Madrid Day 2 Part 2 | One Day at a Time

After a quick not quite long enough break at the hotel, it was time to head out again to make our flamenco show.

Venue is really close by, so a quick walk will get us there. I like how central Madrid is so compact and all the major tourist attractions can be visited on foot. Think this will be one of those rare city visits that I will not use a subway or bus.

Cool tile work all over the place here.

Here we are, most other people for the show are already here and we are here 15min before starting.

Sangria included with our ticket.

We are definitely one of the younger people here, and we aren’t even that young…

All the walls in here are covered in painting-like wallpaper murals.

Three dancers take the stage with a band.

We had ordered tapas along with our show, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have. Would have been nicer to get tapas at an actual tapas bar afterwards. Plus, the tapas plate was pretty underwhelming.

First performer, she was amazing.

Second performer, equally amazing, she didn’t have tap shoes but instead had castanets. Pretty incredible how quickly she can make clicks with them.

Last of the dancer was a guy. He’s tapping on the stage so hard I feel like it would bruise a heel. Pretty crazy.

Oh wait, there’s one more, a singer. It’s not over until the fat lady sings. And she’s probably the biggest person by far that I’ve seen in Spain. She’s probably medium big in America, but here she’s the fattest person I’ve seen in the 2 days that we’ve been here. Like much of Europe, Spaniards are all pretty fit and skinny. The whole show lasted a little bit over an hour and it’s just the right amount of time. Perhaps touristy, but we both rather enjoyed it. Would recommend.

After the show, time to check out some more of central Madrid and look for food.

Saw this random church and RL wanted to have a look inside.

I love the acoustics in these old cathedrals.

It’s a Jesus vending machine.

We are heading into that archway on the right.

Plaza Mayor. They used to have bull fights in this plaza. It is considered one of the main town squares of Madrid.

Oh wait, RL had lipstick all over her teeth from when she reapplied it earlier. Lol, oops.

Scratch scratch scratch

Much better now.

Reminds me of St. Mark’s Square in Venice.

Hoping to find dinner here.

Lots and lots of awesome selection, but NO RESTROOM! Do Spaniards have the world’s biggest bladders?

I had to go to a nearby Starbucks to buy a small iced tea so I could use their restroom. The iced tea actually hit the spot though.

OK, let’s do this again.

Always find it amusing that they’ve got a device specifically designed to hold pig legs.

This place is packed, so we decided to order some cava and park ourselves here at the wine counter.

Small tapas plates we ordered from a crab stall nearby.

The world’s most useless and flimsiest plastic fork.

Sherry.

These were super briny, as in tastes like getting a mouthful of ocean. I’ve had better oysters.

Sure, we’ll have some. As we were paying for these, the cashier lady kept on asking if we were paying together. We said yes, but I don’t think she spoke too much English so there was some confusion on her side on whether we were paying together or not. A kiss from RL on my cheek and a emphatic “Sí! Together!” erased that confusion. I will say, it doesn’t seem like they see many interracial couples here because this isn’t the first place where we go to pay and they always ask if we were paying together or separate even though we’re holding hands and such.

Squid ink.

Does squid ink actually have a distinct flavor?

Well, that was a fun meal, time to walk through Plaza Mayor and look for another tapas bar. RL is ready to throw down tonight, but I’m not quite 100%. Don’t know if it’s the jetlag or if it’s something else. As it turns out, now that I’m typing this out a day after the fact, I’m coming down with some sort of illness. Getting chills and sore throat. Now some slight coughing too…blah.