On Friday, we were heading back to Madrid, so Roger and I got up and walked to
the supermercado to buy some breakfast, but it didn’t open until 9, so we found
a café for some café con leche which we waited. We bought a nice selection of fruit, juice, croissants, meat and cheese
for 11 euros which ended up feeding us all nicely. We then packed and took a cab to the train
station for our 12:25 train. We were a
bit early, so we had time for more café con leche at the train station. As we lined up for security, they announced
the train was cancelled, so Roger and I got in line to get tickets for the next
train, which was at 13:25. Rasila said
she heard it was cancelled due to a strike, but I suspect the train was just
not populated enough to run it. So we
read for an hour while we waited. After
arriving back in Madrid,
we looked into the old station, which has a tropical garden in it. We took the Metro back to the Gran Via, where
we were staying in the same hotel. Our
rooms didn’t have a view, but there were as nice as the previous ones. We went to the Prado art museum that
afternoon, where they have a very impressive collection of Velazquez, Greco,
and Goya, among numerous others. We were
meeting Mark and Sabrina at 7 at the hotel, and we all went up the rooftop bar
for a pre-dinner drink. It had an
impressive view of the city and a tower that you could walk up that put you at
12 stories up that I got some good pictures from.
We were eating at a Basque restaurant that night and had an
8:30 reservation. When we arrived, we
were the only ones there. When we left
at 11:00, the restaurant was full with most people just eating their
appetizers! I had an unusual dish of
baby squid in a salsa tinta, which I found out was a sauce made with the
ink. t was very good.
Saturday, we woke at 9:15 (finally getting into the Spanish
lifestyle!), had breakfast, and met Mark and Sabrina at 11:00. We were going to go through Retiro Park,
but it was raining, so we went to the Thyssen Museum
instead. It has a collection of minor
works by major artists as well as the only collection of American art in Spain. Rasila enjoyed it as it had works by Monet,
Rodin, and others from the impressionist era, which she really likes.
We were doing a tapas crawl that night, so we decided a
siesta was in order, so after lunch at an Indian restaurant in the Lavapies
district, we took a nap. We were
starting our crawl at 7:00 PM, where we hit 7 different places, including the
place Hemingway did eat, before crowning off the evening with the San Gines Chocolateria. The hot chocolate is
famous and is served in 2 spots, both walking distance from our hotel. The chocolate is thick enough to float your
spoon, and you dip churros in it. It was
worth the wait, as Rasila had been hearing about it all week! We were finished at midnight, since we had to
travel the next day.
Sunday was our travel day home, so we got up at 7:00,
ate breakfast, and was on the Metro by 8:00. Roger and Julia’s flight was at 11, ours at noon. We had time to spend our leftover Euros at
the duty free shop and flew back with only a minor delay in Chicago due to thunderstorms. The long connection paid off as our bags made
an earlier flight and we just picked them up and took a taxi home! All in all, it was 24 hours from getting up
to going to sleep at 10 PM.
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