The Adventure Begins

---

This is our first trip to Europe since moving to Manhattan, we are excited because it will take 6 or more hours off our travel time as we can fly non-stop of Newark airport to all most any destination. The journey actually began a few days before we left. Since Christina, who normally has taken care of Tarragon is actually meeting us in Paris for part of this trip, we had to flow in his old cat sitter from Portland for the three weeks we will be gone. The advantage is that the cat already knows Chad, the disadvantage other than the price of the ticket is that Chad has never been to New York before and does not know the city. In addition, to him being overwhelmed by the City he has an ear infection.

In any event, he arrived the Sunday before we left to get up to speed on living in New York. I am not sure if he is taking care of Tarragon or if Tarragon will be looking out for him. What is also unusual for this trip is I actually worked up until 4 pm and then went right to the train station to meet Jerry to take the train to the airport. We are used to having to get up at 3 in the morning to be on a 6 am flight out of Portland just to get to the east coast, before the flight to Europe.

The Flight

I tried hard to get us in first class, but I simply waited 4 days too late to buy the tickets and they more than doubled in cost, so that just went out the window. Instead we flew economy plus which did get us some extra legroom, but the seats are still hard as a rock and by the time you get to where you’re going, your ass is either number or in great pain. The only real comment I have about the flight, because let’s face it a flight in economy is nothing to blog about, is the stupid United Terminal. Not a vendor in the terminal takes cash. Everything must be paid by card and you have to order everything through a IPad. Now the 20 and 30 something may love it, but the quick travel survey we took at the bar was no one over 40 is very enthralled with the concept. The best part is that they say the reason is to better protect us from fraud. Really, protecting us from fraud by forcing us to use our credit cards in the most public place there is, an international airport. Call it what it is, an effort by the Corporate 1%!t(MISSING)o make more money and cut jobs.

Outside that, the flight was routine, the best type since I wouldn’t be a big fan of a flight that was something less than routine. We didn’t get much sleep so we were pretty tired when we landed in Madrid.

Day 1 – Arrival in Madrid (May 4)

We arrived in Madrid at about 9:45 am Madrid time. The walk to the baggage claim was about a mile and another mile to the Metro station, more on that bit of chaos in a moment. Yes, it was a long walk but not unexpected because why would an American airline get a close gate, pretty sure those might be reserved for Spanish and European airlines. In any event the 2 retired couples spent the entire walk complaining about the walk, the food on the airplane, and does anyone really think airplane food no matter what the class, is actually going to be good? Besides, if they think the walk was long now, god forbid Donald Trump becomes president because the planes probably won’t even be allowed to land. But I digress. We picked up our luggage and proceeded through customs, literally the fastest customs I have ever been through, no line and they just looked at our passport while they talked to the official next to them, stamped it and waived you through. Then we made the metro hike, was all flat with moving sidewalks along the way, so that was not big deal, the big deal was trying to buy a tourist metro pass. My debit card has a chip and a pin number, but unfortunately for us, it was a Visa debit card and the Madrid Metro only takes MasterCard. Like everyone in the world has one of those? So after three attempts and decline after decline, I thought better of any other tries, before Bank of America decided there was fraudulent activity and cut my card off entirely, don’t laugh it has happened 7 times in the last 2 months and that was in New York and never has there been any fraud other than me spending money. We tried to ask some metro personnel for assistance, but our Spanish has kicked in yet so that didn’t help either. We finally just broke down and used the Euros we had to buy per trip tickets until we can get cash (yet another story) to purchase the metro pass.

The Metro here is very efficient, very quiet, fast and 1000 times cleaner than New York. However, I will cut the MTA some slack since they are dealing with a system that is 110 years old and most of Europe’s metros are much newer. We found our hotel without incident, only 3 blocks from the metro stop and even got off on the right side of the street. Of course, they actually post signs telling you which exit to take to get to which street. There is also the quarter plan to help you get your bearings. We got to the hotel at about 12:30 and were able to check in right away. This was a god send as it allowed us to freshen up a bit before we hit the streets.

We are staying at Hotel Cason Del Tormes, nothing fancy, a basic three-star hotel, which queen bed, very firm, and private bathroom. Breakfast is included and there is free Wi-Fi, that is basically all we need, since we don’t spend a great deal of time in the room. It is also very centrally located, near 2 different metro lines and walking distance to many sites. There is construction going on across the street, but they are done by 6 so again, that doesn’t really impact us.

