Next phase:Spain
Highlights from Madrid
-Arriving at the airport and searching for Customs/Passport control, and even inquiring of the security guard, who said we were free to go. What? This is the country that got bombed a few years ago? We don’t even get a stamp in our passports?
-Blowing a fuse in our hotel room and having to switch rooms at 1 am.
-Searching for “helados” every day when we got that ice cream urge.
-Trying not to eat the olives and bread and other appetizers that they put on our table, because it cost extra.
-Arriving at a restaurant too late for lunch and having the owner keep the place open just for us so we could try paella, the national dish!
-Trying desperately to remember Spanish, when all that came to mind was Russian.
-Finding out that Flamenco shows and bullfighting starts at 10:30 or 11:00 pm…past our bedtime!
-Riding the all-day hop on/hop off double-decker tourist bus!
-Browsing a big used/rare book fair.
-Searching for lakes and other bodies of water by which to relax, and finding out that a “lake” can be a man-made pond with paddle boats.
-Asking for directions and always receiving the answer “Go left.” “A la izquierda” became our Spain motto.
-Trying to be Spanish and trying “tapas,” only without the bar-hopping.
-Taking a siesta in the botanical gardens…just collapsed on the grass under the trees. In Spain we saw a lot of people doing this, and it seemed like a pretty nice custom. Hopefully nobody thought we were intoxicated.
(unrelated photo of Goya outside El Prado museum)
Sounds like so much fun! How was the paella? Was it worth it? Certainly looks yummy. See anything cool at the book fair? That sounds so amazing.
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