Day 2

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We arose early and went to breakfast at a little restaurant near the hotel called Cafeteria Veneto. We had some churros, tortillas de patatas, and coffee. It was a great meal! We took the #53 bus again towards Sol. Once again, this time due to construction, we could not get all the way to Sol. We were let off close by and walked over to Puerta del Sol. We rode the Metro line 1 to Atocha station because we were going to try and go to Toledo. Unfortunately, we had barely missed a train to Toledo and the next one was not for four hours. We decided to not go and did a little shopping at the Atocha Station. After, we took Metro line 1 back to Sol.

From there we took the Metro line 3 up to Plaza de Espana. We walked around the area and then found a place to eat. It was called Restaurante Lupita and was a Spanish/Peruvian restaurant. We had some chicken paella and some Inca Kola! Yummy lunch!!!

After lunch, we continued on Metro line 3 to Moncloa, where we walked around the Parque del Oeste. We just relaxed in the park for a couple of hours.

Later we went back on the Metro line 6 to Nuevos Ministerios and changed to line 10 to go to Plaza de Castilla so we could see the Kio Towers. After some quick photos, it was back down to Nuevos Ministerios where we did some shopping at an El Corte Ingles store. That place was amazing and they are located all over the area.

We were getting hungry and were thinking of just going to the same place we did the previous night but found a place that worked out better. We rode the Metro line 6 to Avenida de America and exited the station to find Hontanares Restaurant and I am glad we did. It was excellent and the staff was so nice to us. I had some tapas of tortilla de patatas and patatas bravas which were awesome! I also helped my wife and daughter finish their big meals. From here we went back to our hotel.

I checked the return flights to see how things looked. We had planned on going home through Brussels because the flight had more seats from there. I had been to Brussels in 1993 but my family never had so we would spend a day there. Well, the direct flight from Madrid to New York was holding up with about 20 open seats in business class but full in coach.

We decided to just take the direct flight and skip Brussels. One day I will get back to Brussels. We went to sleep so that we could arise at 5am. We were lucky to get an extra hour of sleep due to the time change.

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