The End of Madrid

I’m on a fancy train to Sevilla. There are outlets, a movie playing, and hardwood floors.  We just had a fantastic lunch of blue cheese, mozzarella, and some kind of Spanish meat.   There was also yogurt, bread, drinks, and coffee.  Way better than flying! 

Anyway, the rest of our time in Madrid was basically spent relaxing. We slept in late, spent some time at Starbucks, and had a couple of picnics. I think we probably allowed ourselves a little bit too much time in the city.  Oh well.

On Sunday we went to a huge flea market, El Rastro.  There were stands selling everything from Madrid souvenirs to gas masks.  We also saw a stand that was promoting communism, kind of weird. 

Sunday night we went to the soccer game.  Our seats were in the nosebleeds but we still had a decent view.  Unfortunately, we had a big group of school kids in front of us who were blowing really loud horns. If we had been in America, they would have been kicked out.  We moved at halftime and it was much more peaceful.

Another thing I noticed was that the people don’t eat or drink during the match, they had a couple of food stands but they weren’t being put to much use. 

Sadly, Real Madrid lost the game. The fans started throwing paper airplanes on the field when the team started losing.  Imagine if people did that at an American baseball game, they would probably be arrested.

After the game we went to a Chocolatería.  It seemed that churros and chocolate were the most popular thing on the menu, so that’s what we got.  The chocolate came in a coffee mug, it was pretty much warm Hershey’s syrup.  The churros were a good way to end the night.

Sunday night at the game my camera stopped working.  Luckily it was just my memory card, so we were able to replace it on Monday.  We went to a huge department store, 9 floors of products, and found the electronics section.  It was cool to see where the Spaniards shop. 

Sunday night was the bullfight.  It was a cultural experience to say the least.  I’ll elaborate in my next post.

All in all Madrid was an okay city.  I think we spent way more time there than was necessary.  The city was dirty and sometimes slightly scary.  We saw a drug deal go down in a metro station, and we saw some guys peeing on cars.  I’m glad I was able to see Guernica and I liked the Parque Buen Retiro, but I don’t think Madrid will be on “must go back” list.