![\"Madrid](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Madrid-Ropas.jpg\" "\\"Madrid")
<\/p>\nWe had a horrible night’s sleep. \u00a0It was so, so hot in our room, and we’re having pillow problems. \u00a0It turns out that I bought the winner travel pillow at the airport, thank you Brookstone, and between the heat, the caca pillows, and the jet lag, we barely slept. \u00a0But, somehow we fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning. \u00a0When we woke up, it was about 11:30. \u00a0We figured we could still make it to Segovia for the day, but wanted to run a load of laundry first. \u00a0That was a mistake. \u00a0We tried everything, but the washer kept going, and wouldn’t let us extract our clothes. \u00a0We ended up giving up on Segovia for the day, and spent the day relaxing around Madrid. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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For lunch, we wanted atmosphere, so we went to the most touristy place in the city, Plaza Mayor. \u00a0There’s a Plaza Mayor in every town and city in Spain, as it just means biggest plaza, or main plaza. \u00a0This being the most famous, it is packed with tourists, and rightly so. \u00a0It is a beautiful place. \u00a0But, where there are tourists, there are inflated prices. \u00a0What would have been a meal of about 5 euro anywhere else, was about 30 there. \u00a0Serves us right. \u00a0We’ll never eat at a tourist attraction again! \u00a0But, like I said, nice for ambience and people watching.<\/p>\n
Then, we went on a mission to find delicious olives. \u00a0We ended up walking towards where I used to live, Anton Martin, to visit the market where they have a wide variety of freshly brined olives. \u00a0As with anything in a foreign country, at any moment a storefront is likely to be closed. \u00a0So, we ended up finding some canned olives in a little store instead. \u00a0But the walk was not for nothing, we bought some of my favorite candies in one of the stores I used to frequent. \u00a0Gumi huevos (gummy eggs)!<\/p>\n
That night we went to find more places to tapear (eat tapas). \u00a0Seth needed to try patatas braves, and pulpo a la galiciana and he needed to ingest more JAMON!! \u00a0The first stop was to my old stomping ground, La Zapateria. \u00a0This was the first place I went to eat the first time I visited Madrid, and was my favorite place when I lived here. \u00a0I learned that one of the reasons I probably liked it was because of their wide variety of vegetarian options. \u00a0But those vegetarian days are over, and the chorizo was good!<\/p>\n
![\"Madrid](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Madrid-7.jpg\" "\\"Madrid")
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We went to a few places after that, but finally ended up at Las Bravas. \u00a0A sort of chain, but they have amazing brava salsa. \u00a0It’s a red tomato based sauce with heavy amounts of paprika and a touch of spice. \u00a0It’s really tasty and it’s drizzled over thick chunks of fried potato. \u00a0Delicious! \u00a0We also ordered the octopus (pulpo). \u00a0This is one of my favorite treats. \u00a0They serve it in olive oil, sprinkled with paprika and coarse salt. \u00a0It was so tender and full of flavor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Madrid](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Madrid-Las-Bravas.jpg\" "\\"Madrid")
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\u00a0We woke up the next morning, with the help of an alarm, and went to Segovia. \u00a0Though we had a bit of an adventure following Alberto’s handmade map to the train station, we made it just in time for a bus. \u00a0The ride was short and easy. \u00a0We walked through the town to get to their beautiful, old, roman aqueduct. \u00a0It’s one of my favorite sights in Spain. \u00a0Our plan was to see the castle and eat cochinillo, roast suckling pig. \u00a0We did half of that. \u00a0Though we have been excited to try the local dish of cochinillo, something about the bus ride over made us a bit car sick, and devouring a fatty baby piggy didn’t seem like a good idea. \u00a0But, we made it to the castle, and that was beautiful. \u00a0It is said that Walt Disney modeled his castle to look like the one in Segovia. \u00a0There are definitely similarities.<\/p>\n
![\"SegoviaAlcazarPano\"](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/segoviaAlcazarPano.jpg\" "\\"segoviaAlcazarPano.jpg\\"")
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![\"Segovia](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Segovia-007.jpg\" "\\"Segovia")
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After wandering around Segovia for a while we made our way back to the bus station, where we caught a ride back to Madrid. \u00a0I believe we both nodded off for some time during that trip. \u00a0After dropping off our things at Alberto’s place, we headed to the nearby store to pick up the ingredients for tortilla, a spanish omelet of eggs and potato. \u00a0It was a really cool market where three different vendors sold different products, a nice collaboration. \u00a0And, the best part was, it was super cheap. \u00a0The cost of food in Spain is amazing compared to the US, especially Los Angeles. \u00a0For about 7 pounds of potatoes, 2 onions, a pack of chorizo, and 12 eggs it was about 6 euros, which is about 10 dollars. \u00a0If only…<\/p>\n
We then had to do a bunch of horrible planning\/arranging of trips. \u00a0The internet was down at Alberto’s house, so we had no way of contacting anyone, including ticketing agencies and train stations. \u00a0And, we had to swap our train ticket to Pamplona for one to Barcelona. \u00a0After waiting till the last minute, we couldn’t wait for Sloane’s friends to pull through in order for us to go to Pamplona. \u00a0It was either sleep on the streets (with all our stuff) or cancel Pamplona. \u00a0So, we went to the train station to buy tickets to Barcelona. \u00a0That took a long time. \u00a0We had to find internet to see if we could Skype with the ticketing agency, but the sounds in the train station were too loud. \u00a0We ended up writing them a letter to cancel our tickets, and we’re hoping that they go through. \u00a0And we bought (after a million little problems like our tickets not coming out of the machine after payment) tickets to Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Finally making it home, Alberto began to teach Seth how to make tortilla. \u00a0That was fun to watch. \u00a0Our plan is to find people to teach us a recipe (well, more like teach Seth a recipe) to bring home. \u00a0This was our first. \u00a0We, then, feasted on our two tortillas along with jamon, olives, and cheeses with Alberto’s two roommates, Jorge and Ruben. \u00a0It was a nice way to spend our last evening in Madrid, having dinner with our amazing hosts.<\/p>\n
![\"Madrid](\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Madrid-Torrtilla-066.jpg\" "\\"Madrid")
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We had a horrible night’s sleep. \u00a0It was so, so hot in our room, and we’re having pillow problems. \u00a0It turns out that I bought the winner travel pillow at the airport, thank you Brookstone, and between the heat, the … Continue reading