Friends & Family

darren, jane, gav, gail, kate, simon
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We had arranged to meet my brother Simon, sister-in-law Kate and our friends Darren and Jane in Madrid, we were all checking into the same hotel which for us was going to be luxury, it was 4 star, we hadn't gone above 2 the whole trip.

We all met in the lobby bar late afternoon and didn't move for a couple of hours until we had chatted our way through a few rounds of beer. It was really good to see them, but funnily it didn't seem that long since we saw them last. We went out for some tapas that evening in a bar after walking through the impressive Plaza Mayor, after more drinks at a couple of bars we managed to find Madrid's freaky goth community lurking in the basement of an Irish pub. The boys finished the night in the a pool hall near the hotel while the girls went to bed.

signage
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A slow start the next day, jet lag had caught up and we didn't get out of bed till 12. We went for a walk to the 'Palacio Real' (Royal Palace) and went for something to eat in Plaza Mayor and surely had the most expensive beer on the whole trip €6.60. We weren't so interested in the sights of Madrid and were happy to wind down and just chat. Darren and Jane left mid afternoon and the rest of us walked to Retiro Park where we sat in a cafe beside the boat lake with a few beers. The sun was still high in the sky at seven o'clock and it didn't turn dark until around 10pm, coming from the South American winter it made it feel much earlier than it was.

plaza mayor
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The next day the girls went shopping and we decided to go for a walk, I also wanted to take some photos because we had not taken many in Madrid, we walked through the Plaza Mayor down Gran Via to the town hall and to a vantage point overlooking the city. That afternoon we said goodbye to Kate and Simon but we would be seeing them the next day when we arrived home in England. We walked around some of the areas we hadn't. Madrid is certainly a nice place to just hang out.