My little Spanish life

We did make it to Madrid, we just had to buy a new flight, and spend most of the day in the airport, oopsies. We were also so tired and hungry that we got two teas, two coffees, one orange juice, two waters, two croisants with ham n cheese, a muffin and a giant peanut butter cookie...and some strange looks from the man that rang us up. Refueled, we toted around our massive bags and eventually were on a flight to our new home.

Madrid is great- expensive, but great. It was so hot there (yay, a real summer!), and our apt was across the street from the most beautiful park (as some of you know from my photo album dedicated to it on Facebook). The park has waterfalls, statues, tennis courts (I think 8), soccer fields (4), huge sun bldg with pond and fountain in front of it, an art museum, running/biking/walking paths galore, large areas for skating, an outdoor gym!, and and and...

One of our first nights there, we went to a bar called The Penthouse in Santa Ana plaza. It had a spectacular view of the city from it's penthouse rooftop terrace. We met some of Anna's classmates and hung out enjoying the view of the city at sunset, and the bustle of people down in the square. We went out with Anna's classmates quite often- Cuban food (not as good as Peseos in Seattle) and salsa dancing (also had Cuban cigars- terrible idea), went dancing at a few clubs, and out to dinner at so many of the gorgeous plazas that have outdoor dining.

I found that I enjoyed some of the food, and I definitely am a fan of tapas style eating, but I did not care for the massive amounts of ham and cheese, and sardines! The wine however, was delicious, available in copious amounts, and so so cheap :)

I found the residents not to be as welcoming to foreigners as I expected (it definitely would've helped if my Spanish were up to par).

We rode the metro like crazy during our time in Madrid- they have a good system, and reasonably priced. We somehow managed to navigate around really well the entire time.

I'm glad that I went to the museums, though most of the art was not my favorite style, and there is heavy religious influence on much of it. Prado was my favorite one in Madrid; mostly the bldg- it's massive and so old and beautiful. They had a large collection of Picasso, and paintings so old that it's hard to even grasp their age. Many had very interesting stories about the painting and/or the painter. There was stories about jesters, and kings and their 14 wives, and a woman that grew hair all over her entire body like a werewolf (breastfeeding her baby in the picture; supposedly the painting was a scientific documentation of the condition), the first painting to ever show a woman masterbating, the significance of all the objects around the subject when portraits painted....it took a long time to go through it, and I didn't see everything.

We made several short trips out of Madrid while living there, but they'll need separate posts, as I have so many pictures.