¡Madrid!

Again! My entire post just got deleted!!! Oh this is so sad. I have to write these on my phone and it takes so long! Oh well. I am on a train ride from Madrid to Barcelona right now so it's not like I have something better to be doing!

Well lets see, Erik and I arrived in Madrid on Thursday afternoon. Spent a ridiculous amount of money on the taxi to our hostal. For to the hostal and realized it was more cheap motel than "funky boutique hotel". Erik freaked out a little- very amusing. We left and tried to walk around to find some food- haha good joke! No food between like 3&7 thanks to the country wide siesta. So we walked around in the freezing cold unsure of where we were (although in reality we were right in the heart of the city, between Plaza Mayor and Plaza Sol). I tried to ask someone a question and couldn't understand them and proceeded to feel bad for myself and my horrible Spanish until we finally found a pub and got some drinks.
That night we got home and realized the room next door had one baby, who liked to scream, and also a toddler. That was pleasant.

On Saturday we walked over to el parque buen retiro, which is a huge beautiful park in the middle of the city. Erik said its similar to Central Park but more manicured. We walked through some beautiful gardens and little forests. There was a big lake with little boats that you can peddle around in, you know? Lots of big statues and buildings. Also two palaces, pretty little things, nothing spectacular.

After our jaunt through the woods we went to my favorite museum in the whole world, El Prado. It has my favorite painting , which Las Meninas by Velasquez. If I wasn't on my phone, I would post a picture of it. Go look it up! We got to see that, and a lot more Velasquez paintings which was cool. There was an exhibit about young Antoine Van Dyck. He studied under Reuben, who also had a lot of paintings in El Prado. I enjoyed Reuben too. Also "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by El Bosco. This was my other favorite painting. It's really a trip, you should look at that too! I bet you will like it more than Las Meninas. El Bosco does a lot of interesting stuff. I don't even know how to explain it.

After El Prado, we went to the Ritz for some hot chocolate and churros. Caliente chocolate y churros. SUCH a thing. It was so nice! The Ritz was pretty, old money, very fancy. Our hot chocolate was phenomenal, it's traditionally really thick and not overly sweet. It's like melted chocolate with a little bit of milk. It was especially good because Madrid is freezing. Like 40 degrees freezing. After the Ritz we went to see The Life of Pi.
Overindulged in popcorn as per usually I never read The Life of Pi and I really didn't like the ending. It was depressing.

Our hostal didn't have a kitchen so we had to eat out most meals out. Because our popcorn binge didn't curb our appetites, we went to a little Bodega and got some jamón y queso viejo, also a bottle of Ribera. Good stuff. Saturday we spent the first half of the day running around getting our Eurail passes.

We also went to the Museu Del Jamón which is like a chain butcher shop focusing on pork, with a little pork museum on top. At any rate, they make these little sandwiches called bocadillos which are ham (proscuitto) and cheese on baguettes. So delicious. SO delicious. And they are like 2€ which is even better since Europe is SO expensive. Seriously eating them is like the highlight of my day. Anyway, Saturday night we went to The Palace Hotel for a fancy dinner date. To start we shared a bottle of Cava and a meat plate. For dinner I had shrimp in curry sauce with tempura prawns and basmati rice. Erik had slow roasted suckling pig with a tasty cranberry gravy and some sort of mashed potato situation.
Dessert was grand marnier foam with triple chocolate cake and hazelnut ice cream. They also brought us little chocolate truffles. So tasty.

Sunday was fun. Erik and I went to a big market, El Rastro. Apparently it's the biggest flea market in Europe. I got a skeleton key! I love them and I want one from every country we go to. Although I didn't get one from Portugal.
After that we went to Mercado San Miguel which is a market inside a big old building that is open every day from 10am to 2am. There are lots of stalls with fish and vegetables. Also lots of little shops that sell tapas and wine. Erik and I walked around drinking wine and looking at all the nice snacks to buy. Afterwards, we went to another market, called San Anton. This one was also inside but it was more farmers market-y. Unfortunately we got there a little late so most stuff was closed There was a restaurant on the rooftop where we sat outside and had a glass of wine while looking over Madrid. After that we went to El Corte Ingles, which is like a Macy's. The top floor, the 9th floor, is "gourmet express". Lots of foodie stuff, as well as restaurants. We sat outside and looked at Plaza Del Sol with some Cava. For dinner we went to a burger place (ha!) and got a burger. I had the Japanese burger which was veal with wasabi and soy sauce. Erik had a Kobe beef burger. They had so many ketchups! All house made. Spicy BBQ, goat cheese, honey mustard, devil spicy, mayonesa, curry...it was phenomenal! Now we are on a train to Barcelona, where we will spend the next 5 days before heading to San Sebastián for some more culinary delights!