And it's only Day 2!!

Thoughts on Madrid:

Who the hell takes those fabulous shots of various spots around cities that show a lovely square with absolutely no one in them?  And when are those photos taken?  Do they rope everything off to take the photo?  Photoshop the people out? 

I don't know that answer, but Puerta del Sol was a hotbed of activity this Saturday morning, including a skinny, short, kinda beat-up looking Mickey Mouse who did balloon animals and talked to you long enough to say “1 Euro for photo”, an equally skinny Minnie Mouse in a tacky pink dress & matching shoes.  Minnie!!!  in pink!!!  the horror, the horror.

Plus this ginormous poster:

The Hollywood influence is everywhere.  And the aliens will invade Madrid on April 1.  It's opened in the States, right?

Plus almost wall-to-wall people.  What would I expect on a weekend in a city that never sleeps.  No really, I don’t think they ever sleep.  We heard what sounded like a pretty good party still going strong at 2:30 am when we finally gave up the ghost and went to sleep.  Fortunately, no bad music, just a lot of loud talking from what sounded like a crowd of about 25 or more. 

And do the wonderful people of Spain use washcloths?  I’m NOT saying this as ANY criticism because they all look swell, but is there an idiosyncrasy at work here?  Perhaps those swell spongy-things?  Loofas?  I ask because there were no washcloths in our bathroom at the hotel.  Enough bath towels & hand towels, but no small washcloths.  And we sometimes wuss out, as we did here, and didn’t inquire.  So off we went to El Corte Ingles, the mega-department store here.  And we searched and searched throughout the housewares department, but never could find anything terrycloth, the size of a wash cloth.  We finally decided to settle on a small-sized hand towel until we FINALLY spotted terry cloth mittens.  Success!  We have washcloths.  Must be an American thing.

And when we left the store, we got to see this....

A lovely street ensemble with the female singing opera.

Next it was off to El Musee de Prado. 



Carol enjoys the Prado!





Gene enjoys the Prado!  (Just kidding.  He woke up long enough to see the paintings after a brief respite.

JANET:  I got to see Goya's "Naked Maja" for reals!  Remember the movie we saw as kids?  With, was it, Anthony Franciosa (sp?) and Ava Gardner? 

STACY:  Just for you!  This evening as we were walking along some street near our hotel, we spotted this:

The side of that building facing the lamp is ALL trompe l'oeil.  Pretty cool!!!

Now it’s dinnertime – FINALLY.  Most of the restaurants close around 4pm and don’t reopen until 7pm at the earliest.   But we're in a groove and cooking with the finest Spanish olive oil!!!