I watched "The Heist" on the English sound channel while Rosie slept. We shot through a lot of fields with hay and cows, including one bunch that looked like they were herding themselves along a dirt road. Picturesque Spain.
We were meeting our AirBnB host at the apartment, which was 6a. I was really hoping 6a didn't mean the sixth floor with no elevator - but it meant exactly that. I lt is even the European sixth floor, so the ground floor is 0, not 1.
The good news is, that is the last set of stairs we'll have to drag our luggage up. The bad news is that this is the last place we are staying before we go home.
So we decided to jump right in. First was a vegetarian restaurant with a pre fixe lunch. Breaking our typical rules, we both got white wine, the baba ghanoush, and the mixed platter (with spinach egg casserole, paella-type mixed rice, peppers with tomato sauce, and - my favorite - a buffalo mozzarella "panini" that was just fried cheese. Yum.) I got the cheesecake (again, a bit more savory that typical cheesecakes) and Rosie was crazy and got watermelon. For dessert. No wonder she wanted ice cream on our way to the Prado.
We stopped by a tourist info place to get a map and ask about zarzuela, but the comedic Spanish opera isn't playing right now. The information place was on the Plaza Mayor, an "inside out" palace. It was very empty when we walked in at 4:30, but bustling after we spent 30 minutes on the Internet kiosks researching restaurants.
With it being nearly 6, and the Prado opening for free after 6, we headed that direction, with a stop to actually look around Puerta del Sol, where the metro station that we rode into the city center was.
It is big and bustling as well, though with a lot of dressed up characters instead of just people. The governor's house is there, as is "kilometer zero" where Spain starts. From there, it was also an easy mile walk to the Prado and the giant (but moving) line to get in the museum.
The two hours before it closed flew by. We were following the tour in Rick's book, but then one of the pieces had been moved to a special exhibit, so we went through that gallery and saw Rubens, Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, and Bosch.
We hadn't seen some of the major pieces in the tour though, so we circled back for a quick attempt at the tour. We were a bit too late - the side rooms were being shut down and people were being ushered outside.
We didn't quite have a plan after that, so we wandered up the street to see an arch and a building that might have a viewing floor (we are going to try to get to it tomorrow - it was closed today).
No plan, of course, always turns into food. So we began our tapas crawl at a dark, wood bar with a free tapa with our drinks - some tortilla with lettuce and tomato in it, like a sandwich. Next, we moved to a brighter, more sterile bar that had a free patatas bravas and some delicious fried eggplant. So thin, so crispy, so good.
We had to go to the place for "gambas" (shrimp), so a boiling bowl full of those, oil, and garlic, and we were pretty happy campers.
There was a microbrewery down the street, so we popped in for a baby beer. After we paid, we brought it up front to people watch, and I got enough liquid courage to ask the group of guys next to us where to go dancing.
They said they didn't know, but their friend would, so just stick around. So we did, hanging out with Michael, Dommy, and David until two more friends came by. We stuck around at that bar, then at another one (with some ribs, tortilla, and salchicon on bread fueling the moves). Dommy introduced us to calemocho - coke and red wine. It sounds weird, but it is a very refreshing way to drink it.
So, our new friend Paula was chatting in the streets with some of the club promoters, and we got stamps for a club in the future before going to a bar with dancing first. There, a cute married couple (with the wife's arm in a sling) talked about the wedding they were all going to tomorrow (which is why all these college friends were in town) and then their own wedding.
We did eventually get to the club, and dance, and have some sickly sweet mojitos and vodka-límons. However, eventually it was time to go, and that's when we realized it was five o'clock in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment