Hotel Residencia Mayor 71 Soria

... works to prevent gay marriage, not allow profanity or nudity on public television, and disallow scary things like sex education that isn’t abstinence only. Yet here in Spain, all of those things exist and the family unit is still usually stronger than it is back home. It makes you wonder how much of our “family values” image is politically or religiously driven, instead of being an actual concept based on common sense and logic.

Today I planned to rest a bit and especially because I had to go out visit my lovely friend Olga. Could not believe we are seeing each other again after becoming friend in Lima Peru, 3 years ago! It seemed so long ago!

I met her at the Sofia Reina art gallery. We were going to join other friends of here in few minutes in a little Spanish tapa place. After trying the famous Spanish tomato soup and some drinks we head out for ...

... as well to see the whole thing in case you are not as crazy as me!

The trail reminded me of my Trans Canada biking trips. Great scenery and out of the populated city of Madrid. There is an amazing coal mine on the way too. It worth checking into it.

After cleaning up, I headed out to the Sol for an Indian food. To my surprise all the restaurants were closed and the city was very quiet due to today's holy festivity. I was almost giving ...

Tried to get myself out of bed early around 9am. I knew I am not gonna be making the early trains like yesterday. Got to Chamartin station around 10:30am. All the trains were full till 12:30pm. If you plan something in Spain during big festivities, plan carefully my advice!

I got the slow train to Segovia and got there around 2pm ...

... to. I liked that day a little better though because we went to see the more stereotypical tourist traps. So there were more decorations and stalls set up selling random things. This was a much more crowded area as well, even at night. We saw the Royal Palace, the Cathedral of Almudena and Plaza Mayor.

I would have to say wandering made up a very large portion of what I did in Madrid. Most of what there is to see are plazas and parks and churches and buildings ...

... goodbye to it.

After the failure to get to Toledo, decided to just hang around down town and check out the festivities in the Sol and Plaza de Mayor.

Had dinner in an amazing seafood restaurant called Mariescos by Anton Martin Metro. Highly recommend it. But have to be there around 8:15pm to line up for the 8:30pm opening. If you can a bit later, no chance you would get in.

Finally I arrived around 11:30am on Dec. 4th, after 12 hours of flight. For some reason it felt a lot longer than last time I came to Madrid. Lufthansa was great. A lot better than the Air Canada I am used to with a lot better food.

I got a taxi for 30EU to Las Tablas and crashed for 6 hours of sleep. There was a welcome dinner for me in a very nice Brazilian restaurant with live samba music. Awesome food! I would say better than the Calgary Brazilian one :)

... was odd because the traffic was usually not that bad) which delayed us by like half an hour so I hurried to the metro station only to find that it was closed. Which threw me because I've never seen a metro closed during the middle of the day. This was when I found out that I had encountered my first European strike.

I was seriously thinking that I would make it through all of my travels without running into a strike. And just when you think you're safe ...

... of snoring or rustling plastic bags in the night. I don´t know how I´m going to cope returning to the real world. Over the next few days, we had a fairly structured schedule - breakfast (sitting 2 anglos with 2 spaniards), then an hour one on one with a different spaniard discussing whatever we wanted to talk about, then a massive lunch, siesta, group activity and more one to ones. Then a massive dinner and drinks in the bar. Sounds difficult, huh ...

... cheap spanish beer, jager shots, and tequila shots (sorry mom, nana, etc). That was pretty much all that happened today other than I realized I forgot my towel in England, and someone stole one of my shirts I was drying out. At this rate I´m not going to have anything left in a few weeks.