Kelly and Pablo in Madrid: Chueca, Cibeles, Retiro and Atocha

Today we slept in and watched the start of San Fermin festival on tv. San Fermin is the running of the bulls and is a week long festival of pure craziness. Tiffany decided... when in Rome... she must go and is heading up north the next day so we wanted to make sure she watched what she was getting herself into. :)

After thoroughly scaring Tiffany we headed downtown to Chueca for lunch in this hip but cheap restaurant called Bazzar. Chueca is the gay neighborhood in Madrid and has the hippest bars, restaurants and shops. The pride parade and festival had just wrapped up the day before so the streets were lined with rainbow flags and remnants of the constant party lay in the streets.

After lunch we took a walking tour to the Retiro Park and stopping at the famous Cibeles fountain and city hall along the way. In the Retiro enjoyed the sunny day and random people on our way past the lake and Crystal Palace. We even saw a guy roller skating and dancing wearing a Seattle shirt. It might have been the highlight of the day! We stopped for some adult beverages in one of the Terraces in the park before heading to Atocha the train station. On our way to Atocha we were walking down this hill and all the sudden we hear this really loud stomping behind us and turn to our right and see this guy sliding on his side down the street. It was so painful to see that I turned away- maybe not the best thing when someone needs help but he jumped right up and chased after his skateboard that continued down the hill into traffic. Ouch!

Atocha is good tourist stop because it has a rain forest right in the middle of the main terminal with tons of different plants and flowers and even a pond full of turtles. It is actually really cool that this huge thing is in the middle of a train station but to have a rainforest it has to be very, very hot so we had to stop in a very nice restaurant inside as well to cool off before heading home to the pool!

Chueca