We arrived in the evening and Steve led Lindsey around Madrid on a massive walking tour. Amazingly, he navigated each alley by memory/luck to arrive precisely at each famous land-mark that he had visited during a rather intoxicated boys-tour of Madrid last year.
We strolled past several plazas, the Plaza Major being the best known, past the cathedral, and the royal palace.
At around 11pm, when the gatos (Madrid locals) head to dinner, we stopped in a tapas restaurant in the La Latina neighborhood. Steve somehow maintained a decent grasp of the Spanish language from college, or at least enough to order plates of jamon and cheese, and great glasses of rioja.
The next morning we hit some of the city's museums, first stopping at the
Museo del Prado. The Prado holds one of the finest collections of European art, most of it portraying religious scenes. Steve's favorite are the black paintings that Goya created directly on the walls of his house after going mentally insane. Summing up the entire collection, Lindsey commented that it was an amazing museum, but there sure was a whole lot of Jesus.
Next we stopped by the Museo Reina Sofia, which houses a large collection of Picassos, including his famous work Guernica. Sadly, it was closed and Lindsey let out a little pout.
While these museums were exceptional, the Museo de Jamon stole the show. This venue dishes out plates of ham and cheese which we devoured on three occasions in our day and a half stay in Madrid.
Here's a closer look at this divine culinary experience.
Our other great stop was at a famous institution that has been serving Churros con Chocolate for over 100 years. Again, Steve discovered this by fantastic luck, having been there last time at around 6am after a long night on the town. These churros don't have the cinnamon that you might expect, but are served with an entire cup of warm chocolate.
With a great tour, fantastic food, and priceless art we finished our trip, both excited to return home. But little did we know, we had one more stop in for us.
Ten minutes into our flight bound for our connection in Dublin, the plane started to make a wide u-turn. Lindsey woke up Steve (who is generally asleep before take-off) to alert him that we were headed back. Steve responded dismissively to a nervous Lindsey: "planes turn"
Within seconds, the captain alerted us on the loudspeaker that there was an "acrid smell" in the cockpit similar to "electronics burning" and that he was headed back to Madrid because the smell was coming from under the dashboard and "he couldn't really know if it was nothing or really serious."
Needless to say, he lacked much of a filter on his communication sending Lindsey into a bit of a panic. A long eight minutes later, we landed and sat on the plane while mechanics investigated the problem. The captain, who must have been about 25, walked through the plane answering our questions! About 30 minutes later he explained that a reservoir, used to hold a type of windshield cleaner, had broken and was spilling all over the avionics electronic boards. He said that the mechanics were fixing it (maybe with a hairdryer we thought) and we'd be good to go in 30 minutes. This seemed serious, but we took off and after a rather uncomfortable flight, safely arrived in Dublin.
The delay made us miss our connection and we were put up in a hotel for the evening. We grouped up with some other young travelers, many returning from semesters abroad, and headed downtown for some pub-hoping. It was a great evening and made us both want to return to Dublin for a longer stay.
The next day we safely made it to the United States of America, touching down in our new home of Chicago. We were both excited to wrap up the trip, although in reality we'll still be traveling around the US for the next month.
We hope everyone has enjoyed the blog and that we'll see each of you in the coming month.
The End
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