Madrid - Day 1

Cervantes Pizza Bar, our local bar/breakfast place

15/9/2010 - Madrid

Cervantes Pizza Bar, Madrid - After an 11-hour sleep, we are recharged and ready to hit Madrid. Last night was sort of a comedy of errors. Our second flight ended up being about an hour late, getting us into Madrid-Barajas airport, where the Metro pass machines would not work with any of our credit cards, so we had to get cash at an ATM in the airport to get into Madrid (can't imagine we got the best exchange rate there, but really not a whole lot of choices). Because of that, we ended up getting to the hotel about an hour after I was supposed to have called Natalia to make plans to meet up for dinner. Our room didn't have a phone, and naturally the phone in the lobby wasn't working, so after dumping our bags and a quick change out of our grungy, travel soiled clothes in an effort to feel slightly more human, we had to go in search of a phone. After wandering around for a few minutes, we found a phone/Internet place, so I called Natalia's cell - and got her voicemail. I left a message letting her know that we had arrived safe and sound, didn't have a way for her to get back to us, and we'd call her back in a few minutes.We ended up wandering around our neighborhood, which was right by the Prado and Parque Retiro, and was still hopping at 10:30 on a Tuesday night, which, coming from a town that closes up at 8 seems like such a novelty. Finally got ahold of Natalia and made plans to talk tomorrow once we'd gotten some more sleep. We then had the very hard decision of figuring out where to eat. There were about a gazillion restaurants in our neighborhood, which is actually very overwhelming when you're exhausted and have no real information to help you choose one place over another or recommendations or anything. In the end, we settled on probably the worst place (loud Americans) we could find. The main reason for going to this place over any of the other numerous options? No one was smoking. We ended up ordering canapes instead of tapas, so we ended up with basically half-baguettes slathered with various toppings (cod & tomatoes, some small fishes, and tuna spread that looked exactly like an open-faced tuna fish sandwich). It was okay, but WAY too much food, but we were no longer hungry and tired, but just tired. After we wandered around a little more, we went back to our hotel and crashed.

First night's dinner

I have to take a minute to totally bitch about smoking in Europe, Spain in particular. It is HORRIBLE, people smoke EVERYWHERE, and cigarettes are really cheap, about $4 or $5 a pack versus I believe about $7 or $8 in WA. After Washington banned smoking in public, I got totally re-sensitized to cigarette smoke, and it bugs me even more than ever. Plus, having a tiny, capsule wardrobe I'm already worried about keeping clean, I now have to worry about it smelling smokey. Apparently a law was passed a few years back banning smoking indoors, but everyone ignores, which explains the "No Smoking"signs I see on doors of bars & restaurants full of people smoking. Natalia later told us that they're supposed to pass another law in December that actually enforces the no smoking law. We'll have to wait to come visit again after that. Seriously.

It's pretty hot out, and we're enjoying what will become our staple breakfast in Spain - coffee, hot chocolate, and tortillas at a bar. Our plans for today are pretty basic, we're going to La Reina Sofia, the modern art museum that houses Picasso's "Guernica" (one of my all-time favorite paintings) and some amazing Dalis & Miros. Then we're meeting up with Natalia in la Plaza del Sol and she's going to help us get a cell phone to use throughout the rest of our trip, then go to a market near her neighborhood and walk around a bit, then go back to her apartment and meet Javi for dinner.

The courtyard of La Reina Sofia.

Lunch.

It ended up being a great day, lots of walking (we're so centrally located, we probably won't get a whole lot of use out of our metro passes) and it was really nice to be walking around with someone who knows where they're going so we don't have to keep whipping out our map every time we turn a corner. The museum was spectacular, though we started out with the temporary (and practically deserted) exhibit of Manhattan mixed media pieces, mostly photography, where we spent about 45 minutes more than I thought necessary before heading down to the older works. After a quick outdoor lunch of bacalao for me and a jamon y queso bocadillo for Geoffrey, we headed over to el Prado (the line was WAY too long, so we sadly didn't even try to go in) and checked out Parroquia San Jerónimo El Real, a cool church right behind it. We headed to Plaza del Sol to meet Natalia after that. We ended up taking the Metro, basically just to avoid getting too lost. It was so great to see Natalia, she looks so at home here, Spain definitely agrees with her. We walked through the Plaza del Sol, which was probably the most crowded place we'd been to so far, and headed to a Vodafone store, with the hope of getting a disposable cell phone that we could use in Spain and switch out the SIM card when we got to Italy. According to the (incredibly unhelpful) sales lady, you can't do that. I really think she just didn't feel like helping us out, since I'd read in multiple places that it's really easy to do exactly that. Sans phones, we headed to a really cool indoor market which seemed like a cross between Pike Place Market and Whole Foods, where we got some olives, stuffed peppers, wine, chocolates, juice, and coffee and ate them at a standing bar area.

The market.

After the market, we headed to Natalia & Javi's through la Plaza Santa Ana and a couple of other really cool plazas. One of them had a fountain in the center, and while we were there, two dogs came running up to it, and jumped INTO the fountain to get a drink. It was obscenely cute. They were eventually joined by another dog (Geoffrey has been singing "Three Dogs in a Fountain" ever since).

The fountain, pre-dogs.

Three dogs in a fountain.

We eventually got to Natalia & Javi's apartment, which is fantastic. It's in this great old building, but the apartment itself is really modern. We went to dinner with them and met their friends Lucia & Tony. It was great, I got to practice my Spanish a lot, since Lucia doesn't speak English. We ate at a really cool local place where I'm pretty sure we were the only non-locals there. The food was really good, we had some delicious wine and some actual salads (I was craving some fresh veggies after a day of mostly fried food) and I had black risotto with bacalao (good but very rich) and everybody shared dessert (a brownie with violet ice cream - the brownie was so-so, the ice cream was definitely better). After dinner we walked around some more (poor Javi had to work the next day, so he had to head back home because it was getting pretty late). The rest of us stopped for drinks at a bar, then Tony & Lucia walked us back to our neighborhood, since their apartment was really near us and we had no clue where we were at that point and didn't feel like getting lost at 2AM. We finally got to be around 2:30, exhausted and happy about our first full day of our trip.