Pert's Adventures Abroad: The Adventures of Kim and Pert Part Deux: Madrid

Kim and I took an overnight bus from Barcelona to Madrid and we woke up with bloated feet from not moving the entire night. Seriously, I'd taken a few overnight buses already, but never noticed bloated feet until Madrid. I couldn't even see the bones in my feet anymore and my flip flops barely fit! It was odd and gross. Anyhoo...

We headed straight to our next fancy-ish hotel in Madrid (also a bargain at $50 euro/night for a three star hotel) and immediately took a nap because we didn't get much sleep on the night train. After our early siesta and some weird, fevered dreams, we took the metro into the center of Madrid, Plaza del Sol. We did some window shopping, and then made our way to Plaza Mayor where we shared a Madrid favorite, calamari bocadillo (sandwich). It was tasty, but it was missing something: sauce! (Fast forward one day: we went back to Casa Rua in Plaza Mayor and ordered the same thing, but this time requested bravas sauce which is kind of like a spicy mayo they use on fries. It was super tasty this time. I guarantee you if more places in Spain used sauces on their sandwiches, they'd kill).

Window shopping near Plaza del Sol.

Wearing my bag "pick pocket defense" style in Plaza Mayor.

Bravas sauce made all the difference.

Back to the present. After eating our calamari sandwich, we wandered over to Madrid's uber fancy market: Mercado de San Miguel. It was smaller than the one in Barcelona, but way fancier. Think Metropolitan Market meets Pike Place. There were so many options for us to choose to eat, from tapas to paella to seafood to gelato. Just like with the bravas sauce on the calamari bocadillo, Kim and I spiced up a few more dishes at the market with our creativity. One such example is when we ordered some seafood paella and decided that adding chicken tandoori skewers was necessary. Mixing cultures never tasted this good.

Does combining different prepared foods count as cooking? Yes.

After our snackage and wandering a bit more, we took a mini-tour of madrid and its architecture. I noticed one lady on our tour had a Sounders hat on, so I asked if she was from Seattle. She was, as well as her husband and two daughters, and we eventually discovered that we live down the street from each other. So crazy. On top of that, we also found out that Kert used to counsel the younger daughter in summer camp. Even with me looking like hobo the clown, the family invited Kert and I over to hang out. Good people.

Some of the beautiful buildings we passed on our walking tour.

Our tour ended right at one of the Museums we wanted to visit: the Prado. Supposedly, it has the greatest collection of art in Europe...and it was free. So Kim and I went and randomly bumped into our friend Kamel, whom we met in Barcelona, waiting in line for the Prado as well. Just so you know that I actually looked around the museum, my favorite painting was Goya's painting of Saturn eating one of his children. Creepy and awesome.

What did I tell you? Creepy and awesome.

Our buddy, Kamel!

The next day, after Kim and I returned to the aforementioned calamari sandwich place with bravas sauce on our mind, we went to a famous churro place called San Gines. Javier Bardem has been there, so you know it's the real deal. Once we finished our churros with chocolate, we jetted to Retiro park, a beautiful and sprawling park with a lake in the middle. We took a little afternoon siesta there then headed over to another awesome (and free!) museum: The Reina Sofia contemporary art museum. Again, to convince you that I actually paid attention to something, I enjoyed Dali's stuff. Yup, that's a real guy.

Definitely better portion control than my first experience in Granada.

Beautiful Retiro Park.

Some interesting Japanese art at the Reina Sofia.

Interesting indeed.

Proof!

Of course, we ended our time together with another gelato run and some 30 Rock on my netbook. My 11 days with Kim were a blast and I was really sad to see her go. She's definitely the best, and if you don't agree, I'll fight you...as long as you're behind a gate.