Day 32 & 33: Madrid

Day 32:     Well, Melissa´s ankle isn´t much better, but she decided to be a trooper and we decided to do the second half of our hop on/hop off tour.  At least that way, we´re still out and about in the city and Melissa can sit down.  The tour took us through the modern part of Madrid.  Although beautiful, it reminds us a lot of a smaller New York or Singapore.... very cosmopolitan.  We then thought we could stroll down Gran Via for a bit, one of Madrid´s main thoroughfare.  After walking for a bit, however, Melissa´s ankle started to hurt again.  We headed back for the hotel and stopped by a pharmacy to get an ice pack.  We rested for a while making sure the ice pack was doing its job.  After a much needed rest, Meilssa´s ankle actually felt all better.  We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day to fully heal Melissa´s ankle, but of course, we still made it out at night to get to dinner.  We chose to eat at a pretty restaurant called Posada de la Villa.  Apparently it´s in a building that´s really old and pretty and whenever a famous person has eaten at the restaurant, they´ve carved that person´s name into the chair.  Apparently a Janet Jackson chair is roaming around somewhere.  We hope they don´t forget to carve our names into our chairs!

Day 33:  Yay!  Melissa´s ankle feels all better.  We woke up and headed for the Museo del Prado today.  What a treat!  They even have a temporary exhibit about the artist Patinir until October that we got to see!  We spent a good part of the morning until the early afternoon at the Prado... strolling looking at the Goyas and the Rembrandts and many of El Greco´s works.  TJ is pretty museumed out, but TJ still enjoyed the Prado...enjoying looking at the differences between some of the Spanish artists and the Italian or French artists.  They have quite an impressive collection.  After leaving the Prado, we decided to head to the city´s "Central Park" : Parque de Buen Retiro or Good Retreat Park.  We´ve been told to go to this park so many times, by our good friend Vanessa (who couldn´t stop raving about the park), to people we met on the trains.  They were right to rave... it is a beautiful park with numerous fountains and flowers around every bend.  They have one large lake in the middle of the park with a monument on one side of the lake dedicated to King Alfonso XII.  There are rowboats that are available to be rented out for a period of 45 minutes.  We were also told of two palaces they have at the park: Palacio Velasquez and Palacio Cristal.  Both palaces were built in the late 1800s to honor the Phillipines.  They are both very beautiful.  At this point, we were getting quite hungry but we still wanted to rent out a rowboat.  It was 2:30 p.m., however, and the sun was SCORCHING.  We decided that we would head out to Gran Via area for a while to have some lunch and actually finish strolling the boulevard since yesterday we weren´t able to.  We stopped by a Spanish fast food restaurant: Pans and Company.  It was actually pretty good.  They serve sandwiches of all sizes served on baguettes.  Not too shabby.  We then walked along Gran Via looking at all the theaters and shops.  After we were "Gran Via-d" out, we decided to head back to Retiro since it was now almost 5:00 p.m. and though it was still hot, it wasn´t burning.  We rented out a rowboat and enjoyed their little lake filled with fish.  It was quite relaxing and we can see why Madrilenos enjoy their Retiro park so much.  After we were done, we realized that we stank from the day´s heat and headed back for the hotel to clean up.  Ok... so we have something to admit.  That´s right... Botin was SO good... we decided to go back again tonight.  We don´t care what you all have to say... it was good, well-priced, and... GOOD!  After resting back at the hotel for about an hour after we got all cleaned up, we walked over to Botin.  The first night we ate here, we had reservations at around 10:00 p.m.  We were so exhausted after eating considering we don´t normally eat this late.  This time, we made our reservations for the more American 8:00 p.m.  To our surprise, when we got to the restaurant, there was a massive crowd of people waiting for the restaurant to open at 8.  Of course we found out that most of these people were American, though!  The first time we ate here, our table was underground close to their wine cellar.  This time we got to sit on the 3rd floor of the restaurant (there are four stories).  Decorations were so beautiful.  We even sat next to a framed letter sent in 1985 to Botin by Nancy Reagan who apparently ate here with Queen Sofia.  Impressive.  This time we both ordered the roast suckling pig... or the cochinillo arosto, as we later found out what it was called.  We also both ordered the strawberry dessert again, except we realized that we had been mistakenly calling it Fresas San Isidoro.  It´s actually Freson San Isidro.  Oops.  No matter the name, they were GOOD!  After paying, we started to leave the restaurant when we realized that one woman had been able to buy one of Botin´s pretty painted Sangria pitchers.  We didn´t know you could buy them!  We headed back on inside and bought ourselves our one souvenir.  It even came with the little wooden spoon they stir their Sangria with... with Botin carved on the side.  Our one souvenir has made us quite happy!  After a long and hot day, we started to head back to prepare for the next day.  Our last day is tomorrow and we are planning to wake up early to check out of the hotel, and then go explore their Sunday market called El Rastro...a huge flea market.  We can´t wait!