Hello everyone and happy Friday.
Liesl has family on our side of the Atlantic this month, and she’s been traveling to to see them. Last weekend she and S went to The Netherlands where they met two of Liesl’s sisters, her parents, and some cousins. They spent time in Amsterdam, and then they all went to visit the village their family came from.
Yesterday morning S left with her grandparents for the United States where she is going to spend the first part of her summer vacation, and now Liesl is flying off to Morocco (a place she’s always wanted to visit) with her sister for a few days.
I’m here in Madrid, estar de Rodriguez, so I’ve been drafted to write this week’s weekend links post. Sorry in advance to those of you who look forward to Fridays for Liesl’s fashion- and sewing-related picks. Today it’s all about me! (Well, every day is all about me around here, but it’s not often that I get to take over the blog too….)
A few weeks ago I bought a ticket to the bullfights in Madrid. There are corridas every day during the month surrounding the Festival of San Isidro in May. I didn’t really have much interest in bullfighting, per se, but I thought that I should go at least once to have the cultural experience while we are here.
Bullfighting is controversial in Spain. It has been banned in some parts of the country, and it is losing its audience as aging aficionados are not being replaced by younger ones. People have profound differences of opinion on bullfighting, and I don’t want to open a discussion on that topic by mentioning that I attended a bullfight. But I do want to share some photos from last Sunday’s Madrid bullfight to give you a taste for the artistry of the traditional costumes worn by the toreros. They really are spectacular. (All photos are by Juan Pelegrín, the official photographer of Las Ventas.)
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Weekend Reading
As I was collecting links to share, I started noticing a theme. So here’s my selection of post-father’s day weekend reads for you.
- When my dad was young, he and his family rode horses. But I bet they never chased down and roped a bike thief.
- Many dads like to enjoy a cold adult beverage every so often. Unbeknownst to me at the time, when we moved to Spain last year I pretty much gave up the possibility of ever drinking a good beer again.
- NFL player shows up for training camp overweight. No, he doesn’t blame it on good American beer. He blames it on his pregnant girlfriend.
- It’s a proven fact: parents are less happy than people who aren’t parents. (At least we have someone to blame for the spare tire, though.) But new research shows that it is possible to eliminate the parenting happiness gap.
- An interesting look at the fatherhood approach taken by a well-known dad who “lives above the store.”
- Finally, the story of a different father who took off to travel around the world on stolen plane tickets in the 1970s.
Liesl will be back next week with your regular (and more appropriately on-topic) weekend links post.