6/21: Madrid

Ok so I forgot that yesterday we also went to Palacio Real and walked around (and the Catedral), and walked around in the formal gardens below the palace. None of the Royal Family lives in the palace anymore, but apparently it´s still pretty cool. The formal gardens are very nice and simple, with some fountains and cypresses and small hedge mazes and stuff.

Today we walked back to Parque el Retiro and discovered that they were have a 12-hour long classical music festival in the park, so we sat for about 45 minutes while this lovely pianist played concertos and sonatas and stuff, with some accompaniment by strings and flutes and stuff. Very nice. After that we walked around a bit more and looked at the city. We also took the metro out to the airport and I experienced the very looong people-movers that Brett´s told me all about from his first time in Madrid 6 years ago. They weren´t as long as he remembered them being, but there´s heaps of them, just one after another after another. The metro itself is very nice when you´re well-rested and with someone else to confer with on things and it´s not crazy rush hour. Their signage is very good, and since it´s just listing stops, the diagram really says it all and you don´t need to understand spanish to get it.

Got back just in time to jump on the first load of laundry allowed (housekeeping uses the washing/drying until 5pm, then they let others use it) and boy am I glad we really jumped on that. 10 minutes after we started our clothes we saw people with detergent and bags of clothes wandering the hostel looking for the washing machine. HAHAHAHH. We rule.

Had more bread, creamy goat cheese and turkey and expensive mustard. It´s our favorite mustard from home (aside from Creole Mustard) and it´s ass-expensive here. So is Tabasco, which Brett broke down and bought as well. It´s a little more homey this way. Got a little bit drunker than we had planned but went to bed early anyway.