A Weekend In Madrid With a Quick Visit to Nebraska

Yes, after Josiah picked me up at the bus station in Madrid Friday night, we saw across from our hotel a café called NEBRASKA. Of course we had to go there for dinner! Josiah ordered “The Nebraska” sandwich, but I can’t remember exactly what was on it, but something involving many types of meat. Of course. I ordered a sandwich with salmon, tomato, white asparagus, pickle, and a hard boiled egg. The Spanish have some pretty weird combinations, but it was pretty tasty! Josiah asked if we could get a discount since I was from Nebraska, but no such luck.
Saturday morning we woke up early and took the 45 minute bus south to Toledo. It was such a cute little town! We saw some Roman ruins of a track/stadium that had been used for chariot racing and is now a park, so that was cool. Of course we had a little race, and I won!  But we also saw El Greco’s house (under construction) and his painting of The Burial of Count Orgaz which was really interesting. It was also fun to walk around and just explore the winding streets and look at the beautiful view of the river and the mountains. They are big into sword making, Don Quijote, and marzipan everywhere there! Although I will not be bringing back any sabers or daggers, I did get a cool Don Quijote mug (even cooler since we just read it in Literatura) and we sampled some marzipan. It was so good!!! Yummy. It was cool to see how they formed it in crazy shapes, like dragons or the huge cathedral of Toledo. It was neat to see the cathedral too! It was huge and reminded me of Notre Dame. While in Toledo, I also managed to step in dog poop, which is lucky according to Spaniards. So not too bad, and of course Josiah had to document it all, so the photographic evidence will never let me forget it! It was a lovely city though, and by the time we were taking the bus ride home, I was falling asleep.
Sunday we spent in Madrid, which I think is the best day to be in Madrid! After stopping at a café for some café con leche y tosatada con tomate (literally just toast with mashed up tomato on it, which was surprisingly good), we went to the Reina Sofia Museum for free! There we saw some of Picasso’s famous works, including the Guernica. It’s big! They also had photographs of the different stages of the work, and it was interesting to see how the different parts came together and how sometimes he completely changed things. After that we found our way to this huge Rastro (flea market) that extended along this super long street. There were so many people, we could barely move at one point! But then we went to the big Plaza Mayor and sat in the sun for awhile watching all the people and weird street performers out on a Sunday afternoon. That evening, we were lucky enough to get into the Prado Museum for free too! Another busy day en España! And it ended on a delicious note of Italian food and ice cream from Spain’s first McDonald’s.
On Monday we had a picnic in Parque Retiro and then we were off our separate ways at the bus station. This weekend I’ll be back at the bus station again to head to Santander, where we’re going to catch a flight to Barcelona! I can’t wait!