Trip to Spain, Part 1: Madrid

In the middle of last year, an old friend of Rodney and his brother Roger told us they were moving to Spain for a couple years. We decided that we needed to visit while they were there. The last week of September, that's what we did!

We flew American Airlines to Chicago, where we connected to Iberia Airlines to Madrid. We arrived Sunday morning at about 7:30 AM, where it was still dark because the timezone in Spain is the same as Germany, even though it is closer in Longitude to the United Kingdom. We were met by our friends, Mark and Sabrina, who we first went and got a cafe con leche with, then bought Metro tickets and rode the metro to the terminal Roger and Julia were arriving at. It was 2 stops! Roger and Julia had just got through customs when we arrived, so we then all rode the Metro to downtown Madrid, where our Hotel, the Hotel Atlantico was located on the Gran Via.

Mark and Sabrina had participated in the Blanco Noche so they were as tired as we were. We planned on an easy day and took in tapas and beer for lunch at a place called Dona Juana and then walked to the Plaza del Sol, the Plaza Mayor, took in a drink at the belgium cafe, then went and dropped Rasila off back at the hotel.

The Gran Via was blocked off and when we asked why, we found out the Tour de Espana was finishing in Madrid by the Banco de Espana just down the street. We walked down and watched the finish of 5 laps on the Paseo del Prado. An italian won the stage, but a russian won the race.

We went back and woke up Rasila and walked to a microbrewery called Meson. We had a couple plates of meat while Rodney enjoyed a Tortilla Cerveza!

The next day, we got up, ate a nice breakfast at the hotel (included in the room), then Sabrina met us and we walked to the  Palacio Real.  The Armory was on loan to the Forbidden City in Bejing, so we missed that, but the palace is a museum into itself with lots of art and unusual rooms.

After lunch, we took the metro to the Banco de Espana stop to visit the Museo Reina Sofia, a modern art museum.  It has an impressive set of glass elevators on it’s entrance and is famous for its collection of surrealistic art by Picasso, Dali, and Miro, among others.  It has a very famous painting inspired by the destruction of a town in northern Spain that Franco allowed Germany to test their WWII weaponry upon called Geurnica. We were having dinner with Mark, who had to work all day, so we took the Metro out to the area that they live in and sat at a café having a beer waiting for Mark.  There, we met 2 other people Mark worked with out grocery shopping and walking their dog.  Our dinner was early, 8 PM, so we were seated outside, where we had a wonderful seafood Paella.  Afterwards we all had a sidra (cider) from the local sidrea next door.