Monday, 28 November, 2016:
We now had only three more days in Spain before heading home for California on Thursday.
After much discussion, we abandoned plans to revisit the city of Toledo, about an hours drive South of Madrid, in favor of a plan to spend two more days tapas crawling and exploring more of Madrid's unique/quaint barrios and one last day preparing for the flight home and eating in Arganda del Rey.
As we started our walk to the Metro station in Arganda del Rey, we noted that even though it was late November, Fall was just arriving in central Spain.
The trees were changing colors
For Californians, this is an
incredible event
A stork nest seen as we entered
the La Poveda Metro station
Nice artwork at the
Núñez de Balboa Metro stop
Our first goal was to explore was Madrid's trendy Salamanca barrio.
Guide Dog Topiary
Salamanca's upscale architecture
Laurie in front of Hermes . . .
. . . and Tiffany's
. . . and a high end shoe store
A new building in old Madrid
Is this even legal?
By an El Corte Inglés
Christmas Shop
Christmas Window Display
Pumpkins
Great Vegetable Stand
Character filled store front
An upscale barrio needs
an upscale mercado
It also needs a great bar like
La Bodega de Casanova with a . . .
Vintage motorcycle in front
The served warm coffee
and a great . . .
. . . desayuno with . . .
. . . some atmosphere to boot
Well, that didn't take long
I had successfully steered Laurie away from many of the high end stores in the Salamanca barrio but after our good desayuno I caved in at a place called El Capote located next door to La Bodega de Casanova.
El Capote's hands-on owner
El Capote is the pink and yellow cape that bullfighters use at the start of the corrida. The owner makes several of his items out of the same capote material.
The one-eyed matador in the picture is his good friend Juan José Padilla who we saw at the bullfights in Valencia last year. Padilla was fearless that day but his one and only bull that day keeled over dead from a heart attack just as the courageous Padilla was about to go in for the kill.
Our owner is in the picture with Padilla. He is the one who has the famous matador on his shoulders.
Bullfight themed El Capote Store
What theme would you pick, of course!
I bought Laurie a nice wallet to momentarily store money and credit cards before spending wildly on future forays into shopping malls.
Juan José Padilla
El Capote spokesman
Time to enter the Mercado de la Paz to see what they had to sell.
What are these green things?
Artichokes
Olives for Laurie
Pickles floating in that red sauce?
The Mercados Italian Restaurant
Nicely dressed shoppers
Near Plaza de Colon
Monument to the Discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus
That's a HUGE flag
The new Torres de Colon
in the distance
Interesting
Christopher Columbus and
another Christmas tree
Goodness snakes alive!
Near Madrid's Hard Rock Cafe, I needed to buy a Madrid themed t-shirt and this place always has man-sized t-shirts.
Back aboard the Metro, we were off to two more side-by-side barrios . . .
Chueca and Malasaña
Good architecture in Chueca too
Our goal was simple, our Lonely Planet Spain Travel Guide stated that Chueca's Casa Julio " . . . is widely touted as the home of Madrid's best croquetas."
We had to find this spot for research purposes.
Eclectic but no
Getting closer
Laurie liked the succulents
Artist going to the studio?
Oh the memories of Catania
One of our favorite beaches
in California
EUREKA!
We found it!
The wine was good
The company was better
And the croquetas were
OUTSTANDING!
But are they the best ones in all of Madrid?
More research will be required before we publish our final results.
Seemingly unaffected by
Castro's recent passing
My sentiments exactly!
A Pharmacy and a Bar
Interesting concept in marketing.
Renovating a Malasaña store
Multipurpose plaza
A Five Guys on Grand Via near
Plaza de España
Madrileño friends, if you are hankering for a great, truly American style hamburger dining experience, then going here is a MUST!
Although we did not go in, the Five Guys chain ranks #2 on my list of hamburger spots behind #1 In-N-Out.
Christmas Tree on
Plaza de España
Grand Via architecture
Archery practice
More of Grand Via
Old Mural
Shouldn't this be in Sweden?
GREAT glasses!
Save that building!
Iglesia de San Luis Obispo
Son Michael and I will probably stop in California's San Luis Obispo for breakfast on Friday on our way to the PAC-12 Championship Game between 11-1 Washington and 10-2 Colorado.
GO DAWGS!
Love the bar scene near
Puerta del Sol
Ratón Pérez birthplace
Ratón Pérez is Spain's equivalent to our Tooth Fairy. Father Coloma was a priest who wrote the original Ratón Pérez story while living in this building as a story for the boy King Alfonso XIII.
The marker states that Ratón Pérez once lived here in a box of cookies.
Another El Corte Inglés
Christmas Display for kids
of all ages
Great old convent
We were headed to this Asturian
restaurant for a late lunch
DAMN!
Closed on Mondays
No problem, we'll be back on Tuesday!
Fall colors near the Royal Theater
We needed coffee . . .
. . . and churros and
chocolate too !
No, seriously, this is really
healthy for us daily
Puerta del Sol
was all spruced up
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, too bad our Swedish friends could not have stayed one more day to enjoy it.
This point at Puerta del Sol is
kilometer zero
All distance measurements to other points of Spain from Madrid are measured from this spot.
King Carlos III
on Puerta del Sol
Puerta del Sol's
HUGE Christmas Tree
Enjoying the day on
Puerta del Sol
We had a great day but it was time to head home, we still had a couple of Junior and Senior Osos Rivas practices to conduct.
Armanda del Rey by night
Juniors Two-on-One
Pass Rush Drill
A One-on-One
Pass Rush Drill too
Too much speed for #46
An example of our
state-of-the-art
practice/game field
There are several spots like this on our field.
Unfortunately for us, during our Camioneros game two weeks ago, a receiver for the Coslada 11 was found wide open for a 40 yard TD pass over our middle. Our defender was in great position until his foot found one of these loose strips, slipped and fell down thus losing his about to score receiver.
Football is a game of inches, sometimes inches of poor turf.
I'm relieved again that Laurie was told that she could only wear sports shoes on the field while taking game photos so that she did not hurt our pristine turf.
As for our Senior practice, the numbers were a bit light but we got a lot accomplished because of our players' attitudes.
A fun day all the way around!
Reading Is FUNdamental
Finally finished with
Book I
This first of two Don Quixote books was 462 pages long and I found it an interesting insight into the Spanish psyche.
I plan to read Book II when we get back to California as I need to return my current copy of Cervantes' tome to the Arganda del Rey Public Library before our flight home.
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