¡Agradezca a Dios que es viernes!

  Madrid, Spain
Saturday, March 31, 2007

Friday! ...Finalmente...

Getting up this morning was a bit rough. We'd agreed to an extra half-hour of sleep, so we met at 8am instead of the usual 7:30. Our trainees didn't show up until 9:15-9:20 - except ironically for the Spaniards, who all had to come from their homes instead of the hotel next door. They were on time, the hotel-dwellers were late.

But no harm done - we'll just keep them later on Friday afternoon :-)   The day's training was uneventful - just continued hard work. The training is shifting from "teaching" to "advising" as the trainees do work themselves. It's hard for them, and not as obvious as listening to someone talking all day. Once again, our team is outstanding. At some point, Radha did make Steve and I look up when we heard him talk about "custom beer", but we realized quickly he was talking about "custom BF" (a technical term relative to the software) -- must have been wishful thinking that made Steve and I hear the word "beer" in the middle of training on a Friday.

Steve and I joined our weekly Services meeting via conference call in the afternoon. We gave an update on our work here, and listened to everyone else's update. It was good connecting with folks in the office after a week and hearing everyone's voices and jokes on the phone. When they got to the "puzzle of the week" however, I hung up...

By 6:30pm, everyone had gone, and we were packing up for the weekend. Whoo-hoo! No training, no work and freedom for two days!

We started with a decision to go for dinner within walking distance of our hotel. We dropped off our bags at the hotel, then went exploring. We walked around, spotted a couple of places, but played the Goldie Locks game for a while: "This place is too smoky. This place doesn't have enough vegetarian options. This place is Mexican -- we didn't do so well with the Mexican place the other night. This place doesn't look too appealing".  At some point, after walking around for about 30 minutes and with my stomach grumbling, I turned to Steve and said, "That's it... We're stopping at the next place, no matter what it is." To which Steve responded, "Watch out, it'll be Pizza Hut!". Not quite, Steve, not quite... Turns out, it was "Telepizza". Well, Steve didn't hold me to it, so we walked on.

I spotted a place across the street, on Calle Príncipe de Vergara ("Prince of Viagra"...?!), at the corner of Calle Juan Bravo. By then, we were just around the corner from our hotel. The place looked somewhat unassuming from the street, with a sign saying "La Mesta" above the door (Príncipe de Vergara 60, 28006 Madrid, 914 317 456).  The menu posted outside looked pretty good, and offered sufficient vegetarian options to be appealing for Radha as well.

Radha, with a full stomach

Steve pointing out the artwork to Julia

Walking in, we saw a bar on the left, where a couple of old-timers were smoking and having a glass of wine. We asked for the restaurant proper, and were directed to another basement backroom. On each side of the hallway, fridges filled with jamónes and little "suckling pigs", cheeses and other delicacies. Hummm... This place seemed promising.

The dining room surprised us with its grandeur and formality, decor and artwork. Very nice! We were alone - I guess it was still early, at 8:30pm - and therefore smoke was not an issue, at least for now.

Helen and Radha

A very friendly waiter came by, and took our drink orders. We also ordered some appetizers (definitely some jamón and some cheese). The waiter also brought us some bread with tomato paste, and taught us to spread the tomato paste on the bread, and then sprinkle the whole with olive oil. He poured us wine (again, a nice Rioja), and explained a few dishes that were on the menu.

Between his two words of English and my few of Spanish, we and the waiter became fast friends, as he brought us more good food. The steak was tasty, the omelet looked very nice, and Julia's seafood also received a few compliments. So for the week, dinner-wise, we're batting... two for seven. That's two very nice dinners out of seven. Either our choice of restaurants has been remarkably bad, or food in Madrid is a little overrated. Another week to find out.

We didn't order desert, but our friendly waiter brought a tray of little frozen chocolate and ice cream treats to close our meal. Very nice... 

Our friendly waiter, offering desert

 
We closed our evening with a walk back to our hotel on Juan Bravo, passing by the Ferrari and Maserati dealership (how did they get those cars inside the building?), and the smoky bar that looks like a Spanish galleon (it didn't look that cool).

Ferrari dealership on Calle Juan Bravo

We made the decision to meet tomorrow morning at 8am, so we can catch the 9:20am train to Toledo from Atocha Renfe station.

As John Lennon once sang, "And a good night to juz'all!" ¡Hasta mañana!