Forget El Prado, how do we get to el Mercado

Waking up Wednesday morning was a bit of a challenge. Our hostel sponsors a Pub Crawl every night of the week, so we begrudgingly accepted their invitation to join them for the night. After meeting a young couple from Croatia, us and our roommate joined them for a couple international drinking games and then hit the town with the backpackers from another hostel. We finally met some American backpackers, and actually got a chance to talk with some of the Hostel directors (who were originally from Germany) about our plans, and what we should and shouldn't do. It was after this conversation that Ibiza was cut from the itinerary (even though we were extremely reluctant to make the cut, apparently it's completely dead this time of year) and Brussels is now possibly being replaced with Bruges. Unfortunately for us, during our conversation we realized that the "free cocktail" that came with our entrance fee was a shot of tequila, which apparently pushed us just over the limit of whether or not post-club eating was in the picture (the story ends with six slices of "tipo de italiano pizza con jamon y parmesan," the bill for which absolutely put us over budget for the day…..we are quickly finding that putting us in a place where the food truck items can all possibly rank in the top 10 meals we've ever had along with alcohol is creating a pricier trip than we expected). After breakfast and taking care of Thursdays train tickets, we decided to check out El Parque de Retiro. The park itself was massive; almost like Central Park, but with lakes and huge fountains and monuments everywhere. We picked up a couple of bocadillos for a light lunch (chorizo and jamon con queso) and ate in the park. After wandering down further, we accidentally ran in to the Museo del Prado, and decided to check it out (personal opinion: If I see another portrait named something like "Old Man with an Apple," or "Young Woman looking Stately," I might vomit. There were a couple paintings that were interesting, and they had a single Picasso that was pretty cool. It cost 10 Euros to get in. End of story). Afterwards, we checked out a couple of nearby Cathedrals and caught the subway back to the hostel for a little siesta.

Now that jet lag has finally worn off, we were able to schedule our day in the traditional Spanish way. Breakfast around 9:30, lunch around 3, and dinner at 10:30. We found a street lined with famous restaurants and Tapas bars, and went from place to place until we found one that was mildly affordable and had something different we wanted to try. We ended up getting Spiced Octopus with potatoes, fried eggs topped with sauteed onions (sounds simple, but it had more flavor than any egg dish I've ever had), and two Ciabatta bread Tostas: one with steak and a herb butter sauce, and one with smoked salmon, manchego cheese, oregano and crema. All around, everything was pretty ridiculous. Afterwards, we went back to el Mercado de San Miguel for what ended up being the biggest, most delicious chocolate mousse truffle I've ever had. Joe concurred with several minutes of speechlessness and a facial expression that said something like "this is so good it hurts."

The night ended with a 2-3 hour stroll around Plaza Mayor and Gran Via. Gran Via reminded me a lot of Times Square: even at 2 or 3 in the morning, the streets are still packed with people, locals and tourists, either going out or eating (yes, still eating at 3am….at least we weren't the only ones). Despite the fact that my chances of being "clipped" by a car grow exponentially by the day, the chance that Joe gets shanked by a club promoter does as well. Following the routine on every Jamaica trip (several will testify to this) walking down the street we were constantly approached by men wanting us to go to their bar or club, handing out flyers and offering drink specials. Joe will initiate the conversation in Spanglish, ask about the drink specials, ask the guy where the bar is, let the guy lead us to it for about a block or so before saying "hard left," and ditching the guy without notice. I'm not completely familiar with Spanish culture, however I would bet this is not taken as a compliment. After Tuesday night's pub crawl, we decided to hit the hay rather than go out, due to a Thursday/Friday/Saturday stint in Barcelona that should be as exhausting as it will be fun.