Monday, February 28, 2011

Viva España - Madrid, Spain

It wasn't too hard to convince a few of my friends to join me on a long weekend to Madrid.  Fellow travelers on this trip include:  Wendy Campnell from Chicago, Melanie Shashindranath from Kansas City, and Kevin Poole from New York.  We were all dying to escape the dreary winter weather in our respective cities for the amazing 60 degree weather in Madrid. Our bodies were in shock....they were finally able to naturally produce vitamin d for the first time in months.  Who knew sunshine could feel so good!

Wendy and I arrived first.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the city center streets and basked in the sun in Puerto del Sol and Plaza de Mayor.  We ate lunch at an outside cafe inside the Plaza de Mayor.  The food was splendid and I couldn't stop raving about it since I have never been impressed with the food in Spain.  In full disclosure, we were eating sandwiches and salads...so it wasn't traditional Spanish food.  Well, later that night we went back to the Plaza de Mayor and we were telling Melanie about this yummy place we had found earlier and I went to point out the place from a different angle and I caught the name of the restaurant.....Le Pain Quotidien.  Yep, that's right.  It's a chain restaurant that we have in NYC.  Looking back on the trip, I still might claim this as the best meal of the trip.  I love Spain but I don't love the food!

Once Melanie arrived we headed out on an adventure to the Madrid Temple.  We spent the evening there and then headed back into the heart of city to eat a late dinner near the Plaza de Mayor.  We shared tomatoes with fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese and Spanish tortilla (essentially an omelet with potatoes).  After dinner we headed back to the apartment and crashed.  The apartment we rented for the weekend was about a block from Puerto del Sol.  Perfect location for a weekend trip.  It was a cute little place but we had to climb six flights of stairs (104 steps to be exact).  We definitely got plenty of exercise this trip!


PS - Big thanks to Melanie and Kevin for being the trip photographers!


















1 comment:

  1. Shows who is the smartest Sparhawk in the family. Sixty degree weather! Wow! Spain sounded dull so Dad and I headed north to Canada for our spring break. The average daily temperature was -25 degrees. Wind chill usually, but one day was an actual -24 degrees. Didn't even want to know what the wind chill temperature was! We spent most of our time in the car with the temperature up to the max. The rest of time time in our motel rooms. One night I even refused to go out for dinner. I would rather starve that go back outside. Went to bed with my gloves on one night. We drove three hours from Edmonton to Calgary and saw over 30 cars off the road!Don and I are definitely not the smart Sparhawks in the family. DO NOT GO TO CANADA IN THE WINTER!

    Mom/Marsha

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