Spain part 3: Madrid

(In the words of Scott...)


On Friday night, we got word that Allie's husband Josh was flying home for the weekend and booked ourselves a hotel room in Madrid for Saturday & Sunday night. Once everyone was ready on Saturday afternoon, all of us piled into 2 vehicles and drove out to Madrid so we could check-in to the hotel and do some sightseeing.

Checking in proved to be a bit of a headache, as the hotel didn't have our reservation in their system. After a lot of noise with Priceline's customer service, their people spoke to the hotel people and made sure we were set up as planned. Meanwhile, Evie took a short nap in Allie's arms. Once we dropped off our bags in the room, we all set off on foot to check out our surroundings.

Click for the Madrid photo set on flickr.

Our first stop was a sweets shop.  (From Vita) Scott doesn't like sweets, so he didn't try all of the goodies, but they were INCREDIBLE!  Sweets are a lot less "sweet" there than they are in the US, and that made me just want to eat more of them!  

Next we made our way to a nearby park, which was full of people. Children played in the playground area, and for the most part their dads watched over them while their moms socialized elsewhere. How often does that happen in the States? We asked Allie to take pictures of the three of us, then took pictures of her family.

After hanging out there for a little while, we started circling back toward the hotel. They had dinner waiting in the oven, and as we walked we saw many shops and eateries that we could visit if we wanted to. Allie suggested we head over to Plaza Mayor for dinner, which we could easily reach by the Metro. So we rested for a little bit in our hotel room before venturing out again.

The Metro was easy enough to figure out as far as getting us there went, and Evie made new friends as we rode along by waving and smiling at the people around us. After we emerged from the Metro station, we weren't quite sure where to go. Everywhere we looked we saw buildings of all sorts lit up, and people walking or sitting down to dinner or stopped on the street to talk. We passed a couple of theatres, one advertising for Los Miserables and the other for a variety of shows including something called VocaPeople. The direction we'd chose to walk didn't seem to be getting us where we wanted to go, so we popped into a souvenir shop to see what we might bring home. The shop clerk spoke English very well, so we asked him to direct us to the plaza.

The closest comparison I can think of to Plaza Mayor is downtown NYC. Buildings stood tall all around us, brightly lit, and it seemed like the entire city was out to have a good time. After much debate we stopped at a small cafe and had pizzas for dinner. A street performer dropped by our table to serenade Evie with his violin, and she watched him with a mixture of joy and curiosity. By the time we finished eating it was getting close to the time we thought the Metro would stop running, so we started to make our way back.

On our trip back, however, we got confused and hopped on the wrong train the first time, which meant we had to hop another train to get back to a station where we could board the train that would take us back to the hotel. Evie fell asleep for most of the trip back, and we were surprised she slept as long as she did since everyone was talking loudly.

Once back near our hotel, we set off for a place to sit and have a drink or two before turning in for the night. Our waitress came over talking about how Evie's legs were cold and she needed to be kept warm. I tried to let her know that since I was wearing her in the Ergo she was fine, but she was so concerned she brought us a leather jacket to cover Evie up with. Then she spent the rest of the time we were there coming by our table to play with Evie, and made a point to tell us what a beautiful, precious baby we have. :) Once Evie started fussing, we headed back to the hotel room for the night.