After a bit of unpacking and a quick freshening up, we were off to explore. The original plan was to check into the hotel, get Euros, watch the special changing of the guards at the palace, a walking tour of Plaza de Oriente, lunch and the hop on hop off bus tour. What we got done, Euros, lunch hop on hop off and buy wine and water for the room. We will get the balance in on one of the other days were are here.

A note regarding ATMs

Do not rely upon google to showing you where a bank is at. Bank of America has an agreement with Deutsche bank, if you use their ATM in Spain, there is no ATM fee charged by either bank, just the international fee. Here is the problem, google said there were 4 in the city, turns out only one and it is nowhere near us. So instead used Santander Bank, which BofA has an agreement with in Mexico, so hopefully that works here as well. Short story is, google maps is not trust worthy to find anything in a foreign country.

After finally, tracking down an ATM, we got our Euros then proceeded to lunch. We had a very nice lunch at a place on Grand Via, the main shopping and theatre district here. Now, I know what you’re thinking: 1) it must have been expensive and 2) it couldn’t have been good given the location is a total tourist trap. You would be wrong on both accounts. The name of the Restaurant was The Lobby Market, it was both a tapas bar and restaurant. We had a three course la carta de dia, for 13 Euros each including a glass of wine, and it was a good poor not a New York Pour.

Lunch

The first meal was as follows:

Jerry started with Salmorejo, Madrid’s version of gazpacho, it was very good and had a bit of jamon as a garnish. Is second course being a veal cutlet stuffed with piquillo peppers, cheese and ham, it was very good as well. He ended with sliced pineapples.

I had Rice with rabbit and rabbit sausage, it was very good. Second course was Bacalao Gratinado. A perfectly cooked piece of cod with a saffron aioli sauce. I ended with the Helado de Vainilla.

After lunch we hoped on the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the old city. We however did not hop-off just used it as an opportunity to get acquainted with where the sites were so we could find them all later. Besides, it was a nice hot day and we both nodded off a bit on the tour. It was a good tour and as we travel more and age more, we find it is a good thing to do for any first time visit to a City. It just helps you get a handle on the layout of what you want to spend more time seeing.

That pretty much ended the first day. We did take a trip to a supermarket to get bottle water and some very very cheap wine, we could save so much if wine cost back home what it does here. We paid 1.15 Euro per bottle which is roughly 1.32 and it is not swill. We are in the midst of a dinner dilemma as the place we wanted to go, which is right by us, seems to be quite popular and we could not get a reservation using the Fork app. We are going to pop our heads in and see, if not dinner could just be some good jamon and queso from the store.

A delightful dinner surprise

The restaurant we were planning on was closed so that was not possible, so as we were walking towards the market to get something for dinner, we happened upon a wonderful little surprise. There was only one other table being served, so normally that gives one pause, however, the menu just was to enticing to pass buy and we were so not disappointed. It is this wonderful little place run by an aging husband and wife team, she serves every table and clearly has Parkinson’s. The food, well I couldn’t do it better myself and I really mean that. This is a must for anyone traveling to Madrid, it is off the beaten path, not trendy and traditional Spanish food that just can’t be matched. The name of the place is Resaurante El Ingenio, founded in 1960. It has a heavy Don Quixote theme. It is just a few blocks from our hotel on Calle de Leganitos 10. It is worth the trip. We did several Tapas as our dinner and none disappointed. Dinner was as follows:

Cabrales Mouse (Spanish Blue cheese mouse, served with toasted resin bread)
Gambas (garlic prawns)
Ajo Tomate (Hot spice tomatoe garlic dip) to die for
Saurtido de Ibericos (selection of Spanish ham and Manchego)
E.T y atun (Tomato with tuna and Modena cream)
Sopa Castellana (garlic soup) a dish I make myself and this was as if I made it
Arroz con leche (rice pudding)
Tarta de queso (real cheesecake, raspberry jam sauce)

We also had a bottle of wine all of this was way under $100. It was a perfect first dinner in Madrid.

Tomorrow is a busy day of sightseeing, but we will sleep in a bit, lucky for us this is Spain and the day doesn’t really start until 10, any reason this is Jerry’s favorite country.

---