Friday, November 28, 2014

Madrid: day two

and why we prefer home-tels.

After coffee, yogurt and an orange, Himself was up and away in the dawn drizzle, only to be quite early.  That's the hazard when you don't know the city. Sometimes the walk looks like 15 minutes, but it goes straight up and down so it takes twice as long.  Madrid is hilly.  The closest Metro is a puffy climb to the hotel.  The one further is a pleasant loop through a park and along some interesting shops.  Poor Himself not only got dampish but the meeting was not all that constructive.  Even lunch wasn't great.  

On the other hand, the meeting ran out of steam an hour early, so he was delighted to hear I had targeted this as the sop to the miserable grim weather:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolater%C3%ADa_San_Gin%C3%A9s.  

So off we went by foot.  I felt like we were walking through Chinatown. There are multiple small stores all run by folk who make it seem like Beijing's neighborhood around the Geoscience University campus.  The other preponderance of stores all have Spanish cured hams as their theme.  It makes it look like the only meat here is ham.  Not true, but you have to go find a poultry shop. And tapas.  Makes you wonder how folks stay in business--all the shops look the same to me. Apparently, people here must shop in a secret place for herbs and spices.  It took four tries to even find salt in a small take along recloseable package.  Teach me to forget the condiments.....

After gorging on delish-i-ous thick dipping chocolate and churros, we decided to walk to Mercato Anton Martin:  http://www.mercadoantonmartin.com/. We saw lots of Madrid life on the way . Many Christmas markets are ready to roll this weekend, even though it isn't December yet.

We never found the mercato due to some wonky instructions on a tourist site, but we did find pig's foot for Oma in a side street shop..  Wearily we turned to home base, successfully figured out the Metro, and with only three interesting shop detours return to the home-tel for dinner.  One detour was the jambon shop next to our apartment.  We have found that few folks speak any English in this area...but they forge on in Spanish and just hope something sounds familiar to us.  This shop was the real deal. Here is where the neighborhood comes to hang out.  Not one fancy up scale detail. But ham is all it's various very expensive glory from every angle. I have no idea what our knife wielding server was saying but he gave Himself directions on which hams to photograph...while he sliced away on a ham with hoof still attached.   This is not Kansas. Bearing our booty, back to base. 

Ah, the joys of self-catering.  Fresh cooked food we enjoy, in our socks; relaxing on the sofa while things simmer.  Yes, indeed, well worth the search to find short term apartments.  The fridge is bigger than the usual hotel bar fridges for our food finds.  A regular dinner table to spread out maps and information to study.  No maids in and out unless we ask. Much bigger rooms with comfy sitting instead of having to struggle with close quarters and using the too low bed to share information. Very happy. 

Tomorrow we walk through royal Madrid , meet friends and move on to their home.  


Madrid: Take Two

Some time ago, I tagged along to Madrid for a mad rush couple of working days.  We did get to whizz through Museum Prado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_del_Prado, and walked about that area at night ( our hotel was just down the street.) I discovered that Madrid tapas were not what I thought they would be.  We also managed to find a cafe by the botanical garden where the service was so rude it was shocking. The only thing I thought really worth a trip to Madrid was churros and chocolate. Also the wheelchair valet service at the airport was amazing.  However, it was not a stellar intro to Madrid.

Thus when Himself encouraged another tagalong to Madrid, I was less than enthused but we found a self-catering apartment, close to where he needed to meet the shuttle,  and in a different district close to the Royal Palace, for a great price. Plus some colleagues who live here want to take us under their wing for the weekend, so it will be a different visit entirely.

Let me just say that if you are a tiny person, Iberian Express has planes for you.  I have sore knees from the drubbing my kneecaps got for over two hours.  The weather is really bad in Madrid just now so we had a nightmare ride the close we got to the destination. We were in the last tail row.  I was a little alarmed.

Taxi man was lovely, not one word of English.  The Madrid Christmas lights are up and they are beautiful.Amazing street traffic for, to us, so late in the evening.  But we got to the hotel street in one piece, although the hotel could spend a penny and light the sign in front.  Since we arrived well after reception closed, and it was pitch dark, it was a little fumbly to get the right number punched in and get into the building.  Our keys and info were in another secured by keypad safe inside.

We stepped into our apartment  and were blown away. It's big, it's well equipped, it's comfy.

Then we went off to buy groceries, yes, at 11 o clock at night. The store is inside the nearby train station ( so convenient)  For the price of half a restaurant dinner, we got enough to last us til Saturday, when we join our friends. Himself had an early morning so we ate and he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

It's grey and rainy this morning. I have to find condiments.  I have to finalize checkin. but first my breakfast....in my jammies.  I love apartment hotels.  :)