Having Mom here last week was awesome. I got to show off my new city, and the best part was that she could just relax, because usually she works so hard making sure our vacations go off without a hitch We spent the week doing a mixture of tourist-type things and just hanging out. I took her to the Royal Palace, Retiro, on a walk around the old parts of the city, and of course la Puerta del Sol (the main plaza). We went to the Prado, an art museum, and a flamenco show as well, two things I hadn't done yet!
We tried new restaurants every day, and of course sampled the local sangria! Mom remembered all of the awesome tapas from when we were in Barcelona and was eager to try some more! Tapas are very typical in Spain and consist of small-ish portions of one type of food. For example, one of my favorites is "patatas bravas" which are fried potatoes with a spicy red sauce on them. Many of the tapas, as you can imagine, center around ham and cheese, two of Spain's favorites. Mom had plenty of ham while she was here... I think she may have even been a little sick of it towards the end! She had ham sandwiches, plain ham, ham and cheese in fried breading, etc. But she never got sick of the cheese... in fact, she ordered an entire kilogram of brie (kind of by mistake) at a cheese store. Probably the best food we had all week was at Botin, which is the oldest restaurant in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. They are famous for their "roast suckling pig", so of course we got it! Mom said the outside tasted like bacon, and declared that no bacon would ever live up to it ever again. We also visited the famous Chocolateria San Gines!
No Madrid vacation would be complete without a little shopping, so of course we checked out all of the trendy boutiques that are all over Madrid. So many of them are right in the area where Mom's apartment was, called Chueca. It is a very lively "barrio", or neighborhood and there are a million restaurants and stores! Mom commented that there were so many shoe stores all over the city she had no idea how any of them stayed in business! Without further ado, here are some of the highlights from Mom's trip!
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| Mom with Velazquez, one of the most famous Spanish painters. |
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| She loved the churros y chocolate! |
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| Awesome tapas dinner: patatas bravas, sangria, and lots of cheese! |
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| Outside of the Palacio Real. |
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| We went to dinner with my friends. From left to right: Matt, Sinead, Mom, Neha, and Stephen. Matt and Stephen live in Farmington Hills, Sinead is from Kansas City, and Neha is from Houston. Nikki was there too, but she left before the pictures were taken! |
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| Mom wanted to see my school! |
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| Mercado San Miguel, where there are tons of stations and you get tapas to go and sit and eat! We had fantastic calamares and fresh mozzarella. |
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| We took my host mom out to dinner. Now you can finally see Angelina! |
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| Oldest restaurant in the world. |
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| Roast suckling pig. |
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| Mom at Retiro. |
Mom and I spent Saturday through Thursday together, with me running around like a crazy person from school to home to Mom's apartment and back again! We had some crazy packed in days, and a few where we spent most of the day just moseying around the city. The only thing that wasn't perfect about the trip was that I had to leave for Granada with my program on Friday and her plane didn't leave Madrid until Saturday. So on Friday Mom went to see Toledo, one of the cities I had visited earlier. She went with a group from Corte Ingles, which is the largest department store in Spain. They of course have a travel agency! I was bummed I couldn't spend that time with her, but I also didn't want to miss Granada!
Alright, well I have lots to say about Granada as well, and I had a day trip this past Saturday to Segovia as well, but I think I will leave that for another post. I'm hoping I will get to it tomorrow, or even tonight if I'm really on a roll, but I have a lot of homework! We're getting into the thick of the semester, and I have lots of papers to write and reading to do. Again, sorry all of that took so long, it's now been more than a week since Mom left and I'm just getting everything up, but you guys will have to bear with me as my work load gets heavy!
Lots of love to everyone, and I will post again ASAP!
