I Am Having ....

.... the time of my life!

After my previous post on Thursday I walked around Madrid for over 5 hours. I took in all of the sites, sounds, smells, people, etc.
I sat at an outdoor cafe for a late lunch/early dinner. The food was good and the people-watching was fascinating. I had a blast.

And this totally surprised me.
I've read (and seen) Eat, Pray, Love and I thought that I could never do that .... go off by myself to another country and just travel around .... and like it.

I was wrong.
I'm loving it!

On Friday I bought my ticket for the hop on/hop off bus and loved it. I think I rode around this city about 3 times. I got off and walked around neighborhoods, checked out stores, took tons of pictures and then would hop back on to ride and see some more.
I spent the whole day with just me and I enjoyed my company .... a lot.

Son #1 got in touch with me around 10:30 pm and so I started making my way towards the hotel .... or so I thought.
It seems that these cute, narrow, winding streets look totally different .... and totally the same ... in the dark!
Yes, I got lost. Very lost, but not lost enough to be scared or upset. Not at all. I just kept walking, seeing new things, seeing not-new things, and seeing some things 2 or 3 times as I made my way through the maze of streets. It was still fun.

Finally I connected with S1 and told him what plaza I was in and he came to me. It was great to see him, of course.
We walked around some more and then went to eat a very late dinner (midnight!).
We finally returned to the hotel and fell asleep somewhere around 2:30 am.
Yesterday we walked a lot, in the rain, which wasn't too bad. We did some site seeing and
some shopping. Then we went to see the musical, Mama Mia .... totally in Spanish. It was a blast!
Then, rather than have a big meal, we did what's called a "tapas crawl". We went from place to place, eating a little at each stop. That we also fun .... and good!

Another late night and in bed around 1 (2:30 for him).
This morning we got up and went to the huge "hippy market" they have on Sundays, El Rastro. It's like a gi-normas flea market. Great for people-watching, looking for really unique items and just making fun of a lot of the cheap items. As the morning progressed it became more and more packed. Finally it was almost too difficult to move. Fortunately we had seen just about all there was to see after about 2 or 3 hours, so we headed out.
We ate lunch at a kebab place .... so delicious, and then had dessert at the most famous churro place in the city. They serve the churros with a cup of warm, very rich chocolate. You dip the churros into the chocolate and then when you're done with them, you eat the
chocolate with a spoon. I passed on the spoon part ... didn't want to overload the system, but the churros were great with the chocolate.
We are now back at the hotel for a short siesta, then heading out to the big park here (think Central Park) and some more sites.
The weather is beautiful today.

OK, I think I've caught you all up with my escapades. Haven't gotten into any trouble yet, though I did take a couple of illegal pictures last night at the end of Mama Mia. :)

Happy Sunday, Peeps
:)