Hotel Nh Barajas Madrid

... Roman Style" and “Creaking Prawns.” Today in Cordoba, “Clotted Blood with Onions.” For dessert, a scrumptious “Quark Cheesecake.” Philip reported that he was able to furnish some assistance to a local restaurant proprietress who had earnestly translated a dessert something like crème brulee as “Bacon of the Sky with Scum.” Gosh, I think I’ll ...

... and armour a very interesting town and one of the best cathederals you could wish to see, then on to Burgois and the Guggenheim Museam at Bilbao a magnificent building housing modern art, worth a visit then travelled to Biarritz where the northern Europeans go for their summer holidays bit like Noosa but on a large scale very crowded then to ...

After three exciting days in Sevilla we board the "Bullet Train" for our two-hour, 250 kilometer per hour ride to Madrid. Our hotel will be another simple, family owned enchanting "hosteria" in the heart of Old Madrid. We will explore Madrid's colorful Old World markets, plazas, parks ...

... little café. Whichever it was, we enjoyed our treat. I had the hot chocolate, which has more of a soupy consistency but very flavorful nonetheless. Finally, we made our way back on the bus where I enjoyed a nice hour nap (typical) on our way back to Madrid. On this night, the Játivadores (a named I coined for the 6 of us that live on Calle de Játiva) were scheduled to go out with the girls' host mom Maria since 3 of us helped construct a dresser for her ...

... Parti, viaggio tranquillo, arrivo nel meraviglioso aereoporto di Madrid Barajas, cerco il terminal per i voli intercontinentali, vado al tabellone delle partenze, guardo da dove parte il volo per Citta' del Messico, partenza ore 00.40, sembra tutto ok....guardo il numero del volo....NON E' IL MIO VOLO.....dico: "Qualcuno sta' gufando...", chiedo informazioni con il mio spagnolo maccheronico e mi dicono che il mio volo partira ...

... and I can order something I really like out of a choice of things I really like (I am getting used again to the prices too) I can walk into buildings without being checked by security or being charged an entrance fee I pay the same price as the locals! People respect the queue, and mostly drive correctly You can't pee wherever you want whenever you want, but toilets are available anywhere There is no trash bin in the toilets... Where do I put ...

... and went on with my life. At first it was very simple, I used a tissue and put it in the paper bin. I ate an apple and dumped the core in the food bin. But imagine my horror the day I finished a can of soda!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF! So I thought about looking up the chemical properties of an aluminum soda can so that I could identify it as a paper, plastic or food product, but that wasn't happening. I thought maybe since aluminum was an element, that the food bin should really be an "Earthly ...

... lots of monkeys - some were even as big as apes - sitting on the car tops or trying to steal food from the tourists. Next stop was a 2nd World War Cave that used to be protecion from the Spanish...and then we stopped at the monkey feeding place - wow - that was too much monkey action for me: I got of the car, one monkey jumping on our roof - saw another one hanging on my window and looking at me - that scared the hell ...

... of my flight times, I began to look at being incommunicado as a bit of a challenge too. Texting was absolutely necessary if we wanted to see Emma in Valencia, which I did. I also had mobile numbers for Aaron and Bruce, who I was hoping to stay with in Portugal and Madrid. And so I decided on my own disconnect parameter... texting only. Complicated slightly by the fact that I had 10 days and no phone charger. We'd agreed that I'd meet Jimmy at my gate, and so I did my best to stay ...

... that we would travel here, especially with limited Spanish. Back to Chris and Sarah. We went for an early dinner (8pm)- the Spanish eat dinner at 10pm. We rode the Metro to find a particular restaurant, that looked pretty bad, so we walked along some side streets for a while and found Cafe Alberto. It turns out this is the oldest surviving tavern in the city 1827. We stood at the bar for a while trying to figure ...