Markets in Madrid!

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Madrid began with a number of hostel dramas, firstly they lost my booking for 2 nights and only confirmed me for one. Then they found my other night, in a different room though. Then there was only 1 key per room and he said someone was already inside. I took my 22kg bag up to the third floor, but there was no one inside! So I walked all they way back down to get a spare key. Opened the door to find dirty linen, used tooth floss and someones used t-shirt, oh and a dirty toilet. Very unhappy. Went back downstairs to discuss changing rooms and the guy started telling me he had managed to keep me in the same room for both nights. Yay. When I started to say something about the state of the linen/room he simply yelled louder and louder about the room until the other receptionist heard me and gave me sheets. Oh such fun. I had to get that out as it has been my worst experience (and in the scheme of things really not that bad) but I had just gotten off a 6 hour boring bus ride and I was also tired and cranky.

The group dinner organised by our guide however made up for the dramas. We went to a little local place called "Ginger" which turned out to have incredible food. We all ordered an entre, main and dessert and drinks for under 20 euro. It was a classy establishment with cloth napkins too, which is a small thing but makes a big difference. The menu was by far the most amusing read as alot of items were lost in translation i.e. Spanglish. Our favourite was the Iberian tagliata of secrecy.

I had vegetables tartini with goats cheese for entre which came in a stack, surrounded by a moat of delicious sauces. Then for main course I had lamb, something not readibly found in most restaraunts in Europe but my stomache readily welcomed. Mel had the pork and I kindly offered her some of my lamb in a bid to try her pork. This somewhat obvious comment was not lost in conversation and my busmates all had a giggle at my alterior motives. Dessert was similarly written in very entertaining Spanglish so after learning that french toast was off the menu I settled for chocolate cake for chocolate fans. Mel shared her strawberries and marscapone with me as it was way too rich! Chocolate icecream ball sitting on a short dense choc brownie, drowning in chocolate sause! Oh my. Most of you know I have an allergy to too much chocolate, so about half way through my headache began to remind me I had maxed out on my tolerence level. Haha It was worth it though! (Spoken like a true chocoholic)

The other busabouters decided 10.30 was bed time (slackers) so Mel and I decided to walk the town and see the sights at night. Big cities have antirely different persona at night sometimes and Madrid is definately golden! The cobble stone streets are quite small and it is easy to get disorientated as the streets near the hostel weren't straight either and meandered uphill and down. We generally followed where there were more people wandering around and found an amazing fountain, Retiro garden (from the ouside), Madrid's Arch di Triumph, the smaller palace where there was also another fountain and an American building that was also beautifully built. A few night photos later and we were ready to go to bed (it was now after midnight...so a much more reasonable bedtime for travel explorers!)

I was quite exhausted and battling the beginnings of a cold so I had a very relaxing sleep in before waking up and meeting my roomie, Anna, who I discovered was going to be on my busabout tour of the south of Spain! We were both really excited about the trip and then discovered that we were also on the same Italian Adventure trip 2 weeks later! What are the chances?! After a slow morning, as neither of us felt compelled to rush, we headed off to the famous Madrid markets. We wandered through a few amazing plaza's which the size reminded me of the Lourve in Paris, but that was where the similarities stopped. Spanish plazas had street statues, like goats in glitter, people dressed as trees, bull fighters, Spanish dancers and even a fruit lady! Luckily the fruit lady led us directly to the markets.

At first we were surprised that the markets were enclosed in a glass building and were quite small. We had thought they were bigger and better than the ones in Barcelona. After walking in and doing a quick lap of the venue we realised it was definately smaller but in terms of amazing food and lunch choices, it was definately much better! Classy presentation, tables and seating, delcious smells and people galore! Definately the place to be! Let me begin by saying we arrived at 12pm...this will be relevant later. We had done our "drive by" to scope out our options, decided that the best way to experiencd it was to try EVERYTHING! So we decided to each get a dish and then share between us. Course one was an interesting potato/egg/onion omlette type dish that was served as a slice, like a cake, called a potato tortilla. It sounds strange and we were a little unsure, until we tasted it! It was hot, moist, a perfect blend of not too much onion and just enough outer crust! Amazing first course!

