This Madrid trip report (see also Madrid, day1 and Madrid, day 2) got way too long. Mostly for the sake of completeness, here is the second half of the trip in a single post, just to wrap things up.
Day 3. Before and during the trip, people kept telling us “you have to go to Toledo.” Plus, we wanted to see Miguel, who was staying in Toledo for the weekend.
On Saturday, we woke up by noon (well, we were thankfully waken up by a phone call from Carmen and Javier, otherwise we would have slept in through the day), got ready, and headed to the train station. The AVE (high-speed train) leaves from Atocha, a nice train station better known, sadly, because that’s where the terrorist attack took place on March 11, 2004. It takes 30 min to get to Toledo.

Toledo’s train station is beautiful. Instead of taking a bus or a cab (as usual, stubborn, stingy us), we walked to the center of town. That’s about 20 min, nice walk. We picked up a map at one of the visitor’s centers, and started taking pictures, walking, and sampling mazapanes (marzipan) from every other shop in town —all three activities equally rewarding in Toledo. Here’s me, eating a piece of mazapán:

Toledo used to be the capital many years ago. There is a mixture of cultures in it, with Islamic, Catholic and Jewish buildings, almost side by side. The streets go up and down, which makes for nice views, and an entertaining walk. There are very narrow alleys, tons of shops with crafts and sweets, loads of Don-Quijote-cult souvenirs, beautiful colors and textures in the buildings,… great town.

We had a coffee (me) and tea (Olesya) at a nice, middle-eastern looking coffee shop near El Greco’s museum, and it was the best coffee of the trip, simply delicious.

From town, we took a cab to see Miguel, who was staying with his family in a hotel in Toledo. It was great to see Miguel and meet his family. We laughed a lot. We wish we didn’t have an ocean between Boston and Madrid to be able to stop by more often. He works really hard every day, in and out of therapy; he has come a long way and won’t give up. Exemplary. It would be nice to be there more often and share his progress more closely, and enjoy his company. We miss you here in Boston, man. Can’t wait to see you back on this side of the ocean.
Back in Madrid, we met Arcadi for another night out. It was only about three or four places this time, “only” until 2:30 am or so, and in a different area of the city. The menu included morcilla (blood sausage), rabbit, roasted peppers, and a couple of other things. And more claras, more wine, and more cokes. Really nice time, again.
Day 4. We woke up around noon again. We got ready and went out to meet Arcadi for lunch. On the way there, we bought some turrones (a typical Christmas-time sweet from Spain) in a supermarket. Arcadi took us to eat fabada, a traditional soup from Asturias, northern Spain. I had been asking Arcadi to take us to eat good fabada, and he did. This was the type of place that you will never find as a tourist, near Arcadi’s office, a small local place, where the owner’s wife cooks, the owner is the waiter, and the son the bar tender. Great place, great food.

After that, we walked all the way to Plaza Mayor, and got tickets for another tour, this time for the “French” side of the old city. It was a cold day. The tour was, again, worth it, though it would have been nicer, of course, on a warmer day —especially when the guide, the only person in the group properly dressed for the conditions (probably because he does this every day) started mimicking a cello’s sound “playing” a famous Bocherini’s tune… kind of cool, but not so cool when it’s cool (actually very cold) out there.

Then to El Riojano, another pastry shop, where the hot chocolate was tastier than in Ginés, but the pastries not as tasty as in La Mallorquina.
The next stop was a bar to watch fútbol —ie., football, ie, “soccer” for Americans, who have not come to appreciate the most popular sport in the world and don’t even call it by its proper name
. Real Madrid v. Barcelona. THE classic, in Spain. And probably one of the top classics in the world, since it is estimated that 500 million people watched that game around the world. 500 million people. Do the math: with 6 billion people in the world, that means one in twelve people in the world watched the game.

Though I don’t follow sports too closely, I was able to appreciate the quality of the game. People more used to good football would probably think it was an OK game, but for me, who had not watched a game in months, it was an amazing match. The quality of the players is just outstanding. Barcelona won. Since Arcadi is Catalan (and since we also have a family bias, because one of the nephews and her mom have Catalan blood) we celebrated.

From there, a few more bars. Surprisingly, there were still loads of people out in the bars and restaurants, despite the fact it was Sunday, late in the evening. A few more tapas, a couple of “tintos de verano” for Olesya (sort of a mini, quickly made sangría), and back to the hotel… walking, of course, which Arcadi, again, could not understand. Javi, one of Arcadi’s friends who spent the evening with us, walked with us most of the way back.
Day 5. Monday; only half day left in our trip, our plane departed in the afternoon. We checked out, and went downtown quickly for one last stop at La Mallorquina. We paid for breakfast, and we had like 20 Euros left in cash. No need to bring Euros back to Boston, so we decided to buy some “hand made” turrón at La Mallorquina itself (OK, probably not “hand made,” but they make it right there). We paid for it, and almost used up all our cash.
We took the train to the airport. Rush hour. When we entered the train, trying to squeeze into the car, two guys sort of pushed me, moved around me, and I clearly felt how one tried to “pick pocket” me. Sorry, man, but we were warned enough about these things, all my valuables were in a safe place in my backpack, which I had hanging on my chest, under my supervision all the time. He got nothing, of course. I turned to the other side a second later, and as I was turning the second guy quickly moved his hand (undercovered with his jacket) away from my backpack. They got off in the next station, empty handed. Bastards. At least we won this one.
We got off at the airport. It turns out you need to pay one Euro per person to get out of the train station. Uh, oh. I took all the cash we had left on us and counted… 2 Euros and 90 cents. Relief. We paid and celebrated that we had used our cash so precisely: only 90 cents left. Cool.
We made it safely back to Boston. I entered the US as a permanent resident for the first time (well, except for a previous trip to Canada, by car in the summer, but this was the first time entering as a resident by plane), together with Olesya, as a family, for the first time, too. The immigration officer simply did his job, a couple of routine questions, etc., and let us in. Nice.
And that’s all, folks. Great trip, Madrid was definitely a lot of fun.
