MADRID – OUR 2-DAY LAYOVER

(8/18-8/20/09) It had been 16 yrs since Nancy & I last visited Madrid (when we spent a week). Of course, lots of changes but also much the same. Biggest change was 'sticker shock' --- damn Euro". Really only had a day and half, and first half day we were Jet-lagged, so after arriving in the morning we just spend a couple of hours walking around in a daze until we went back for a nap at the Hotel. Although I won’t say we awoke refreshed for the evening, we were anxious to once again experience our favorite part of Madrid – the famous Tapa ‘Pub-Crawl.’ For those unfamiliar, that just means we went to one of the neighborhoods loaded with quaint tavern eateries, where the purchase of a drink (our preference Wine, of course) is always accompanied by some small but delicious appetizer. Of course, some places are better than others in terms of what they serve, so the object is to keep moving on after each drink to a new Pub and hoping for the best. Either way, it’s always a blast and you can skip dinner since a night of drinks and Tapas is plenty to fill your tummy. One memorable experience for us, was to find that our favorite little Sherry Pub was still around after so much time had passed, and still quirky in that they ordinarily forbid the taking of pictures inside (who knows why?). But, because we struck up a nice conversation with a regular who was apparently a favorite of the bartender, he was allowed to take our picture there.