Spanish Culture and 101 Montaditos

Really getting into the Spanish frame of mind and nearly missed breakfast after sleeping late! Seemed that everyone in hostel did as well as the kitchen was packed of sleepy looking people in their pyjamas 10 minutes before breakfast finished….

Today we had decided to head to Parque de El Retiro on advice from the hostel manager. We walked up to Plaza de Independencia, with the Puerta de Alcala in the middle. The Puerta de Alcala was built as a grand entrance gate to Madrid in 1778 as the King thought the city was too bland. It is impressive and is now one of the symbols of Madrid. This is also the main entrance to the park. Now this is a park! It is huge, grand, and beautiful! We went past the central lake with its massive fish and tourists rowing boats, through the Palace of Velazquez (an art exhibition space), and to the Crystal Palace which has a lake full of turtles. There were

heaps of them. After watching them struggle over each other, jump off the wall into the lake and even one try to make a break across the walkway, it was time to go and find some lunch.

For lunch today, Jo suggested we head to the Spanish McDonalds known locally as 101 Montaditos. 101 Montaditos is a fast food sandwich shop and on Wednesday every sandwich is 1 euro. You didn't mishear me, literally 1 euro for a delicious little sandwich! It was brilliant. After finding our way through a full Spanish menu and ordering system, we ended up with some sandwiches, a salad and some drinks. 9 euro 50 well spent! Winning.

After lunch we headed back to the hostel via La Mallorquina, a pastry shop. This was to try a local sweet, a Napolentana. This is made from a squashed croissant like pastry, but is filled with either ham

and cheese, vanilla custard or chocolate. The Spaniards do have a sweet tooth and it is great!

After a siesta, we went back down to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, a contemporary art museum. Like most museums in Madrid it is free to enter two hours before closing. We lined up at about 6.15 and were reasonably close to the front, by 7 the line was huge and due to the limited number of tickets, some people missed out. Lucky us! Finally we had done some research and managed to get there in time! The main highlight of the museum is a gallery built around Pablo Picasso’s piece Guernica, commissioned by the Spanish Government in 1937 to show at the European Art Show in Paris. This was a protest piece against the growing violence in Spain by Franco and also at Fascist governments and ideas in Europe at the time. Spain was using this exhibition as a cry for help to the international community. However WWII broke out a couple of years

later and Franco won….not a great outcome! There were also photos from the exhibition in Paris at the time. The galleries that Hitler and Stalin built right across from each other were something else…..

After exiting the museum, we were in the Lavapies area of Madrid. Every August there are three street parties that happen in Madrid and the Lavapies one was on tonight. There was street food, bars, and a live band and DJ. Amazing atmosphere for a Wednesday night, the Spanish really do live up to their reputation as the craziest partiers in Europe! Also while we were queuing up for our food Alberto Chicote del Olmo, the Spanish equivalent to Jamie Oliver, started filming at the stall. Being all in Spanish, we had no idea what was going on, but we may end up in a Spanish cooking documentary. We're not sure that the workers in the stall were expecting him, they were so excited! When we left at midnight, there were scores of people still arriving. Shame we have a train in the morning as we begin our journey to Switzerland.

Spain has been an awesome place to visit and we wish we could have stayed longer, there is so much, more to see! We will definitely be back another time to explore some more and practice our Spanish!