Madrid Part 2: Jordan

The next morning I woke up fairly early, given our 6:00am bed time, out of anxiousness. Today was registration day! I went out walking on Goya, a major shopping street in Madrid, just browsing and hoping to calm my nerves a little bit. I went back to the house about an hour before my registration period started and double checked the schedule I had made, and the class numbers. I sat down for lunch, still a little restless, and waited until it was time. I rushed over to the computer and imputed all of the information as fast as I could, checked it once, and just hit the submit button. Done. My class schedule came up and I was done.

I went on to check my email, to find a message from the guy I met at the club to meet up at Plaza Mayor at 9:00 pm. In San Antonio that would normally be considered late for meeting up, but just for the record, 9:00pm is still daylight in Madrid. Its actually dinner time. I got Plaza Mayor early to walk around and enjoy the street performers that range from wacky and weird, to interesting and intriguing. At 9:00 ish I went over to the statue in the center of the plaza, one of Spain's most popular meeting points.

We met up and chatted as we walked around the plaza looking for a place to eat. Its not exactly hard to find a restaurant in the Plaza Mayor, its about finding one that you can actually afford to sit in. We chose a small bar/Tapas bar and chatted away. After dinner, we just walked the city. Madrid is beautiful at night, especially the Palacio Real which is lit up from underneath with a pretty green park in front of it. It was a really nice night.

I woke up the next morning, exhausted, and packed my stuff to move from Nacho's house to a hostel. Nacho was moving his business and things were quite hectic without two guests staying there. The hostel we moved to had a good location, only a mile or so from the train station and museums. I decided to spend the morning at the Reina Sofia, Madrid's modern art museum. Its a neat collection with some pretty strange pieces in it. I really appreciated its collections of Dali, Miro, and Picasso, but some of its temporary and newer exhibits just confused me.

After the museum I walked over to the Retiro park, and sat down to read. The next thing I knew it was two hours later! It turns out the park is a great place for a siesta.

The next day we took it easy and decided to meander the Botanical Gardens. There were some great flowers, vegetables, and trees there that I had never seen. There were so many bright colors and everything was so green and shady, it was nice to spend a few hours there.

That night we wandered around the Plaza Mayor looking for a place to eat some Tapas. We ended up going to Bar La Terezza which, like its name, is a terrace and very little else. We ordered three different dishes and some sangria. Huevos Rellenos, which means stuffed eggs came as a shock to us for two reasons. One, it was cold, and two, we didn't know what it would be stuffed with. It was basically a hard boiled agg without the yolk, filled with Tuna, topped with something like Mayo and something crunbly I sadly could not identify. Next we had Patatas Bravas, a Spanish favorite. Think home fries, then add a spicy red sauce and some mayo. Then some stewed chicken wings. And of course, when in Spain, wash it all down with Sangria.

Overall I really enjoyed our time in Madrid. It was really nice to relax and recharge after a crazy couple of weeks before hand. I really love Spain and I'm very hesitant to leave, but I know that I'll be back and hopefully for a longer period of time (think a year or two, not a month or two).

Next up: Nice...