The last 4 days in Madrid were really busy. At the start of our trip Travis and I had talked about whether or not we should do the really ‘touristy’ things as we didn’t want to be stuck on a bus with cameras slung around our necks wearing Hawaiian print t-shirts and dorky hats… and there are lots of those people, believe me. I think staying in the bed and breakfast was one of the first good ideas we had because we actually got to live in someone’s house that is from the city. In Madrid we stayed at a great B & B called Abracadabra. The owners, originally from Argentina, were really awesome at showing us great out-of-the-way places to eat and see…..but we still managed to get in some touristy places.
Madrid has been really hot (~35C) so we’ve gotten up fairly early to go to things. While there are a lot of hop on hop off buses we decided to walk to most of the places because where we were was so close to everything. We visited the Palace and the Prado Museum (home to more than 7700 paintings). While the Palace was amazing, we’ve decided we aren’t art lovers as all of the paintings started to look the same after an hour (although Travis made us stand by a Rembrandt just so we could say that we did). We also managed to wander into a random park one night and get on a gondola that took us across the city. Very cool until the wind picked up – then it was not as ‘exciting’ as it initially was.
While, the first couple days were a bit hard for being tired as we were both pretty jet lagged we’ve fallen into the Spanish way of life of eating supper at 9 and staying out late. There are so many plazas just to sit and watch. The most fun we have at night is sitting in one of the larger ones and watching immigrants (mostly from Bangladesh) sell illegal knockoffs. They have made these blankets with string on them that they put their watches and purses among other things on. The second the police come they quickly pull the string that closes their blanket and off they run…. leaving the tourists who are trying to buy their knockoff Prada purses there standing there wondering what the hell just happened.
Eating has been interesting too. A big dish in Spain is Paella, which is a Spanish rice with various other ingredients. I finally tried one the other night and have decided it wasn’t for me (I felt the octopus tentacle was waving at me from my plate)… at least I tried it though.
As well as staying in Madrid, we decided to take a day trip to Toledo. Toledo is a small town about 100km south west of Madrid. The center of town is very old (I think I heard that the government will not let anything new be built there) but really cool. It’s known for its cathedral, which is amazing (Travis is currently churched out at this point and we haven’t even made it to Rome). While in Toldeo we went for lunch at the smallest little plaza in the place – it was beautiful. One of the problems we are having right now is that when we walk up to a restaurant we understand a few of the words that the waiters say to us. This makes them think we understand it all. So each time we order, or nod, it’s always a surprise as to what will come back to the table (I’m not sure why I didn’t learn some Spanish in the 6 weeks off I had before I came). Nonetheless, while we were there we were sitting next to a Spanish couple (or so we thought) until the guy turned to us and said (in English), are you from the States? After telling him we were from Canada, he told us he was from Buffalo and was getting married on Saturday. We were then invited to their wedding – which was pretty cool. Unfortunately we were headed back to Madrid and so we wished them well.
Anyways… After 4 days in Madrid we are now headed to Malaga, which is in the south of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea. We are currently on a high-speed train (our first – we are going 270km/hr – YIKES!) and will pick up a car (I have the international drivers license and Travis is already crapping his pants) when we get there.
I hope everyone is enjoying our updates… we’ll try to do the after every city as this is as much as a travel diary for us as it is for people to see what we are up to.
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