Espana dia dos y tres

dia dos

we went to meetup with a "free" tour of madrid, the free people never showed which is lucky since wife was late coming back from helado. I did not tell her the free madrid people were a noshow for at least an hour to make her feel bad, I am good person. After the nontour we wandered over to the prado museum. since it is free after 6 we walked up to the park behind the museum to kill time (park retiro) and enjoyed the sights wandering around to the crystal house that was closed for no evident reason. had a beer went to the museum. Saw paintings by velazquez, goya, greco, reubens. mang (wife's favorite) and others. It turns out there are at least 246 ways to paint jesus and/or his mom.

After the museum we had tapas and wandered the city. We ended up at the royal palace and walked by a beautiful concert in the garden near by. We wandered some more got on the train and went back home.

Dia tres or as I like to call it, today.

We got up at the crack of noon and took the metro down to the train station. Eventually I figured out how to buy a ticket to toledo. Toledo is a weird place. They promote it as a city that had three cultures living peacefully together. Even a cursory knowledge of history makes their promotion seem ridiculous. I guess there were a few years here or there that three got along, probably when they had to defend themselves from a common enemy. The place has a way of glossing over the inquisition and the other awful stuff before and after that. In Toledo we went to the sephardic museum. It is a bit odd to see your people put on display as a museum. I had to remind myself that yes, we jews are still around since seeing a yamulke and prayer book behind glass and a brief explanation of what they are would seem to suggest that they were some sort of relic. We topped off the trip to toledo by getting lost in the city, seeing some other random sights and having some great middle eastern food.

We came back to madrid tried again to do a "free" trip, this time a pub crawl, needless to say, no one showed up. We went and had a few beers of our own and ended up staying out past the bus service. We tried to hop on the metro, but the metro stops close to us were shut down for maintenance. A map and a few miles later we got on the metro, the bonus was that while it took an hour longer to get home at least we did not have to switch lines.

Tomorrow we meet the pueblo ingles people for lunch and finish up our stay in madrid.

version de esposa on toledo

all the buildings we saw were from the 1200s to the 1500s, there were don quixote cervantes statutes and bars all around. The fortifications and the sheer number of cultures that had lived there was very interesting. We took a train around the perimeter and got some stories of the history. Other than that, my husband is absolutely correct on everything he wrote.

Espana dia uno

Last night we left miami flew over to spain on what we thought was a made up airline until the inlaws dropped us off at the airport. There were very few americans on the flight. Turns out neither wife nor I remember much of our high school english, taking hebrew in college was a huge waste.

We landed around noon, breezed through customs got to our hotel and took advantage of the spanish tradition of siesta. At around 7 we headed down to the main part of madrid wandered around bought wife a sweater had some tapas and went to a flamenco show. Wife loved the flamenco show, I enjoyed the music part of it but felt awkward staring at the man who was smaller than I was at 8.

We metrod back to the hotel. dia uno completoed.

version de esposa

Landing in Madrid was very scenic, with lots of big trees and farms.We've met nice and laid back people, who helped us along as we were struggling through Spanish since most Spaniards don't speak English.

The weather right now is perfect - 70's and not windy. It was awesome stepping out of the metro station into a bustling plaza surrounded by old, charming buildings. We kept walking from plaza to plaza with cafes outside. The locals really started coming out around 9pm for dinner. We ate outside and had jamon iberica (Iberian ham, tasty and lean) and croquettas, two must-haves from the area. Delicious food, but mostly meat, potatoes and bread. I already miss fruit and vegetables, but will make an effort to have some eventually.

We went to a Flamenco show at 10:30pm. It was the first time I'd seen a man do flamenco dancing, and it was powerful and dramatic, but also fun to see how much he enjoyed himself. We learned the performers are all gypsies who grew up dancing, singing, or playing guitar for flamenco. Apparently in Spain you can't really perform Flamenco without having grown up learning it.

Finally we're able to get a full night's sleep tonight!