Madrid

Over the last 2 days, we´ve been exploring the great town of Madrid. The first thing that surprised us upon arrival into this city was the heat....not that we weren´t expecting it, but it is much more hot in Madrid than it was in Paris or London. Summer baby!

We are staying at a great hostel in the center of the city. We are about a 5 minute walk from the main square, Puerto del Sol. During our time here, we´ve seen a lot of the city. We visited the Prado Art museum, the Royal Palace, and had several a siesta in a great local park. Last night, we did a ¨tapas tango.¨ In Spain, they have these things called ´tapas´...they are little finger foods...a small appetizer. Around 8 p.m., all of Madrid comes out, and begins to hop from place to place to have drinks and tapas. They do this for about 2-3 hours and then proceed to have dinner around 10 or 11. The streets are packed! We had such a blast doing this. Madrid has the best tapas around, apparently. We enjoyed some chorizo, fried shrimp, and a few other local favorites.

Tonight, Mark and I experienced our first, and most likely last, bullfight. We thought, ¨Why not? We´re in Madrid.¨ It was quite the experience. We bought really cheap tickets...around $6 a piece. These got us seats at the top of the stadium with a grand view around the circular stadium. It is really this dramatic event. The matadors process out to a live band... they are all in their fighting get-up, and then it´s fightin´time. Oh man...it is rough to watch, that is all I´m going to say. Pretty brutal, but cultural. We stayed for one fight, which lasted about 20 minutes...hence the cheap tickets...we didn´t plan on staying long. We met a guy from CA who was giving us history on the bullfight...one was enough for us.

Tomorrow, we head to Barcelona. Everyone keeps telling us what a great city it is....we can´t wait. On the 25th, we´ll dive into Italy...until next time...much love!