Beginning a new week

Back to class on Monday with new students in many of the classes. During the summer, every Monday has new students who are beginning a course. As we progress through there will be more and more students from different countries. After lunch and before our walking tour of Madrid of the Austrians, I took the boys to Chueca, a newly updated and trendy part of the city near the school. There we explored an upscale market where you can buy your meat or fish at the market on the first level and take it up to the restaurant on the third level to have the chef cook it to your desired perfection. Very cool.

Part of our walk through Madrid of the Austrians or Old Madrid from the time of the Austrian Kings was to visit the Casa Botín, noted in the Guinness Book of Records as the world´s oldest restaurant. In fact, it was founded in 1725 and has been a restaurant without ceasing since that time. Inside, you can see part of the old Christian wall of the city. It is very famous, very small and one of the many places in the city that Hemingway frequented. It´s specialty is cuchinillo asado, roast suckling pig - a regional delicacy, but something that most of the boys said they were reluctant to try. haha
We meandered through the oldest street in the city, passed by the oldest building with its moorish style horseshoe arches and saw the original town hall. I think at times the concept of buildings from the 13th and 14th century is lost on the boys. But they´re taking a ton of pictures!
Tuesday brought us to the Botanical Gardens near the Prado Museum. They are beautiful cultivated gardens containing thousands of species including cacti, tropical plants and more than 100 bonsai specimens from the collection of one of the former presidents who donated his entire collection to the garden upon his death. They are fascinating, some are individual trees, but others are like little forests containing trees and rocks. They are very cool.