On Wednesday, the boys were heading back to the Real Madrid training center to train some more, and a bunch of parents went into Madrid to tour around. I had a great guidebook, so once we got there (after a bit of a crazy time with sitting on a train that wasn’t moving, getting off to find another train that left, back to the original one that left too, then finally finding another one!!) we just explored following the suggested route.

We went to Puerto del Sol, back to the Mercado San Miguel market, off to a little church – that smelled like lemon cookies:)

My guidebook told us about this little unmarked door leading to a convent bakery – where you walked into this corridor and into a little room where there was a big wooden turnstile, you spoke through the turnstile (you couldn’t see the nun) and told her what you wanted, then put the money down, turned the turnstile, then turned it back to received your cookies! Of course, they were lemon (that was the smell)!

We continued on and went to the courtyard of the Royal Palace, and then toured the modern, but beautiful cathedral. We passed the Theatre and wandered through some more streets and squares.

We made out way to the top of a department store that was known to have a gourmet market/restaurant area with fabulous views.

It was really nice! We headed back to the hotel via the train (which we got right this time) and found the boys in their forced “study hall” supervised by coach Marko. They studied until it was time for us to leave for their second game.

They also tied their second game – it was tough competition!

After the game, we headed on for more soccer except we went to the stadium to watch Atletico play. They won and the boys loved being up in the stands cheering them on with all the Spanish fans.

Josh loved his ham (prosciutto) sandwich – had two of them at the game as he was starving after playing.

It was a super late night and everyone was completely exhausted, but another great day.