Madrid thingses

An order of business: if you haven't figured it out yet, if you click on a picture, it's a link to the picture in a large size, in case you want to see something bigger.


We went into Madrid a couple of days ago to go to the Royal Palace, but found it was closed for various pageantry. Apparently, the Prince came home.

We spent the rest of the day on a bus going around Madrid, which was a good historical tour, then went to Las Rozas for dinner. The next day, we went to Flamenco at Casa Pata.The music and the dancing were phenomenal, and the outfits were hilarious and included a blue and white polka dot dress made out of spandex and a white polyester suit.
Yesterday, we went to Segovia in the morning and then El Escorrial in the afternoon. Segovilla is famous for its castle, the Alcazar, the Church which dates from the 1500's, the ancient Roman acqueduct and its roasted pork! The Alcazar was an Arab construction bult upon by the Spanish Christian kings and it looks like a real fairy-tale castle.This is the view from the highest tower of the castle, but the vistas out of every window are just exquisite. The castle is on top of a small mountain overlooking the rest of the hilly town.This is the ceiling of the "pine-cone room" which is named thus because those small pillars resemble pine-cones. It is absolutely one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I'm getting so many ideas for decorating my first house! (ha. ha.)There is also a massive collection of armor.
Vegetarians beware!! This next is a picture of our EXQUISITELY DELICIOUS FANTASTIC AMAZING roast suckling pig we had for lunch. 6 of us ordered the pig so they just brought us our own in a big pan. Whole. It's so soft, they cut it with a spoon or a plate. By the end, all that was left was the spine and some of the head, which I'm sure would have been gone if Dad and Mom had been there.

I faced the Minotaur

On Sunday, we went to the Bullfight at the Plaza del Toro. I know, I know; Barbarians! Torturers! Bloodshed! But actually, it was a pretty interesting cultural experience...and one that I NEVER need to have ever again. We started off the day by going to the Rastro, a big schlock market with every trinket and weird item of clothing you could imagine. Like Samurai swords.And, of course, fabulous, delicious, Spanish tapas. Food. Always food. This place has every type of olive and gherkin you could ever want.
Next door, we had sardines for breakfastand shrimp (pas moi) and fried calamari that was all excellent, but so salty that we had to wash it down with beer. At 10 am.

We started out our bullfighting evening, surprise, surprise, by getting the time wrong (7pm, not 5pm) and so took a stroll through Madrid, slowly winding our way to the bullfight.And finally, we got to the Plaza del Toro.
The bullfight was pretty intense. We were all seated in different parts of the crowd and AJ and I quickly realized we were in the drunkard hecklers' section. Everybody was laughing at us, gasping and jaws dropping. The way it works is that each bull is taken on by a Matador and his team of assistants, including two men on horses. The horses are covered in padding and each bull took a go at them, though the padding served to protect them...barely. The assistants annoy, exhaust, and distract the bull, while the matador sticks long knife-like things in his back until he's weakened, then pulls out a red cape (all the capes up to this point are hot-pink) and a sword. He does this intimate one-on-one dance with the bull as all the assistants leave to stand outside the ring. Then, after he's humiliated the bull sufficiently, he goes to the edge of the ring and takes a thicker sword and uses this to stab the bull through the shoulder blades, into the spine and the heart. Once the bull collapses, an assistant stabs it in the brain. This last part was the most horrible and AJ and I were not at all expecting it and both let out a little scream. Then an entire team of horses and assistants comes out to drag the bull out of the ring.

After that, we needed a little pick-me up to recover from all the death so we went to the Museo del Jamon (which, yes, is the Museum of Ham). For dinner we had all different kinds of hams including Chorizo.
The Gang!This is why it's called the Museum.

How quickly this degenerates into a food blog, as Casey never fails to remind me

Well, we arrived yesterday early afternoon in Madrid and lo and behold, AJ's future stepfather Dario had cooked us what can only be described as a feast. Apparently he had been cooking since Friday, and then woke up early on Saturday to continue this banquet.

There was delicious chorizoAubergineand Pesto, which was out of the world and I have been promised a cooking lesson.Our friend Steph can't eat wheat and, though he claims it's Blasphemous, Dario spread some Pesto on a rice cracker for her. He says that she must have really bad karma from a past life to not be able to eat pasta. Dario also drove 4 hours to pick up this desert which came in Chocolate and Creme flavor; it was layers of filo dough with custard on the inside and powdered sugar or choclate on top.

We all took a big long nap to recover from all this food and then went into Madrid with Fay and Dario and all the kids (the Flaggle of Americans, as the Spartan says) to look around.Because we were with Dario, master of food, we stopped again to get food at a place that claimed to have the best Jamon in Madrid.And really, it was absolutely delicious.And we went to a public square in between the Opera house and the Royal Palace where they were broadcasting Rigoletto from inside the opera house to a screen and huge speakers outside. We caught the last act, where all hell breaks loose. It was absolutely fantastic and totally jammed.

Borough Market=Fat camp

Our last day in London we went to Borough Market, which is just about 2 acres of delicious yummy fresh and baked foods located just a 5 minute walk east of Nan's flat on the south bank of the Thames. We started off with delicious chicken sandwiches made from incredibly fresh ingredients and with ketchup and spicy mayo and arugula.We then moved on to the olive stand where I made a somewhat reluctant friend, although we bought 5 pounds sterling worth of olives, popponcinis, and vinegar-marinated onions.And we also saw two women near the fish market making giant seafood curries. They're both cooked in huge pans and full of mussels, clams, and shrimp...poison, basically, since I'm now regrettably allergic to shellfish.There was lots of fresh fish various and beautiful fresh mushroomsand so many pastries i couldn't keep up with what everything was. I just knew I wanted to eat everything. And I definitely did my best since almost all the stalls have samples of some kind.

We also went to the British Museum.Where we hung out with some statues stolen from the Parthenon (way to go, Lord Elgin). The controversy over whether or not to return these statues to Greece seems to be...well...not actually a controversy here. Greece is demanding their artifacts, particularly Parthenon statues, from museums all over the world and England has said no. The British Museum even printed a pamphlet explaining that a committee in Parliament actually declared the sales of all of the statues from Lord Elgin to the British Museum to be legal and that there was no issue with his methods (robbery) of obtaining them. I assume there weren't actually any Greeks on this committee. This was my favorite piece.

I also really liked the scarab amulets in the Egyptian exhibits. The type of stone they're carved from changes the meaning and the type of protection they provide.And of course, last but not least, we saw the famous Rosetta stone, which I expected to be a let down, but I found myself surprisingly awed. That the stone was written in Hieroglyphics, Greek, and Demotic, means that all three of these cultures intersected enough that it was essential that public announcements be multi-lingual, which I think is really fascinating.

There were also lots of great shells, which of course reminded me of Momand I had a face-off with a Roman wolf.