Madrid lacked the personality and vivaciousness of
Barcelona. The stay there was also
impacted by the fact that I still had the econ test to take, and so while Kim
waited in line at the museums I whipped out my Quantum Micro and did some last
minute cramming. With the test finished
at about 8 o’clock last night we headed out for some food. First on the itinerary was a nice cheese
shop, where we sampled five different Spanish cheeses; a couple of manchegos, a
roquefurt, a soft mozzarella like cow’s cheese with a slightly tangy finish,
and another that isn’t memorable. We had
been planning on a tapas crawl through lavapies but ended up setting our sights
on a vegetarian spot also in Lavapies (both Kim and I were craving green
food). Alas, the place was closed and we
ended up eating bad Indian, where the basmati was colored and flavored like
Spanish rice and the naan was sort of like wonderbread.
The art, especially the velazques, de Greco, etc. at el
prado, was a little high brow for our liking.
The thyssen had some more contemporary art – a lot of wonderful
expressionist, fauvist, and post-expressionist works: monet, Picasso, pisarro,
Pollack, Kandinsky, etc. We took in the
two galleries back-to-back with some wonderful pulpo (octopus) and roasted
peppers in between. We did the Palace as
well, on Monday, and it was pretty much what you would expect from six
centuries of monarchy.
