Madrid is HOT!

Nate and I were off to Madrid for a compliance visit, so figured it would be awesome to stay over both weekends to hang out in the sun and enjoy a new country.  Little did we know just how hot it really was though, I think by the end we were both over the heat.  If you are going to be somewhere that is that hot you should be at the beach, and in the water  :-)  They said the second weekend was the hottest weekend they had seen yet (not sure if that is true really, but it sure felt like it!)

It was Carol's birthday the first Saturday so her and Jo flew down to hang out too!  We hit the town the first night for some tapas and sangria!  By the end of the night we had acquired some nice new shades  ;-p

 The next day Nate and I hit the town for some exploring!  Right off I found a dragon!  Loving it!

The "Post Office" building, amazing that the post office is in a building that looks like this!  Really think this was one of my favorite building of the whole weekend, and was right along our walk into town so we walked by it several times each day  :-D

 Parque del Retiro, we spent much of our time wandering around this huge park.  Looking at the statues, fountains, and hanging out in the grass relaxing in the shade.  :-)

 Night 2 we met up with my old boss Eamonn and his wife Ann, who are now living in Madrid for their expat adventure!  They gave us a mini tour of downtown and told us fun stories that they have learned through their stay so far.  And took us to a delicious tapas market which we returned to the last weekend too because we enjoyed it so much.  Fun market where you walk around and just get little snacks from all the different booths that are nightly operating in a large glass enclosed area (which had misters going to keep it a bit cooler in there!). 

We saw some interesting characters on a bike brigade.

Later that night the shades showed back up..

Sunday we headed out of the city center where we were staying, to go to our "business" hotel for the work week.  We had a short, very busy, 3 day compliance visit.  Interesting seeing the very different working hours in the different countries.  People in Madrid mostly didn't come in to work until after 9:30am, and even then they seemed to and cluster around the coffee and hang out until maybe 10am.  Then it would be work time.  But then they wouldn't take lunch until very late, maybe 2pm, and then many of them would take long siestas and be gone for a hour or two.  And then they would come back to start their "afternoon" and would end up working until late.  Probably before Denmark, this would have been much more my speed, late to rise and just leisurely work till late... However, now I am ruined with knowing how nice it is leaving early and having the late afternoon to work out, etc. before dinner.

Here though, they have dinner super late too!  I mean really, the restaurants don't open until 8:30 or 9 for dinner.  So unheard of to me, how on earth do you have a restaurant opening at 9pm??  So we waited, and would be close to the first ones in there eating... and there would be people out all around us with their children, and they would still be there when we left at 10 or later... Just a different lifestyle  :-)

 Thursday morning we headed back into town for our long weekend "holiday".  We spent the weekend exploring some more, and hanging out at our pool (which was outdoor but was in the middle of the hotel so it was only in the sun in the afternoon and we were mostly in the shade - which i am sure my skin thanks me). 

 We wandered up to Real Madrid stadium for a little teaser.  Pretty impressive place!  Really made me just want to be there for a match though, think that next season Nate and I will try to come back for one and stay with Eamonn and Ann hopefully (and of course drag them with us!).

 

I touched the green!  Oh yea, almost like I was part of the action!  ;-p

 Press room.... I win!! 

 The Post Office at night

We wandered around starving trying to find a decent place to eat at like 10pm (remember everything is open, but many menus are only in Spanish which makes it a bit rough when you have Mr picky eater with you who gets nervous when he can't read the menu, haha).  Finally we found a place that had a guy playing outside so that seemed like good ambiance at least.  Food left something to be desired, but we had a good time.  This little girl was just in love with the guy, she slowly inched closer and closer to him.  He was a good sport, we just spent the meal giggling at her, oh girls are so silly.  :-)

 
On Friday we were going to head out of town for the day for an adventure, to go to the old town of Toledo, but somehow we got bad directions from the hotel and went to the wrong bus station and by the time we figured out what we really needed to do... Nate was over it.. He tried hard to remain calm, but I could see the irritation bubbling out of him.. So instead we decided we would take a shorter adventure out of town to El Escorial (which we could get to by metro from the station we were at, and we were pretty comfortable with the train so seemed like a safer bet).

Was hotter out of town, and a long trek up to the palace which was a bit up a hill.. But it was a great afternoon, was fun to see one of the Spanish palaces.

Nate doin' his happy dance  :-)

 After we got home we decided to go and see a flamenco show!  Was really fun to see all that machismo!  We had talked about maybe going to see a bullfight since it is so Spanish, but we couldn't quite bring ourselves to do it... Just seemed so cruel, even if the bulls are revered for the first 4+ years of their life, and this is their big battle, and then they are food... but still... yikes.

So we went to a place recommended to us, Las Tablas, which was downtown so was a nice evening walk (not that it gets real cool in the evenings even, ha)

Final day I decided it would be fun to be a total tourist and take one of those double-decker buses around the city.  Neither of us had ever ridden on one of those before so we weren't really sure what to expect.  I thought it was good fun!  Learned a lot about the city, and was interesting to hear the history and just watch from a higher vantage point.  Downfall, it was sweltering (like 95+ I am sure).  So we were pretty much sitting in pools of our own sweat.  Once we did the full circle and got off at the final stop I could just tell it looked like I peed myself, looking around I could see everyone was having that problem.  Think about being in a hot and dry place though... in about a minute I was totally dry. (till I was walking in the sun again and sweating all over again).

Poseidon

Final sight I wanted to see was the fallen angel in the park.  We had heard that this statue was controversial because it was rumored to be the depiction of Lucifer the fallen angel (the only statue of him).  What was argued about the artistry though is that this is not a celebration of that fall, but instead a reminder to not fall yourself.  Just my kind of statue....

 Palacio de Cristal in the center of the Parque del Retiro

 Love this building!  Made me think of the movie Great Expectations (which has an old mansion that is in disrepair).  Not that this building was particularly run down or anything but it just had that feel for some reason.  Like there was some magic in side here.  All the birds that were circling above helped I am sure.  :-D

 So I blame the sun for frying my brain, but by nature I am terrified of missing flights.  Yes, thank you mom for giving me that one fear.  ;-p  So somehow in my brain I was like 'ok, flight is at one, you should be there 2 hours early to be safe... so you should leave hotel about 8:30 to make sure to get there by 9'.  Yep, you would never guess that math is one of my strengths... 4 hours early seem reasonable?  And in an airport which is really not so nice.. great.  Nate was so fried from the sun I think that he didn't even try to process what I was doing, and didn't register how early we were going to be there either.  Go me.  Guess I was just really ready to get out of the heat, didn't think I would get excited to leave holiday and come home to Denmark but I was.  :-) 

Back to the training, we did twice a day workouts for the first couple days to try to a little make up for the no working out we did in Spain (we walked a lot, and sweatted a lot.... but not the same).  With the relay we are signed up for in April, we both are trying so hard to get into good running shape.  I have been out of shape for so long that it is really hard, but is feeling so good!  I am surprised I have let myself be so lazy for so long.  No more!!!