Spain, Part 1

Caught the plane from Rome-Madrid. Everyone on the plan must have been hungry, by the time the food trolley rolled up to 18F there was no food left! They guy next to be in 18E nabbed the last packet of Pringles and offered them to me. Alas, I was stuck with my bottle of water and a rumbling tummy for the next few hours. A few hours later I was in Spain! No Passport control at the airport, so I walked straight through with no stamp in my passport, damn! Followed the directions Diana gave me to her train station, it was really easy and in no time I was with Marcos and Diana in SPAIN! Rest assured there were many exclamations from all of us "Lisa is in SPAIN!" Crazy. Stayed that weekend with Diana and Diana's family (who had visited Edinburgh before, beautiful family). Later that night we went for rationes, like tapas but in bigger portions. Our choices included patates bravas - potato with spicy tomato sauce, calamares - calimari, and orecheo(sp) - pigs ears!!! Now I can say I have tried them but they won't become a regular fixture on my plate...it's a texture thing. The bar we went to had a medieval theme and the tables had real tree stumps as bases. Weird. Also, you can sit at tables with a keg and beer tap all set up so you can pour your own Mahou and help yourself! Apparantly they measure how much you use after you've finished drinking so you can settle the bill.

We head back home after a few drinks and it is cold! There is also a really heavy fog which is baffling - I wasn't expecting this from Madrid at all! Apparantly the change came over that day and was the first day of "cold"...good timing Lisa!

Saturday I was greeted in the morning with Spanish muffins for breakfast - Magdalenas - Marcos loves these even more than Tesco chocolate muffins, which is a lot. Off we go into town and Marcos and Diana give me a grand walking tour of Madrid. Puerto Del Sol, the Heart of Spain (aka kilometre zero), the Royal Palace and Gardens, the Opera House, Gran Via and lots of other places I can't remember right now. The other photo with all the people is in he laneways leading to the Christmas markets, sooooo many people out this Saturday it was unbelievable.

Madrid has real pride of its art collections and I had planned on seeing the Prado or the Reina Sofia but it's a long weekend in Spain and lots of people have come to the capital - the lines for these places are crazy!

We have a yummy lunch, more walking and then time for a coffee stop. By this time, it's 7pm and time for me to head to my Tapas reception for VaughanTown...next post!