A la Molestas de de pecho a qui?

View the pictures from my First day in Madrid!

Madrid rests in the center of Spain. Situated on top of a hill, it is the Spanish powerhouse of politics, culture and sports. You can find anything and everything you ever thought was close to Spanish there. The city was built like a giant bulls-eye.

Want to go to a bullfight, visit the Placa del Torreaus... but make sure you grab the bullfighter's balls for good luck (at least that's what some Argentinean dude told us). Like tapas? Enter any of the estimated 30,000 cervecerias and stand by the bar and have some delicious pimentos vertes or croquettes. Enjoy staring at really old buildings? Well Madrid has plenty of them. The prettiest include the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and the Cathedrale de le Almunda.

After touchdown in Madrid, Angie and I were exhausted from all of the rushed shopping and packing the previous night. After Cristina was kind enough to take us to Lavapies, we met our host. The two of them took us out for a traditional tapas celebration at a local cerveceria close to our Madrid "home".

Afterwards Matias had some errands to do, so he gave us a couple of options of things to do.

Luckily our host recommended a nice breezy walk to the Parque del Buen Retiro, where I discovered the joy of what the Spansih term a "siesta". I enjoyed it so much I am considering adding it to my repertoire of cultural influences. French bread in the morning, a siesta around 1 and a french goute at 4:30.

Angie and I walked around for about an hour attempting to photograph what I think is a magpie or the Spanish equivalent of. At one point we found a lovely little pond with a bridge going over it. Obviously the best way to view this spot was laying on the bench. Eventually I fell asleep for what I will guess was half an hour. That was the best 30 minutes of my life.

Palacio de Cristal

Once I woke up, I was pumped to see what was actually in this parque.

Just by happenstance, we came along the Palacio de Cristal. A beautiful Metal framed glass palace, that the Spanish were smart enough to situate on another lovely pond filled with swans and ducks. I felt like I just stepped out of my own Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale (except I wasn't wearing my ball gown). After taking probably what was 100 pictures, the cousin and I continued on, to what can only be termed the most beautiful place to watch the sunset.

It was a gorgeous manmade lake called Estanque where on one side there was the Monumento al Alfonso XII, which was like a columned promenade of sorts with Alfonso XII looking down on Madrid from atop his faithful steed. And the other side had a large pathway lined with flowers and lampposts where local musicians played Spanish music.

We followed the Paseo de la Argentina, in honor of our Argentinean host, to the Plaza de la Lealtad, where they had erected (snicker) a obelisk to the fallen Spanish war heroes. As we continued back towards

our Madrid home, we passed the Plaza de Neptuno where a huge fountain commemorates the sea god. After a quick stop at the Plaza de Jacinto Benavente where Angie munched on some not good tasting "Happy Mix" and we both played on the Spanish playground, we made it back to Calle de San Carlos.

At the house, we were able to finally meet all of Matias' roommates and discover their lovely nicknames. There was Leo (who didn't actually live there, but was there all the time) who they called the Rock. And Matias was Mr. Elastic, as he could climb up anything or jump on anything and stretch around it. Then there was Pablo (who actually moved out the Saturday we were there to pursue his career in Germany) who was Hombre Gasman, because his special talent was that of flatulence. And finally, after much prodding, we discovered that Matias' brother, Lucas, was "the Porn Ghost". After they said this, they snickered and refused to tell us what that meant. Obviously we were intrigued, if not scared of this "porn ghost". So many possibilities exist as the meaning behind the name. Eventually we discovered it was because he occasionally walks around naked at night, and once one of the other roomie's girlfriends discovered him in this state. And instead of covering himself, he asked her if she had a light for a cigarette.

Eventually Angie passed out and joined their nickname club, as she became Smiegel (Golem from LOTR) as apparently her snores are the equivalent to his longing for his precious. Also Pablo told her that she sort of looks like Smiegel too, which I of course found to be hysterical!

That's the end of our first day in Madrid!

Please note: the only phrase Angie and I know fully in Spanish, thanks to Lonely planet, is the one listed as the title of the post. I suggest you translate it because it is possibly the least used phrase in ANY language!