PS-

The pork knuckle won - just in case you were wondering.

Man vs. Pork Knuckle

I ask you...would a metrosexual eat this?

(Mr X claims this has been hands down his best meal in Germany so far.)

Spain, Part 3: Festive Lights

It was beautiful to see all the streets and shops dressed up for the holidays while in Spain. My pictures certainly don't do it justice but I tried:

There were Nativity scenes all over the place. Some fairly simply and plain...

...and some almost painfully ornate.

Spain, Part 2

Okay, these pictures are in no particular order because my computer is an old piece of junk and I'm way too cheap to buy a new speedy fabulous one. In other words, it takes a painful amount of time to rearrange pictures on here with my crummy computer so I'm simply not going to worry about it. Okay, ready?

First up, this picture is from the El Retiro park in Madrid. It's an impressively sized and lovely (even in the dead of winter) place one can stroll about for hours. Which Mr X and I did, much to my delight. I thought these trees or shrubs or whatever they are were very unique so I snapped a picture.

Mr X has a sort of fascination with gargoyles and fountains and such so he always takes pictures of interesting ones he comes across. These were found in El Retiro park.

There's decent sized lake in the center of the park where you can rent small boats and float about lackadaisically if you wish....for a price. We did not wish to pay that price.

Me in the park:

Mr X in the park in all his dapper gloriousness (not a real word, I know).

Here we are just outside the entrance to the park on one of the main thoroughfares in Madrid.

This beautiful yet simple cathedral is happily situated just behind the famous El Prado museum.

Just outside of the museum we snapped this photo:

One thing that I am endlessly fascinated with in Europe is the beautiful architecture and city layouts. Below is a picture of the neo-classical Plaza de Cibeles. It hosts the mayor's offices and the fountain in front of it is the Cibeles Fountain (of course). The fountain depicts the goddess Cibeles, the Phrygian goddess of fertility, sitting on a chariot pulled by two lions. This view and the plaza in general are seen as a symbol of Madrid.

Just looking down the streets in downtown Madrid. For a thriving metropolis that generally is not known for being particularly beautiful, I found that with me it was not the case. I loved it. The 'things' hanging across the streets are holiday decorations. Madrid did a fantastic job of dressing up for the holidays...it was absolutely gorgeous at night and my attempts at capturing all the Christmas dazzle by camera fell far short. I'll post some of those pictures later.

Spain, Part 1

Finally, some of our Spain pictures! These aren't in chronological order or anything - I have to say that because if I didn't you'd think all I did was work my way from one restaurant to the next. I didn't do that. Okay, maybe I did. Just a little.

We hopped on the subway from the airport in Madrid and took it all the way to the heart of the old part of Madrid. The streets were packed and it was dark out so I was relieved that we found our hotel quite easily. Once we'd checked it we ditched our luggage and headed out for some exploring. We wandered all around for the next two days. Here's some of what we saw and I'll post more Madrid pictures in the Part 2 post.

The first picture is one of the major plazas in Madrid. In that plaza I had Mr X snap my picture in front of the "El Oso y el Madroño" (the bear and the strawberry tree) - I guess it's the symbol of Madrid. This is how crowded it was there - everywhere we looked it was packed with people. It reminded me of Las Vegas on New Year's Eve. It reminded Mr X of Tokyo.

Everybody is always talking about the tapas in Spain. We tried a bunch during our stay...some were fantastic and some were just horrible. Most didn't look particularly appetizing, even though sometimes they were. (And of course I have pictures of both the delicious and the disappointing items we sampled - they'll be in a future post.)

Our first evening there we opted for a regular meal instead of tapas so we ducked inside the Museo del Jamon (Museum of Ham). It was a delectable first Spanish meal: cheese, ham and bread. This next picture gives you an idea what it looked like inside.

Later in our trip we stumbled upon the incredibly famous Chocolateria San Gines. It is a restaurant that only serves churros and chocolate. It more than lived up to it's reputation. Neither of us could finish our hot chocolate because it was so thick and rich. I told Mr X that we should never, ever come back to this place because it had to have been so awful for us. (But of course we came back one more time our last night in Spain.)

The churros in Spain aren't like Mexican churros - they aren't covered in sugar and/or cinnamon. I loved them that way.

Stay tuned for Spain, Part 2 - coming soon.

Fairly Recent Random Pictures

I have good news and bad news! The good news is that I recently FINALLY went on another international trip so now I have some easy blog material to post for you. The bad news also results in additional future blog posts: Mr X is going away AGAIN. (Boo hoo!) But at least this time I'll have enough vacation built up at my work that I can join Mr X at the end of his trip. (Woo hoo!)

But before I start posting about my trip to Spain, here's a few random pictures from this fall and winter:

This is my SIL and her two very excited sons at Bauman Farms this past October up in the Portland, OR area.
This is my MIL, me and Mr X in the Phoenix, AZ area in December. We were eagerly (at least I was) awaiting our turn to stock up on some delicious citrus fruit.

Mr X is used to swiping citrus fruit with me.

This is me with my adorable nephew at the ice-skating rink outside the Hotel Del Coronado in December here in San Diego.