MADRID ITINERARY:

  1. The Royal Palace of Madrid

  2. Almudena Crypt

  3. Almudena Cathedral

  4. El Tigre (tapas bar)

  5. La Realidad (wine bar)

  6. Retiro Park

  7. Gran Vía (downtown shopping area)

  8. Mercado San Miguel

  9. El Rastro (flea market)

ON MY BUCKET LIST STILL:

  1. Palacio de Cristal

  2. Chocolatería San Ginés (100 year old churro place)

  3. Alma de Julián Becerro (buy jamón ibérico and have a picnic)

  4. La Tasquita de Enfrente (Callos a la Madrileña - Jason loves tripe)

  5. La Bola (Cocido Madrileño - traditional winter stew with blood sausage)

  6. Eat porras (instead of churros) and dip them in morning coffee

  7. Vermut de grifo - vermouth from a tap

  8. Tapas Restaurants:

    1. Casa Labra (tapas bar for salt cod croquettes)

    2. Meson de Champiñon restaurant for grilled mushrooms

    3. Casa Toni (unique and traditional tapas)

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El Tigre

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Gran Vía

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Spanish folks waiting in line for the Christmas lotto

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To the right, my friend Loren

MADRID JOURNAL ‘15

I was surprised by how vast and modern Madrid was with its high rise buildings and crowded streets. For me, it was a tad overwhelming, but I was super fortunate to know someone studying there during my stay, an old friend my from high school orchestra days. I asked him, my friend Loren, if we could stay on his couch. And by my luck he was happy to host my friend and me. We stayed in a charming, Spanish-style house with tall walls surrounding it, a pond in the yard, and a lovely sitting area.

Our first morning in Madrid, Cindy and I woke up and headed out for a walk towards the palace. We stopped along the way for breakfast at the first place we found. It was a little whole in the wall and the customers were primarily older folks. The waiter didn’t speak English, so we tried to order with the few words in Spanish we knew, filling in the blanks with flamboyant gestures. We ordered tortilla espanola and coffee. We ended up walking into the Almudena Crypt and the Almudena Cathedral! It was beautiful and awe-inspiring inside. We meandered around watching the colorful shapes the stained glass casted onto the stone ground. We both sat and reflected a while in silence together.

For dinner, Loren met up with us and took us to a place called El Tigre, which I will never forget. El Tigre is a tapas bar where you buy a drink and get a plate of food with it. For 10.50 euros, we each got a drink and two heaping plates of assorted tapas including patatas bravas, tortilla espanola, stuffed mushrooms, crispy chicken wings, and meatballs. I wanted to try sangria while in Spain, but they didn’t make it there. So instead, I got a mix they made that had red wine and a drink like… dare I say Squirt? Wine fanatics don’t come after me, I know wine and soda probably sounds awful, but I actually enjoyed it.

Now here’s why I won’t forget this place. While I was standing and enjoying my food (it's common to stand and eat in Spain), I heard the waiter yell at the door something in Spanish about no dogs allowed, and then I heard ferocious barking. As I’m looking out the door to see what’s going on, already quite alarmed, something grabbed my ankle, and I heard the loud bark in my ear. For some reason the shock caused my scream to be quite delayed as I tried to figure out what was going on. It was the waiter who grabbed my ankle and barked. The audience of folks watching all laughed in unison at my reaction. But it was all in good fun! As we were getting ready to leave, a bit tipsy from the wine-juice, Loren and Cindy and I were all laughing hysterically about a mortar and pestle Loren had brought and was filling with leftover potatoes. At one point, it was just silent laughs tensing our stomaches and tears streaming down our cheeks.

We then headed out on the town and met Loren’s friends, most of whom were English teachers with Erasmus. They described their experience teaching children in Spain and told stories of kids dancing on tables to One Direction and kids stabbing other kids with pencils. The joys of children.

Together, we headed to our next destination to sip on red wine (sans Squirt). This place was called La Realidad and was extremely crowded with people our age. We were having a great time until, about 45 minutes into our time there, the girl next to me realized she had been pick-pocketed. I couldn’t believe it! I had heard so many stories about travelers being pick-pocketed and had been warned so many times, yet I had brushed them off as dramatic exaggerations. To have someone with whom I was just speaking have their stuff taken right in front of me seemed wild, almost unbelievable.

We decided to look on the floor, in the bathrooms, in front of the bar, just in case the person who stole the wallet took the money and dropped the actual case with her student I.D, passport, bus pass etc (all which would be useless to a pickpocket). We even looked in trash cans outside of the bar, and at one point, while we were looking for her orange wallet, I got a glimpse of orange and excitedly yelled, “You guys! I see something orange!” Then on closer inspection, “Oh. Wait… it’s an actual orange.”

We didn’t find her wallet, but we gave her our bus passes to help out in the meantime. Because Cindy and I had moved by foot so much more than anticipated, we had way too many rides on our passes left over to use during our short stay. We got the T-10 card, which allowed 10 trips and never expires (this is the cheapest and most efficient way to travel in Madrid). But we used it twice during our stay because we loved walking. This left 16 trips for our new friend.

With that, we left Madrid and made our way back to Southern France.