Quick Out-of-Order Post

While I'm working on posts of what we did yesterday and today, I'm sitting at a ceverceria table out in the Plaza Mayor on beautiful Tuesday evening, drinking a cold beer, munching some olives, and watching the parade of people go by. Dylan and Jen are out shopping, Liam is across from me on the Plaza, talking to Anna via Skype (she's on Santorini) and Ali is back at the apartment catching up on some much needed sleep. Life is great.

Tapas Crawl Tuesday

The rest of Tuesday in Madrid was spent eating, sleeping, or otherwise resting.

Walking home from El Prado, we stopped for lunch at Ceverceria Santa Ana on Santa Ana square. We sat at a table on the square, which meant for higher prices than sitting inside or standing inside at the bar, but it was a nice afternoon and there was a good crowd on the square. Tapas were OK - it was more about the atmosphere than the food here.

After lunch, siesta! Jenny, Ali and Dylan rested and read at the apartment; Liam and I headed back to Plaza Mayor for Internet and cold beer. Plaza Mayor was a great place to people-watch, folks from all over the world mixing with the locals. Also great for scenes like this:

Tuesday night Ali decided to continue her siesta into the night, so the boys, Jenny and I thought we might try to do a successful tapas crawl. We accomplished our goal with great success.

Taberna Tempranillo: We started here, as recommended in the Ramos guide. Stars of this stop were salmon with fried banana (sounds weird, tastes incredible) and papas fritas with huevos and foie gras. Really great scene here too.

Txakolina Pintxoteca Madrilena: smaller, not as tourist-friendly, but some great tapas, including salmon piled high with balsamico on top.

El Schotis - This unassuming place was nearly all locals, with a friendly 65 year old bartender, no English, but huge smile and very friendly. Here is where I first learned about local vermouth on tap. OK, it's unlike any vermouth I've ever had. Good enough to drink on its own over a few ice cubes and a slice of citrus. I had my favorite summer cocktail - a Negroni - with the vermouth-on-tap. Had to teach the bartender how to make it and he asked me to write it down for him before we left. The other highlight: “Spank Your Bottom” potato salad, name trademarked by Liam. The photo does not do the taste justice:

Tapas crawl complete. Now what?

Monday in Madrid

After our late Sunday night dinner, we rose the next morning wanting to explore the neighborhood, check out the "free" internet and possibly get a pastry.

Liam and I headed off to Plaza Mayor, the major square about 30 yards from our apartment. We found that while there was internet access, it wasn't quite free. So we quickly set up our FONero accounts and for 3.99 Euro per day had access to the wonders of the internet. For Liam, that mostly meant Skype chats with Anna (she's in Greece); for me, checking email, attempting some blog activity, uploading photos, etc.

After about an hour at Plaza Mayor, we re-grouped with the rest of the family at the apartment and headed out in search of the Napolitana pastry at La Mallorquina - favorite Madrid bakery highlighted in the Ramos guide, located just a couple of blocks from our apartment on the Puerta del Sol. Sadly, the proprietors had decided to take the month of August off and the bakery was closed!

We quickly regrouped and headed off to Chocolateria San Gines for chocolate con churros. Churros are 8 inch lengths of fried dough and the chocolate is a coffee cup of warm chocolate, just this side of pudding in thickness. Dip the churros in the chocolate and you have one fattening breakfast.

We started our sightseeing in Madrid by heading to the Reina Sofia modern art museum, about 15 minutes walk from Puerta del Sol. We realized that our apartment location was nearly perfect - walkable distances to most of the major sights in Madrid. While there are great modern masters at the Reina Sofia (and some modern art that leaves you scratching your head), the highlight by far was Picasso's Guernica. It is an amazing work, with great supporting detail nearby, like the photo study of various stages of its creation. Seeing it was worth the price of admission alone. I tried to take a photo (they are allowed, but not from inside the room where the painting is hung), but it did not turn out very well. You'll have to come see it for yourself.

It's amazing the appetite that you can build after just a couple of hours of wandering through a museum. We left the Reina Sofia in search of a place in the neighborhood for lunch. Taberna de Dolores (as found in Rick Steves) hit the spot. Cold cerveza, jamon iberico, in a cozy little tavern. We were ready for our next sightseeing venture: the Bernabeu!

The Bernabeau is home to Real Madrid, number one enemy of our beloved Barca. After a short metro ride (Madrid's system is great), we were at the stadium. The tour is well organized, starting you near the top of the stadium for a panoramic view, winding down through a museum with the history of the team, their trophy room, visitor dressing room, press conference room, and down next to, but not on, the pitch. Took a ton of photos which can be found under the Madrid link. Here is just one, with the kids sitting on the bench:

After an exhausting day of sightseeing, we headed back to the apartment for a late siesta. Naps and showers completed, it was time to eat again. Ali decided to stay in, so the boys, Jenny and I headed out to find another recommended spot near the Santa Ana square. Guess what? Closed for August. This was becoming a trend. So we started to wander a bit, and came across a relatively new restaurant called Lamucca not too far from the Prado.