Course two was continuing as a "hot" meal and we chose the croquettes, one ham, one fish. It is mashed potato mixed with tiny bits of the extra addition then rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried. Yum! They are quite small, about the size of a small roma tomato, so it was guilt free eating. Course three was the "mixed" paella, Spanish tradition and the clams were amazing, not the best paella ever but definately a good one. We had almost had our fill of hot food so we decided to break it up with a drink. I had been really looking forward to trying a mohito since Barcelona but hadn't had the inclination or opportunity so Anna and I headed to the tiniest stall in the whole place to try it out! Anna had the traditional version and I spied the strawberry. As most of you know I have been a non drinker for many many years. This was for many reasons, but one was because I didn't enjoy the taste. This has now changed. I am completely in LOVE with strawberry mohitos. The bar girl was also very good. She added all kinds of alcohol (free pour, not measured by the millimetre like in Aus), mint, strawberry, ice...oh and the top 2 cm of the glass was non-alcoholic stuff! Haha We were going to get foodnto go with our drinks, but after finding a place to stand at a tall table and tasting our drinks we decided that our drinks were a meal in themselves! :-)

A little while later, we decided we were ready for our next course and headed for the cheese stall. 3 types of cheese later, one being a delicious not-too-blue cheese and we were gettin to our last stages of hunger. Our last stop was pre-dessert yogurt and mix-in's which had come highly reccommended by every backpacker who had already been to the markets. I had the frozen yoghurt with cookies and walnut mix in. Anna had non frozen yoghurt with cherry and brownie mix in. I haven't eaten frozen yoghurt since primary school when it took me the 20 mins of morning tea to scrape it out of the tiny cup...this time round, I am definately a convert. Move over icecream, yoghurt's just moved in! It was amazing. We tried eachother's choices but Anna's cherries tasted more like a liquer cherry and took some getting used to as it was very sweet. We were both almost finished on the market front and although we had decided we were both full, we raided the sweets / biscuits stall for one last round, for the road! We waddled to the nearest train station to head to Retiro park, recommended to me by Miki and Mal and worked up an appetite on the underground while holding our treats.

The park is enclosed in a massive fence and upon finding the entrance we saw a giant striped fibre glass penguin. Somewhat odd...I remarked "Wow, well nothing says Penguin like Spain". I of course meant it to come out "nothing says Spain like a penguin" but the strawberry mohito had other plans for my words and so we giggled a little more. We found a giant man mad lake with bronze lion statues and a large regal building to admire while we sat in the semi-sunshine and ate through our final market course, unfoftunately I had eaten 2 biscuits before remembering I was going to take a photo....but I blame that delicious mohito again. We remained on Spanish time and chilled out until it got too chilly from the breeze and went off to explore the 3 major structures that lonely planet had recommended.

The first was a giant glass gazebo that put the gazebo from the sound of music to shame! It is called the Palacio de Cristal or Crystal Palace. It is used now for art exhibitions and currently had some morden artwork which featured lots of broken glass and bottles. From there we went looking for the Satan satue, el angle caido, or fallen angel, which is one of the few statues in the world dedicated to satan and sits 666 metres above sea level. It was more than a little creapy with Satan's minnions spitting water into the fountain while they captured stone lizards and snakes in their paws to eat for later. To lighten the mood we headed for the glorious rose garden which had over 4000 roses in bloom! The smell was so fragrant, not to mention the beautiful colours and windy romantic laneways, green arches and fountains. We walked back via some of the beautiful museums and found another penguin or two...

Beckie and Nolene were by now getting back to Spain from their Iberian Adventure which I would be embarking on the following day so I headed back to the hostel to meet them. Unfortunately I missed Nolene as she had run to catch a plane to Italy but Becky and I managed a look into eachothers eyes before running through the hallways for a big reunion hug and a couple of girly squeals. Haha We had a chat and caught up on the goss before heading off for showers for Beckie's reunion group dinner with her new tour friends.

We went to a local restaurant for pinchos which is kind of like tapas but not really. Haha Basically the food is still small portions but it is displayed in a glass cabinet and you choose what you want and the waiters give it to you after heating it up (if need be). I had a vege stack with goats cheese on bread which was to die for! Followed buy a fish dish which was also good and finally a chicken satay thing. It was all delicious and we were also happily drinking the sangria which was on tap! :-) After dinner and chats we wandered up the road to a corner pub where we had a few mohito's before I left before midnight as we had a very early bus ride the following morning.

Anna and I were thrilled to have the room to ourselves and be able to get a good nights sleep....until...in walked 3 very loud and raucus Greek girls who introduced themselves as Angelica, Yoda (yes, like the green dude from star wars, I asked her twice...she must have noticed my confused look because she looked offended I didn't get her name) and the last girl forgot to introduce herself. Basically all quiet had now ended as they proceeded to chat, crash and bang their way around the room. They were horrified when we said we were going to bed so early, but eventually they left to go clubbing and came back very noisily sometime later. Not alot of sleep was had for Anna and I so we were less inclined to be quiet the next morning when they were still asleep. Whoops! :-)

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