In FAITH We Go: Madrid.

We had mixed advice on Madrid- you MUST go- skip it for sure....but I think one of my friends put it best when he said, it's a great city but you can't really relax. As far as a metropolis city goes, it's one of the better ones we've been to in that it was still clean and pretty scenic. I think if we were more into museums, we would've enjoyed ourselves that much more, but we have a short attention span when it comes to most museums we encounter. Overall, I am glad we went, but I don't feel the need to go back.

I think we agreed on our favorite part of town being near Paseo del Prado and the Parque del Retiro. The street was tree lined and scenic with many gorgeous buildings. Even better was the beautiful big park where you can kind of escape from the city. We went running here and also just strolled around...stumbled across a little pond where we saw a black swan couple! They were SO beautiful and enchanting. The momma was nesting and the dad was swimming around, gathering nesting material. It was adorable. And at one end of the Paseo del Prado is the museum, Caixa Forum, which we didn’t go into, but we thought the vertical garden outside was pretty cool!

The highlight was absolutely going to the legendary Estadio Santiago Bernabau to watch one of the sport’s most talked about games: Copa del Rey- Barcelona vs. Madrid. The energy was hard to explain. Before we even got in, the streets were packed with supporters from both sides, happily chanting songs and waiting for the teams to arrive in their team bus. We wanted to go into the official team store to buy my brother, a long-time die-hard Real Madrid fan, some gear, but there was absolutely no way of getting through. So when we made our way into the stadium I think Matt’s heart broke a little when they informed us that there is no alcohol allowed in the stadium! He actually spent money on non-alcoholic beer, “just for the taste, it’s a sports game after all”. We were shocked to find how great our seats were, and further amused to find that everyone around us were season ticket holders who knew each other. A series of old Spanish guys, which I was totally hoping for. These guys were SO SERIOUS, shouting out profanities that I can only imagine what they meant, waving their hands in the air, holding their heads in their hands…too good. The man next to Matthew was more stoic. He didn’t say much, was quite calm. However, by the time Barcelona had one goal on Madrid and less and less time was left in the game…Madrid took another shot at the goal and it didn’t go in. The man turned to look Matt square in the eyes and just stared at him for a moment with a look of pure agony and panic. No words necessary. Priceless.

From Madrid we took a day trip to Toledo, which I’ll write about later. Aside from the freaking amazing oranges, I’d say the food in Barcelona made it really hard for Madrid to compete with. We didn’t have any meals that left us wanting more. However Malatesta was a great find for big portions and yummy food at good prices.