Ernest Hemingway, War Paintings, and More Rioja, Please

On Calle Arenal, looking towards Plaza Isabel II. This was around the corner from where we stayed.


Plaza de Espana, near Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia.

The next morning we woke up late-ish (10:30am), and I felt kind of guilty for getting up so late, but then I reminded myself that I'm on vacation and so shut the hell up.

After a quick breakfast downstairs (yummy and included in our hotel stay), we ran out to go explore the Austrias District, which is an old part of the city filled with little alleyways, cavelike restaurants called mesones and taverns, and cool little plazas and old churches. We tried to follow a walking tour I downloaded, but just when we were about to get started, it started to rain and we only brought one umbrella, so we detoured to El Corte Ingles (kind of like the Spanish version of Macy's) to buy another one. Once we got outside, though, the rain stopped. Freakin' hell. So we headed out around the neighborhood and kinda got lost but didn't care and ended up seeing some really interesting sights and ... um... smells. Madrid is - pardon me - a pretty smelly city, and I don't mean that completely in a negative way. Yes, we passed some people who were super gnarly:

Me: OMG, JD that was some nasty-ass smell back there... was that...?

JD:Yes, yes, I smelled him too.

Me: (pause) That came from a person?

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed this but me-- but the small little air-lock like entrances to banks often smell like they've been collecting the odor from every unwashed armpit that passes through it... a concentration of body-funk. That was the smell we discovered coming from some people.

And there were some corners where... um yeah, but there were other smells - interesting or delicious or even strange ones - all over the place. The whole city was drenched in different smells. I don't know if it's just me, but I find that every city has it's own distinct smell, and to me, smell is another sensory experience that I enjoy experiencing along with the sights and sounds of a place. Even now, if I were to smell curry, stale fish, spilled beer and cigarettes, it would take me immediately to Covent Garden and Holborn.

A lot of the smells were familiar to me. I lived in Philadelphia, and there is no mistaking the smells of subways and the various vents to the surface. In fact, overall, Madrid smells a lot like the cleaner parts of Philadelphia.

Some random pics from our Austrias District walk:





Anyway, I digress. After lots of walking, we headed over to Restaurante Botin for our 1pm lunch reservation. Botin is well-known as the oldest restaurant in the world (by Guinness Book of World Records). Even more well-known is that this was a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway, and he even quotes the restaurant in two books. In The Sun Also Rises he writes: "We lunched upstairs at Botin's, it is one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drunk rioja alta." Then in Death in the Afternoon there's a line: "I would rather dine on suckling pig at Botin's than sit and think of casualties my friends have suffered." The famous painter Francisco Goya also supposedly worked at Botin before he became famous.


Waiting outside Restaurante Botin. Ha Ha suckers, we have reservations.


The inside of Botin - the upper floor.

Did we have the suckling pig? No. I know, we're lame. After seeing plate after plate of it come out to excited patrons, we swore we'd come back and do the restaurant the right way. Though JD did have an amazing stewed partridge.


This guy was our server. He was so kind to us even though in my nervousness, my Spanish ended up sucking.


Alcachofas con jamon iberico. Our starter after the fact. I ate my croquetes too fast.

After lunch we took the metro over to Museum Reina Sofia or, by its full name - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia - to stroll the exhibited works of Dali, Miro... but mainly to see one historic art piece done by a man from Malaga:


Guernica, by Picasso

Now permanently housed here after over 30 years of being "exiled" from the country.

All these years, I didn't realize all the black and white photos of this painting in art books were really color plates! The painting IS black and white.

...just kidding... I knew that.

But one thing that the images in books never do justice is the amount of construction visible in the painting. It looks like a hastily done painting. Underpainting shows through the top layers of paint. The top layers of paint have haphazard strokes that are somewhere between opaque and a wash.

Ultimately, though, seeing these imperfections are quickly overcome by the sheer passion and drama in the piece. It's huge... bigger than any of the walls in our house, And at that size, there is actually a lot of detail to read in to.

There's this thing... every time I bear witness to something monumental or historical I get this tiny moment of disbelief, which then changes to realization and I get these itty bitty goosebumps and chills all over my body. It happened when I visited Stonehenge, and it happened again when I saw this painting. Maybe it's because of its history, or its symbolism, or what the painting represented when Picasso created it... but in any case, let's just say that it was pretty damn awesome.


Me sitting outside Museo Reina Sofia

Afterwards we wandered around a bit more and went back to the hotel to take a nap before our Vaughan Systems evening reception. We woke up 2 hours later and got ready to head out, thinking that the reception was at 7:30, only that, when double checking the information, it really turned out to be 7:00. A mad dash to the Salamanca District tapas bar, bounding up the stairs, into a throng of fellow "anglos" drinking and mingling... and realizing that we could have been late and no one would have noticed.

We met some really great people who we'll be spending the next 6 days with in that beautiful monastary in Palencia. A nurse named Michaela and her boyfriend Shaun, a civil engineer, both from Australia, a guy named Jonathan (another Jonathan - goes by "Jonty") from the Isle of Man, a man named Bob, retired, from Florida, who was a veteran of the program, among others. (And who kept asking where all the wine was.)

Even I was considered a "veteran" having taken part in the program only once, and back in 2002. Greg, one of the program directors, sort of recognized me, and it was great catching up on what's been happening with the company.

After the reception, JD and I headed back to the hotel, grabbing some super delicious gelato on the way, and I'm sure hoping to tuck in early tonight. We have to be at the meeting point to catch the shuttle bus by 8:15 am tomorrow. Blargh.

Adios querida Madrid. Until next time...

Hard to see, but that's a police vehicle... a police... scooter.


I saw this on our way back to the hotel. It's a recumbant scooter for a mounted cop. I guess in the city that makes sense, but it's kind of funny to compare it to the heavy BMWs and Suzukis used in the States. Buzzzzzzzzz wee-oo-wee-oo-wee-oo...