399 Days

Day 287 – Madrid, Spain (by Abby) Friday, April 8, 2011 Looking at my watch I almost laughed at how long we had taken this morning. The time was 10:32 and we still hadn’t left to see Madrid. At least now we were getting on our shoes, after a very late wake-up and an even later breakfast. By 10:45 we were out of the door and on our way to Puerta del Sol. This began our introductory walk from Puerta del Sol to the Royal Palace. After admiring Peurta del Sol, we headed to the nearby Salon la Mallorquina, famous for its sweet Napolitanas – a cream-filled pastry. Inside we found that not only was there the regular kind of Napolitanas, but chocolate, and Napolitana de Lomo, a pastry filled with meat sauce and rice. We ordered two of the regulars, one of the chocolate and one of the “de Lomo”. They were really yummy, but I liked the chocolate best. Next we headed to Plaza Mayor. After reading the history to us, Caitlin said that we would be coming back here to get fried calamari sandwiches as a supplement to our lunch – YUM! We then walked to a market where we admired yummy looking seafood and huge paper cones being sold filled with warm olive oil potato chips and pig skins. (Thinking that these were pig’s ears, we wanted to come back later to get some, but when we came back we found that they were just the skins, so we didn’t buy any.) Walking a bit of a ways away we came to a convent. Our guidebook told us to ring the bell and in answer to whatever the nun says to say “Dulces”, meaning sweet. The nun buzzed opened the door mechanically and Daddy and Caitlin disappeared through a tiny door within a huge door. The door was so tiny that both Daddy and Caitlin had to duck to fit through the door. We were told later that, down the hall, they found the Torno, a huge lazy Susan. On the shelf were two boxes of sweets and a list of prices on the door. One box had crumbly cookies and the other one had moist cookies. They chose the crumbly cookies, took the box, put the money on the lazy Susan and spun it around. Then they came back to us with the box of goodies. Finally we came to the Royal Palace. After heading inside we toured the official rooms of the Royal Palace first. Using Caitlin’s guidebook and the tiny signs in the rooms that told us additional information, we went through all these rooms. We basically learned from our guidebook that this was Europe’s third greatest palace. After a fortress burned down on this site, King Phillip V commissioned this 18th century palace as a replacement. King Phillip, who was French, and his wife, who was Italian had a great influence on the architecture. Nowadays the royal family lives a few blocks away but they use this for special occasions and celebrations. As we went through the palace, we learned that there was going to be a special event in a couple of days, and there were a lot of maids and security guards bustling around. After we finished the official rooms, we were disappointed to find the armory closed, so we headed to the pharmacy. As we went through this we became highly amused at how much information the signs told us that was perfectly useless. For example, in talking about the pharmacy we read about the “glass pot-shaped jars with round tops on the top shelf”. We kids thought that this was absolutely ridiculous, but Mom read every word. After exiting the palace we headed across the street to a neighborhood park to enjoy lunch and the goodies that we had bought. The specialty here in Spain is ham, called jamón. The Spanish pay very high prices to know that their ham was once a very happy piggy eating acorns in green fields. At dinner last night we had bought some of this jamón and I found it delicious, but Mom and Dad found it hard to chew. Walking back to Plaza Mayor, we ordered two fried calamari sandwiches. Through the window I was able to see the chef grab the squid, dunk it in flour and then deep fry it. It was one of the yummiest sandwiches I’ve had, but the squid was very hot and stringy. Next we took the metro to Retiro Park. It was easy in this 350-acre park to find a nice, grassy, shady place to take naps and siesta. We were right next to a very fun-looking playground area so I ventured out into the 92° sun to play around for a while on this fun structure. When I came back I was dying of heat and lay down on the nice cool grass. Soon it was time to go and walk around the lake and then walk home. The lake was full of people in rowboats. We thought of renting one, but it was too hot. Instead, we found a water fountain to refresh ourselves and then continued on our way. In Retiro Park, we saw the exterior of Velásquez’s Palace as it was closed for renovation and the Crystal Palace that featured a bizarre sculpture. This sculpture was made of a variety of plastic items such as laundry baskets, shopping baskets, trash cans, and infant bathtubs. It was arranged by color with the orange on the bottom, then yellow, then cream then white, then clear. It was cool to look at and probably represented something, but we have no idea of what. Near our house we split up. Daddy and Caitlin went shopping for groceries and the rest of us headed home to get some computer work done. Following a yummy dinner of hot dogs, salad, and more cookies, we headed to bed.