Ahhhh...! So THIS is Madrid!
Trip Start
Mar 23, 2007
1
6
9
Trip End
Apr 07, 2007
Madrid,
Spain
Friday, March 30, 2007
So - Thursday: training occurred, it went as well as could be expected. There. 'Nuf said about that -- besides, no one is reading this to learn about actuarial calculations.
Julia and her assistant
Thursday evening, the Spaniards in our training group had organized a large group dinner for all of us, at a restaurant called "Viejo Madrid" ("old Madrid"), located in the La Latina district, on a charming little street called "Calle de la Cava Baja". Leaving work at 8:15pm, we didn't get back to our hotel (after a quick trip to the grocery store) til 9pm, and the dinner was at 9:30. So - rush to the room, quick change of clothes, three deep breaths, run down the stairs again, a few steps to the subway, take a new subway line (lots and lots of stairs), get out at 9:25 at "La Latina" station. We should be on time, the restaurant is close to the subway, apparently.
Huh... yes, well, that's before taking the first wrong turn. Madrid was not build on a "grid" design. It's an old city which emerged from a series of old hamlets in medieval times. There are no "blocks" or 90-degree angles. So - a few more wrong turns later, a little bit of exploring on the side, and my Blackberry Maps application helps us figure out that we need to backtrack a bit. Finally, I had to ask for directions. We got to the restaurant at 9:50, about 5 minutes after the group.
The restaurant, like many others I've seen, had a rather small façade from the street. We were shown in, and walked through crooked narrow hallways to a back room, then another. A low arched ceiling, long wooden tables, and coloured glass in the windows -- hummm! It definitely looked cool! Our Spanish friends, after a few attempts to explain dishes listed on the menu, decided to order dishes that everyone would share. Great idea -- they surely have a better idea what, and how to order. We attacked the fresh bread shaped like large donuts, and uncorked a couple of bottles of a nice Rioja 2003 (the best year, apparently), while we waited for the food.
Dinner
First, we had some scrambled eggs over fries (sounds odd, but the way it was prepared, really good!), Jamon de Jabugo (pronounced sort of like "hhhhamon de hhhhabugo" -- just ask Hhhhhulia) -- a delicious cured ham, marinated mushrooms (very large mushrooms - delicious), mussels, cheese and a few other things I can't remember.
Helen
Then came the second courses we shared. Some very nice white fish called "merluza" ("hoki" in English, apparently...), and the main attraction -- some lovely filet mignon, raw, to be cooked on a number of extremely hot ceramic plates resting on the table. A perfectly clean "barbecue", and very tender meat. Perfect for us carnivores, especially those who like their meat on the rare side of things.
Steak cooking on a hot plate
Julia and wine
Desert was an assortment of bite-size pastries, along with "Arroz con Leche", or Spanish rice pudding. The whole was followed by the ever-so-glorious espressos, and by two bottles of liqueurs similar to Aquavita. 
Julia and liqueur
The above took care of the body (mainly), but the company we were in and the laughs we shared took care of the soul.
We had a lovely time with the whole group. Conversation, jokes, banter, and the inevitable "how do you say that in (fill in language)?" flowed up and down the table for a few hours. I was happily surprised to see that our trainees were less shy about speaking English, and felt pretty comfortable talking with us. It was a lot of fun, and was also the first good meal we'd had all week!
The only problem is that we didn't get "home" til 1:30am, and we had to be back at the training center for 8:30am.... But it was worth it!
