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.