Madrid Tourism

We had a full day in Madrid to do a bit of tourism with my family before we left for Asturias so Pablo and I led the way. We met up with Dad and Jeanne to check out a couple bars before lunch. Sadly, the one bar I wanted to go to was closed but we walked around and found a couple cute ones for them and even had them try some vermouth.

We met up with Heather and Clarice and brought everyone to Bazzar for lunch. It is a nice restaurant in the Chueca neighborhood that has a really cheap Menu del Dia and good food so we bring all our tourist here.

After lunch we started our walking tour. We went past the city hall, Cibeles fountain, Puerta de Acala, El Retiro park and down to Atocha train station. Walking around all afternoon in the sun, we tired everyone out pretty quickly. Pablo and I, with mom, decided to head back to spend the evening at home so we could pack and get ready for the big trip to Asturias.

Puerta de Acala

Grand Via

Vermouth

Madrid City Hall

Retiro Park

Crystal Palace- Retiro

Drink stop because its hot!

Dad and Jeanne's Arrival

My dad and Jeanne arrived the Monday before the wedding to Madrid. They spent a couple days in London before hand so my dad could get in an extra country on the tour. The best part was they weren't jet-lagged so we made the most of the evening and toured around the Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Mercado de San Miguel and stopped off at Pablo's favorite mushroom bar.

First, before we met up with Heather and Clarice we went to a bar right by their hotel that of course is Asturian. Jeanne and I had sidra and the rest had beer.

Next, we picked up the rest of the group and headed to the Plaza Mayor where we stopped off at the Museo del Jamon (Ham Museum). It is a restaurant/bar/deli. You can't say we only drink and eat on vacation because look, we stopped at a museum too!

After our museum experience my dad wanted to go back to the bull bar we went to when he was here in 2006. It has more bull heads and hundreds of photos of bull fighters getting gored and famous people who had visited the bar. It is very "Spanish".

Next stop was the Mercado de San Miguel, which is kind of like Pike Place Market. It just re-opened last year after years of rennovation. It is in a glass and iron rod building that looks circa 1900's and has fresh fruit, meat, seafood and bakery vendors, plus bars, oysters, candy, olives, kitchen supplies, pretty much everything under one roof. It is pretty small compared to Pike Place but much more high-end feeling. We were lucky and found a table and we let everyone loose to check out the food and wine. Everyone brought back a wide range of tapas we all ooh-ed and awww-ed over.

Last stop was the Mushroom Bar. It is famous for its grilled, stuffed mushrooms and pitchers of wine. It is in this tiny cave with tiny tables and chairs. It was an interesting squeeze with my dad and Pablo but we made it. They also have a man playing music on his keyboard to make it a lively environment.

Welcome Dad and Jeanne

Center of Spain- Km. 0

Puerta del Sol

Museo del Jamon

Bull Bar in Plaza Mayor

Mercado de San Miguel

Mercado

Famous Mushrooms

El Rastro

Sunday we took Heather and Clarice to the Rastro. It is a big flea market every Sunday in the Latina neighborhood of Madrid. It is basically like one huge garage sale with tons of booths selling the most random things you can imagine from t-shirts to souvenirs, antiques to pet supplies, rubber to gas masks.

We took them on our usual tour and then left at our usual turn off to go to our first bar we take all our tourists. It is a bull fighting- theme bar that is over 150 years old. They have bull heads from the 1900's on the wall and old liquor bottles line the old fashioned wood bar. Pablo ordered a racion of snails to freak out the Americans and to make it a complete spanish bar experience.

Later that night my aunt and cousin made it up to Las Tablas on the train (all by themselves) for dinner at our house so they could see where we live and our neighborhood. We cooked traditional spanish tapas, had lots of wine and their first taste of sidra.

Rastro

Snails

Heather being brave and trying

Taberna de Antonio Sanchez

Chupitos after dinner at our house

Sending them back on the train

Second Arrival- Aunt and Cousin

My aunt and cousin made it to Madrid right on schedule from LA the Saturday before the wedding. We took them too their hotel to check in and decided to grab a welcome drink to celebrate. They probably had the adreneline pumping because we hit up a few bars, saw a procession for San Isidro, battled thousands of people in the Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor all before they slept in probably 24 hours. They are troopers!

Welcome to Spain wine

Thousands of people in the Plaza Mayor

San Isidro

Being the paparazzi trying to get a picture of San Isidro

Sisters in Madrid

Mommy is here!

