping in Sol which is a very central spot in Madrid with lots of shopping and eating- but also very touristy! That was cool, the highlight of that shopping trip was the FIVE story H&M, which i loved! But unfortunately I was so tired that even I, of all people could not really concentrate on shopping so I called it a day and took the bus back home!

Friday I took the bus into the city again, this time I was by myself so I decided to do a little shopping (shopping I can do alone, I am in the zone- however sightseeing is not much fun by yourself so I decided to wait on that for a friend to tag along). There are SO many great stores I was in heaven, but I was most blown away by the Zara. This was not your typical Zara like the one at the domain, this one first of all was FOUR stories (and also had home goods-how cool!) it had SO many cute things and is also about 30%-40% cheaper than it is in the US... so of course I had to take advantage of that! After a few more stops I made my way back home to relax by the pool the rest of the afternoon!
This week Charles's niece is flying in from England to spend a week or so with us, and fortunately she is close to my age (20 I believe) so that will be nice to have someone around to go explore with!
The remainder of the weekend I did not do much, my family left to go down to their country house on saturday morning but I stayed behind because I had plans to go out with a friend. Unfortunately my friend caught an eye infection from one of her kids so we had to postpone things for another time, so I just stayed at the house by myself Saturday night.... and this is where things get interesting, I have a little bit of a story (kind of embarrassing). So before going to bed Saturday night i close all the blinds and set the alarm system, but you still leave the majority of the windows open because of the cool breeze, and if anyone touches the blinds the alarm goes off. I crawl into bed about 1AM and am laying there trying to go to sleep but the wind is howling, the house is also pretty old so literally EVERYTHING makes a sound. I kept on hearing creaking noises on the floor and on the stairs as if somebody was in the house, and then the wind would blow and doors would blow open or slam shut! Oh my gosh my heart was racing, my first thoughts are "either somebody is coming to rob the house and kill me, or abduct me into sex trafficking" (I had also watched the movie "Taken" about a week and a half before coming here, smart huh? And I doubt my dad could pull what Liam Neeson did in that movie and save me, so pretty much in my mind- I'm gonna die!). So I then push my night stand in front of my door thinking if somebody tries to come through the door they will run into this night stand first.... and then after about five minutes my door rams open into my nightstand and then as a gust of wind comes through it closes again! By this point I am literally on the verge of tears and convinced that there is somebody in this house! So after a few minutes I grab my pillows and blankets and sprint next door to the bathroom and lock the door. I make a bed in the bathtub (thank gosh it was a pretty big bathtub) and I stay in there/ sleep on and off until about 7 this morning. Since it was daylight I had the courage to leave the bathroom and get back in my bed, (I mean what killers/abductors come during the daytime?) and finally I catch up on the sleep I missed. I am so embarrassed, but I am so paranoid about stuff like that I could not help my self....shame on my mind for playing tricks on me like that!
Other than my potential night time killers/abductors, I had a pretty relaxing Saturday night!
This time I do not have many pictures of my trips to Madrid, mainly because I have been too busy/concerned with finding my way around and not getting lost! So now that I have the city decently mapped out I will dedicate a day or two to really seeing the sights and posting some really cool pictures because the city really is beautiful!!!
Enough for this post, the rest of my Sunday will consist of relaxing with the family, they are having some friends over for dinner so that should be nice! I miss everyone!! Until next time :)

-Lynlee