Last Day in Madrid

Today is our last day in Madrid......we are sad to go but we also super excited to visit  Rome, Italy!

Let me start by saying....we're officially sick of eating salami, cheese, and bread for breakfast....and actually every meal. We recounted the last few days and uncovered a unsettling fact.... we have eaten a total of one vegetable since our meal on the airplane (I'm not even sure it was full serving since it was a slice of tomato and little jalapeno on our tapas). I'm sure Italy is full of veggies though =P


Today started off bright and early...a little too early; 4 am early. I couldn't go back to sleep.... so like any good wife, I woke Ryan up and made him watch Spanish TV with me. We were pretty productive during this time, we booked our train ticket and Airbnbs for Rome and Naples.  We ended up having our salami, cheese, and bread breakfast early (around 5 am) because my stomach was certain it couldn't wait any longer. Did I ever mention that the supermarkets here have a large selection of lactose free cheeses??? Why are Spaniards so spoiled?!

Anyways, we didn't do too much today because our last day was unfortunate enough to land on a stinkin' holiday.  Meaning many of the places we were expecting to be open were closed. This just compounded the fact that during the summer many stores and restaurants are closed for the 'summer holiday' already.

Empty streets.... we should have known it was a holiday.

We started the morning with an early walk to Buen Retiro Park since Ryan was adamant that we had to row a boat. Unfortunately, because of the HOLIDAY we had to pay more....but Ryan wasn't dissuaded. So we rowed a boat.

Actually Ryan rowed the boat. 

I let him do all the work while I soaked in the rays.

I decided Ryan needed some air time....

I'm becoming a pro-selfie-stick photographer...and Ryan has gotten over his selfie stick embarrassment

Aren't we cute? 

Lounge time.

After our boating excursion we decided to go check out Mercado San Antón that was suggested to us......and of course the holiday had to go a ruin our trip. Actually.... it could have been because we were there before noon? I don't know.... Madrid works in mysterious ways. Only a few parts of the market was open....most of them selling some sort of fish product, we had to pass. Since that was a bust we decided to go check out this tapas bar that was around the corner.... it too was closed. Since we weren't having any luck we decided to just head back to the apartment.

Side note: Apparently our pinky promise deal is still in full effect .... I tried to purchase an item from this cute boutique and I was given a heavy dose of 'NO' by Ryan.... in addition he went on to prove none of the items were even made in Spain. Such a party pooper.

So the second funnest part of the day was doing our laundry..... this was necessary to prepare for our departure tomorrow.

This is how we dry out clothes. 

Once these bad boys dry we are going to have to rearrange our backpacks to be more space efficient... otherwise we are going to have to ditch some things to make our carry-on limit.

Since we didn't have an awesome photo filled day for you precious readers ...we decided to give you a special going away treat ....here are some things we learned about Madrid. 

• There is bread everywhere.... How do you not get fat?? We have eaten bread for every meal since arriving here. 
• You have to watch your step....the streets and sidewalks are usually comprised of stones or pacers which frequently have uneven areas. And for some reason a lot of entrances have a little lip before the door jam....Ryan seems to find a way to trip EVERY TIME we enter a building! Like seriously....every.single.time. 
• Spanish is spoken super fast with a heavy accent...even simple words are hard to understand
• Everyone says "Hola" before speaking to someone...  it is considered rude if you don't say it. We've mastered that. 
• Bathrooms are hard to come by when walking around.... I stop every time I see one, just to empty the tank.... I'm developing a 'fear-of-missing-a-toilet' anxiety. 
• Buying groceries is very cheap.... we've been averaging 4 euro a day. (For some bread, salami, and cheese....sometimes we splurged with fruit and drinks)
• English speaking people are actually really hard to come by.... we've stopped asking for English and have overcome our fear of speaking terrible Spanish. We now try to convey our meaning with the simple words we know. For example, we were trying to ask a gentleman what type of topping was on a pizza...literally the only words we could get out was "Que carne?" lol , but he got it =P
• There is a lot of walking....unless you take the public transportation (which I hear is actually very good). Since we're being frugal, we just walk everywhere, but this is definitely a walk friendly city.
• There are interesting street vendors... mainly in the touristy parts of the city. Apparently they are operating illegally so they have their items on top of bags that they can pull the drawstrings and run when they see cops.  This happens to be very often since cops were patrolling everywhere. We even witnessed a sting operation.....we were just sitting at a cafe enjoying our beer when a herd of sales dudes come sprinting down the street with their huge merchandise bags. Apparently they were running from a couple of undercover cops and one poor soul lost all his merchandise because he couldn't run fast enough. 
• You can't find Dr. Pepper anywhere. This should be a crime. 

Anyways.... I hope you enjoyed Madrid just as much as we did! See you in Italy! Ciao!