Madrid, bis

We planned to spend a night and day in Madrid before heading home - a night to eat tapas, tapas and tapas, and a day to shop the already-cheap, post-Christmas sales. We left an Ibizan sunset and arrived in gorgeous Madrid, dropped our bags at our hostal* and headed to a tapas bar that we'd fallen in love with in June. On the way, we popped into a cool vintage store and Dani found a lovely coat just like what she'd been looking for, and I came away with a pimpin' fur coat and brand new forest green boots. We couldn't find the tapas bar two weeks ago so it was essential we track it down this time - luckily we did - munching on the best pintxos we've had in Spain (so good we had to double up on some). We met some multilinguists who showed us some bars in the area and in nearby Chueca (and we returned the favour by dragging them to a, er, drag bar. The chanteuse there asked if we were Spanish, and on learning we were Australian hopped around on the stage like a kangaroo. That's the third time that's happened in two weeks).

It was somewhere between tortilla and last canas that we learnt the day we'd allocated for shopping, Sunday, was actually a public holiday, Three Kings Day, and that all the shops would be closed. Oh. Surely not all? Yep, all. So this morning we pottered around the beautiful Plaza Mayor and savoured one last bocadillo at the Museo de Jamon, and it was good chance that our flight had been brought forward five hours early. Soon enough, we touch down, and it's not snowing. It's a very mild 7C and we're happy to be home.

PS I am in love with French bulldogs. This morning, a guy was walking his French bulldog (in a leather vest) and as it passed, it stopped, and looked right at us for a few heady moments, then came up and grunted avec plaisir while I scratched and cooed to it. Then straight away another French bulldog walked past and grunted while I scratched it's massive ears.

* The difference between hostels and hostals:
Hostel: a youth hostel.
Hostal: A 1-2 star hotel, usually on a floor of an old apartment building. Hostals are everywhere, and cost around 50E a night. They can be horrible, they can be decent. We stayed at one where the 'bathroom' was a shower faucet in the corner of the room with a shower curtain dividing it from the rest of the room. One that was like a dungeon. This last one had a nice simple bathroom and a receptionist who corrected my Spanish grammer.