Madrid Day Three: Picasso, Tapas & Sangria

Day three of el trip de Madrid is a visit to the Reina Sofia, then siesta time and then a much-anticipated tapas-crawl. I think in the end it's my favorite day of the trip, though they were all good.

Princess D decides to sleep in, but everybody has that day in a trip where they just need "alone time" and this is hers. Lisa, Larry and I grab some breakfast and/or stop at an ATM (I really can't necessarily remember the order of things - I got totally confused apparently on which day the unfortunate "Nice to have met you" incident occurred.). Then we head down to the Reina Sofia. While the Prado is huge and has masterpiece after masterpiece, the Reina Sofia really only has two floors. But there are four HUGE galleries of Picasso ranging in time and style through his sketches, canvasses and sculptures from pretty much all stages of his career. It's really captivating, especially when you consider how many times Picasso repeats the same painting using a different form study or color study on the same concept. I could have honestly wandered in there for a lot longer, but it would have been indulgent. Also, they had "Woman Throwing a Stone," which is possibly my favorite Picasso ever.





After the museum, Halff, Lis and I have a walk and what is decidedly the best (if not the only) paella we have on the trip. We have cuttlefish to start and then a paella with rabbit and it's so yummy that I just got hungry thinking about it.

And then...siesta.

And then...Jocelyn's internet cafe.

And then...the tapas crawl! So my friend Jen's sister Rebecca had informed me that we can't go to Madrid without doing a tapas crawl. And then Larry read his guide book because he is awesome and found out all of the best spots to hit on our tapas crawl. And then it was not raining, though we had anticipated rain. And so we went from place to place to place eating tapas and drinking sherry and sangria. And it was perfect.

The first place we go to is small and the server is mean, but the cured meat and cheese and olives are delightful, and the four glasses of sherry are wonderful. And the table next to us looks like it could be a table of WW2 conspirators making invasion plans.



The second place we go is small and dark and has pictures of famous flamenco dancers on the wall and a couple making out at the table next to us.



The third place we went was call The Trout, and it had the the single best food we had that night. My favorite, by far, was the artichoke that the cook first told us that they wouldn't make because they were about to close and then made for us anyway. There were also these amazing shrimp/prawns. And, I mean...it was just amazing food. The most amazing food. And if you've never done a tapas crawl or even been for tapas before, there is nothing more delightful than small plates of savory and delicious food eaten in between drinking sweet drinks and, in a great scenario, in between walking around and, in the best possible scenario, in between walking around on a perfect night in Madrid.




So, if you're keeping track of drinks so far: 1.5 sangrias at hotel, 1 FULL glass of sherry at stop one, 1 sangria at stop 2, 1 sangria at stop 3. That, in and of itself is not so bad. Except that I may or may not have popped some pills before we left the hotel. This is my way of saying that after "The Trout," this night gets hazier to me. Pictures reflect this as well, it seems.

We exit "The Trout" and begin to cross the square. Larry announces that we must get a bocadilla (which is "sandwich" to the rest of us) into me. Because I am a-drunken-wondering. Apparently, while I am not SO GONE, I am gone enough that Larry almost immediately recognizes that I must have done something before we left for the evening. Awesome! Go Ty's Godmother! So we stop to get a bocadilla.

AND IT IS THE MOST DELICIOUS THING I EAT ALL TRIP LONG. Leading me once again to tell you that the best food you will eat anywhere is what you basically buy off of the street. It's salty and savory and crispy and hot and THE MOST PERFECT THING EVER. It's so good that I was still talking about it days later. It's that good.



It does not, however, sober me up all that much.

I know vaguely that we then went to some place where I inappropriately started touching the back of some man's coat and Larry and Dee and Lis kind of stared at me while I did it, and there was sangria there as well. And I remember that in the next place there were spicy sausages. And then we were home, and on the way home we took a picture next to a sign for a life-size puppet show of Moby Dick done in Spanish and tried to convince Larry to go to the puppet show. Unsuccessfully.



Oh, and then Dee and I went back out after we dropped everybody else to try to go dancing, but it was a weird night and...



OH!

I totally remember now!

Dee and I went back out to get our dance on, and we met back up with this cute boy Adrian who had gotten us into Blackjack the night before. And he wouldn't stay off of my boobs, or as Dee described it, "It was like he was having some personal conversation with her boobs, and then he did this weird thing with her left boob like he was closing a circuit or something." But anyway, Adrian drops us at this other club that is SO EUROTRASH I CAN BARELY STAND IT. And so we leave and end up in this other club where I can't decide if the crowd is gay or euro. And then we sleep.

And you would think that we'd crammed enough Spain activity in, but we're not even close to done yet. The next day...