My mom finally arrived to Madrid to care of me! She is the first of my American guests to arrive. She came early to calm my nervous and help get me organized and help me get all the last minute things under control. It has been fun to finally show someone in my family where I live, where I go and what I see here in Madrid.

We visited Pablo at work, toured around the city center, enjoyed tapas and wine and took a walking tour of my neighborhood, Las Tablas.

Also, it was the festival of San Isidro the first week that she was here. It is a Madrid festival that takes place every year in our old neighborhood. So we took my mom there so she could see where I lived the first time in Madrid and how they do Spanish carnivals.

Plaza Colon (Columbus)- Where Pablo works

Bridge that crosses the river to our old neighborhood

Pablo wearing the typical hat

Rosquillas- typical sweet for San Isidro

Goya needs beer too

Hot Dogs

Food stands

Half Spanish

Pablo brought home a present for me the other day, one that will make me more Spainsh--- a rolling cart that I can put the groceries in.

It was a very thoughtful gift because we live about a 15 minute walk from the grocery store and since I can't drive Pablo's car (its a stick) I have to walk there, which is no big deal but I have to make sure I don't buy a lot so I can carry everything back home.

So the cart is a great idea except it makes me feel like an old spanish lady! But it folds up real nice and looks like a purse (trying to make it seem cool!). I joked with Pablo that all I need now is a house dress (mu mu type dress) and I will be completely transformed into a Spanish house wife! (I think it's the wedding gift)

Here is a trip I took with my mom

Cinco de Mayo

Salud Mexico!

The cooks

Nachos!!!

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo in Mieres since it was the week we were up to work on the last of the wedding stuff. Once again the week was draining, rushing to get everything done and running in to more problems. I told everyone the week before that I wanted to cook some mexican food for dinner to celebrate Cinco do Mayo and after the week we were having I wasn't much in the mood but in the end I was so glad I did.

My spanish family didn't know anything about what Cinco de Mayo was and hadn't really eaten Mexican food before. Pablo's mom really likes fajitas so I decided to cook chicken fajitas, nachos and drink corona (it's called coronita in spain because corona means crown and because spain has a royal family corona is trademarked by the royal family so they changed the name to coronita).

Pablo and I went to the big grocery store, which I call Fred Meyer, and checked out the international food aisle. Everytime I look at the mexican food here I get a little sad because it is so expensive and its all Old El Paso. The salsa and guacamole don't taste that great and the size of the tortilla chips bag is so small but it was Cinco de Mayo so we went for it!

Pablo and I cooked the dinner and made a huge batch of nachos. The corona's tasted amazing with lime, not lemon as they serve it here, and the fajitas were perfect! It was just what I needed after another stressful week- some good old fashion comfort food mexican style!

ACB Basketball Game

Pablo scored some free tickets to a Real Madrid basketball game so we went to enjoy some real sports- none of this futbol stuff! :)

The stadium was in our old neighborhood so it was fun to drive by our old stomping grounds. The stadium is really a bull ring that they also use for basketball so the seats are in a big circle around the court. We were lucky and got some pretty good tickets 3 rows back.

We had a little trouble finding our seats and maybe this is how they do it in bull rings but we had seats 1 & 2 and you would assume they are at the end of the row right? Wrong! They are actually in the middle of the row. I sat in seat 1 and next to me was seat 16 and seat 2. This is the spanish way!

Sitting next to me was this cute group of old ladies, probably 60-70 years old. I thought, oh isn't that cute, they have a nice group to go to the games, no husbands just ladies. Well, once the game started they weren't nice little ladies anymore. They started screaming at the refs, complaining about every call, every missed basket, anything they could yell out they did. At first it was funny but when it continued for the whole game it became a little insane.

Then to the left of me was this crazy man who also YELLED the entire time and everything that happened was wrong. He was with a group of guys and not one of them said a word. Not sure if they were embarrassed of their friend or what but he was crazy.

I tried to enjoy the game by rooting for all the Americans on each team. There were like 6 total and even one Canadian! Next time I'm bringing my American flag!

The game was pretty much a blow out until the end when Real Madrid came back to make it interesting but they still lost. Once the final buzzer rang and the crazy, screaming people to my left and right left I sat there thinking, wow I need a strong drink. That was two hours of non-stop anger issues I just witnessed. These people had some real problems and took it out on the court. I guess better there than on people but being surrounded by that much negative energy is draining!

Our secret shots of the crazy ladies!