Ok, we´re back from Madrid.  There has been a lot of eating since we last sent news.  To be honest, we even did some sightseeing, though not without some trials and a clear message from above that such things are not to be undertaken lightly.  As we walked from our friend Philippe´s office (where we dropped off the backpack) in a fancy neighborhood through the Retiro, a beautiful park in the center of the city, we saw a column of smoke rising from the direction of the only things we had really come to see:  El Prado and the Reina Sofia Museum. 






The Prado is full of many of the works of Goya, El Greco, and Velasquez, and even since we returned from a year in Spain without even considering seeing, it has been something of an embarassment to my family.  The Reina Sofia has more modern art, Picasso´s famous Guernica, and, at this moment, a Roy Leichtenstein exhibit. 
 
But back to the smoke.  It is hard to gain enough perspective on a column of smoke to determine from where it is emanating, so we continued our walk towards the museums.  Coincidentally, the museums are located essentially across the street from the Atocha Station that was bombed by Al Qaeda in March.  We were undeterred by both that fact and the two loud explosions we soon heard.  In fact, the most daunting thing was the dust and heat.
 
Arriving at the street with all the museums, we were greeted by crowds of people looking up.




The fire was directly between the two museums, and no one seemed scared.   Clearly this was not another terrorist attack. After asking around and later reading the paper, we determined it was an electrical fire which led to an explosion in the 40000-gallon tank of vegetable oil used to cool the electrical transformers that helped provide power to the neighborhood.  Quite a show.
 
Anyhow, we finally got into the museum when it was un-evacuated, around 6, and stayed until 9, when we were starving.  Philippe led us on a forced march through the streets to a nice place with a terrace and a few other bars.  At one point, we passed what looked like a pile of shards of glass.  But it was moving.  Cockroaches.  This is why one should not wear flip-flops in the city.
 
The next day, we tackled the Prado for a few hours, got lost once, and flew back to Barcelona.  That night, we went out with Jose, Melissa, and Melissa´s parents to a Catalan steakhouse.  We ate ourselves stupid for about 3 hours and went to bed.
 
Saturday began at 3 in the afternoon, when everyone woke up.  Something in the meat, perhaps.  We killed time until dinner (read:  we wandered around and ate) and then went out for more tapas.  This time they were nouveau tapas: a Catalan riff on tuna sashimi, black noodles with squid ink and vegetables, cod raviolis, duck and mache fajitas, and a bunch of other tiny plates. 
 
We got up early on Sunday and made it out to our friends Katie and Albert´s house by 1.  This is a feat, since they live an hour outside of Barcelona.  But it is easy to convince oneself to go, since they have a beautiful house with a pool.  Sadly, a nest of angry wasps was making camp somewhere near the pool and Jose, Leah and I all got stung.  Leah even got stung twice.  Albert attacked the remaining wasps with a hose and seemed to drive them off, though poison was dispatched to take care of the toughest ones.  The day´s highlight came when one-year old Leo, the son of our friends Catrine and Marc, attacked Katie´s very pregnant midsection.  Surely you can figure out why.