Lamucca was an incredible find. It was open and airy, more like something you might find in San Francisco in terms of ambience, including the music. The food was spectacular: blood sausage & apple pizza, jamon iberica and pear pizza, padron peppers, phenomenal Sangria and my own bucket of Hendricks. Giant glass, ice, cucumber spear, and Hendricks poured from the bottle tableside. Check these out:

Matadors 3, Toros 0

(Guest post by Liam; photos by Dylan)

At first I was thinking that a bull fight might be a little gruesome, watching a bull get massacred in front of tons of of cheering Spaniards. And that is the reality, although you are quickly drawn into the excitement as the bull is tricked by the matador and he plunges sharp prongs into his back.

We got to the bull fighting stadium and it was much more formidable and regal than I thought it would be. We bought our tickets (5 euro) in the sambra (shade) section, and were very close to the fight. Jet-lagged and tired, the bull coming out, on to the stadium pitch, quickly got me out of my seat shouting "Ole!". It started out with about 6 matadors jeering and taunting the bull, getting him to run at them. Then the matadors took turns jabbing prongs into the back of the bull, weakening it. Then it was a solo fight between one matador and the bull. Playing with it for a while, the matador would trick the bull through his red cape. After that, he would take a sword and sink it into the back of the bull causing it to go into a rage. The other matadors would come out and wear it down. The bull, after falling on the ground, would then get impaled by a dagger through the head, killing it. Everyone would jump out of their seats screaming and the next fight would begin.

It was muy excellente.

Calle Mayor 21

We arrived at our apartment door at 3:30 p.m. Our apartment manager's sister (fluent in English) and father (fluent in Spanish) met us there about 10 minutes later. The apartment is in an amazing location, right near Plaza Mayor and just a few short blocks from Puerta del Sol. Fortunately we are on the first floor, which is one up from the street. It's clear that we will be walking most everywhere we want to go in Madrid.After getting settled in to the apartment, Jenny and Ali went to the nearby supermarket for some very basic provisions: water, diet coke, bottle of albarino, bread, cheese, nutella, shampoo.

Liam and Dylan went for a short paseo, while I sat down to re-read the Ramos guide and Rick Steves' Madrid chapter. It wasn't the material, but the jet lag that had me nodding off in the comfy chair in our room.

I woke to the shrill sound of the apartment building door bell, scrambled to find how to answer it, gave up and headed down to the front door. All four were there, complaining that the key to the door didn't work, a bit hot, tired and grumpy. (Fortunately I discovered that the keys did work, just took a little care to open, as you might expect in an urban apartment door on the street. A relief, since I was not relishing making a phone call to the apt manager about us not getting the keys to work!).

After digging into the sweet rolls, nutella and soda, plus grabbing a shower, the provisioning and paseo crowd all felt better. Except for me, who could not wait to lay down on the bed for a real nap.

As I was trying to start said nap, the boys and Jenny hatched a plan to go to the bullfights. Alison did not want to go, so I volunteerd to stay back with her at the apartment - chillaxin' as she'd say, nappin' as I'd say -- while Jenny, Liam and Dylan went for their first full-on Spanish experience at La Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas.

Arriving Madrid

After getting off the plane, we changed money so that we could pay the balance of our Madrid accommodations in cash. We called the apartment manager to let her know we were on our way. Then we went to the Metro station from the T1-T2 terminal.

Took a couple of questions (by Jenny) to the info desk in the Metro, but figured out we needed to transfer twice to get to the Sol station. Trip took about 45-50 minutes.

The metro is very clean and spacious. Stations are a bit hit or miss about operating escalators, but not a hassle at all to transfer. Tickets are 2E for any trip in the system. There is a discount if you buy a ten trip pass, but we couldn't quite figure that out on the vending machine.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

Our flight, Continental 144, was scheduled to depart at 10:10 pm. We boarded on time and things were looking good. After 20 minutes however, the pilot came on to say they were having an issue with the engine cowling (cover). It was latched securely but a tab that served as indicator had snapped off. They were calling Boeing in Houston to get clearance. Captain said it would be about 10 minutes more for them to get the paperwork done. Nearly 45 minutes later, he cam back on to say they could not get clearance from Houston and we would be moving to another plane. Jenny imagined some engineer in Houston saying, “I’m not signing off on that!”

Deplaned, walked to opposite end of terminal and eventually boarded our flight.

Arrived in Madrid at 1:45 pm local time after an uneventful flight.

Leaving Bethesda

Left Bethesda at 12:30 pm Saturday afternoon for what we thought would be a four hour drive to Englewood, NJ. Five plus hours later we arrive. Ugh.

Fortunately we were greeted in Englewood by the lovely Tom, lovelier Sharon and cute Dusty, who proceeded to get Ali involved in a game of fetch. Incredibly generous hosts, they fed us dinner and got us to Newark airport refreshed and ready for our 7 hour flight.

Back on the Horse

I've almost let the weekend slide by without posting. How do daily bloggers feed the beast?

I did get all of the house renovation photos posted on my Picasa site. See the link at left. I'll work a bit this week to describe/caption them. Another promise to myself.

Later, some chronology of the past year...

If it's been a year since your last post, can you still call it a blog?

Last week marked 1 year since we returned from our glorious trip to Italy and my last blog post.

It's been a busy year. Let's see, Jenny and Dylan went to Japan (about 10 days after our return from Italy), we added on to our house and renovated the kitchen, my Dad passed away, Jenny's Grandmother passed away, and Liam spent a month in China. Plenty to write about to catch up.

This post marks my return to blogging. Not that anyone out there is reading. But this is a promise to myself to record the major happenings of the past year by getting this blog going again. And, if I can ever get disciplined, keep it going.