From Madrid to Granada

Apparently it's been a year since I last posted, almost exactly - mainly because I didn't blog at all my last trip to Asia. Hopefully I get back into he swing of thugs this Spain trip, so am all set for my African adventure at the end of the month. Currently sitting in the train, waiting to leave Atocha station here in Madrid. A bit disappointed - turns out our window seat doesn't really have a window, so mom is currently sitting in another row, which hopefully isn't reserved. Also, the train doesn't seem to have wifi, though online it said the entire Renfe system should, and there are neither plugs at the seats nor a restaurant car that I can find. Though all that does make this a good time to start the first blog post of the trip on my iPod while conserving my laptop battery to do work later.  Though we've only been in Spain for two days so far, it feels like we've been travelling here forever.  Starting off with our flight from Toronto that was late into Heathrow making us miss our connection to Madrid. The flight we were rebooked to was also late, and notably did not have food service as our scheduled flight should have, so we had to grab a super fast snack at the terminal. Which was super necessary for me, as for the frat time ever, I actually got the low calorie meal that I have down on my expedia profile and forgot about. The dinner was fine, though super plain (lettuce and vinegar, plain chicken breast, rice, and cut fruit - everyone else had cheese cake), but my breakfast was unsweetened apple sauce, which I don't really eat. Really have to remember to change my meal request before flying home.  Anyways, our first day in Madrid started off with a siesta - both because we were super tired after our trip, and because it was really hot outside. We had taken the metro from the airport, an easy trip, but walking to the hotel after taking our suitcase up the stairs almost ended me. Our taxi driver today said it's supposed to be 42C today, and it felt atleast that hot Monday. We stayed at the Gran Hotel Conde Duque, booked off a travelzoo deal and going over my budget was totally worth it. The hotel was gorgeous, with a library, tea room and bar, and our room was well appointed even having a little sitting area. The wifi was kinda meh, limited to 2 hours not per day but per 24 hours, which made it difficult on day 2 since I had checked my email late the night before, but the quality of the quality of the breakfast more than made up for it. I'm going to miss it - besides standard stuff like eggs and bacon, there was spanish omelettes, churros, fresh squeezed orange juice, and awesome coffee. There was even a little corner with specialty foods, including stuff like pate, and Goji berries for your cereal. The places were in for Granada and Barcelona are smaller so likely won't have quite as large a spread, but are hopefully good too. I try to take into account reviews of breakfast quality when booking hotels, since I'm not a toast and cereal person. Though worst comes to worst, Mc Donalds  does have a yogurt parfait on their value menu I want to try.  Luckily, life in Madrid is built around taking a siesta, so even with a late start to the day we got a lot in. We walked from our hotel all the way to Plaza Mayor, only getting lost once enroute. On our way, we passed pretty much everything, including the Gran Via, the Plaza D'Espana, the palace and two surrounding gardens whose name I forget, the Opera, and Puerta de Sol. We ended up having food at a McDonalds enroute because I wanted one of the special cups for Euro 2012, though we did snack and have gelato at one of the bistros at Plaza Mayor. We ended up staying put much later than expected, largely because the Spanish keep such late hours - the plazas and cafes were still just filling up when we started heading home at 10.  Day 2 in Madrid had more wandering around, ending off with the Prado museum. In the morning we wandered the courtyard of the castle, and ended up attending mass at the cathedral. My fave part of the day was lunch at the Mercado San Miguel, tapas, paella, Sangria and churros con chocolate. We did some shopping in the afternoon, both to be indoors and because mom didn't quite pack for this weather. Then we were off to the Prado, which is fabulous. If I'm ever in Madrid again, I'm definitely devoting more time to museum hopping. The collection at the Prado is really well curate featuring mainly Spanish painters ad painters to the Spanish court from the 18th and 19th century in the rooms we visited. After reading the notes by almost every painting, I felt like an expert, seeing connections between the works of Titian, Rubens, Velasquez and Goya among others.  Anyways, I should probably get to work. Need to go over my notes for the conference, and also hopefully work on another paper. We have a few more days of tourist time before we hit Palma, but given how long our days have been, this might be one of my last chances to really get stuff done. Will also hopefully have a chance to just sit back and enjoy the fields, orchards, and mountains of the Spanish countryside.  More soon :)