Day 3: A Bike tour, a Siesta, and Art

Ok... so this post ended up being slightly photo heavy... bit since my traffic load has increased by a whopping 400%!!!!!!!!!!!!! (from 1 to 40, lol, thanks ... whoever my loyal reader was who kept coming back only to be disappointed by my lack of posts, you are now being rewarded)

So all of us were able to sleep for about 12 hours, but we did it in totally different ways. I stayed up late and went to bed after my evening stroll at about 10 PM. I woke up at about 10 AM. Allison and Eric went to bed about 6:30 PM. Eric woke up at 6:30 AM and stayed up. Allison woke up at about 10:30 PM couldnt get back to sleep until about 1 AM and then slept until 10. So we all got the same amount of sleep... cool beans!

So we had decided yesterday that we would be doing a bike tour from Trixie Bike Tours. Mainly because they were close and they offered a free drink. Bravo Bike tours got rave reviews, but we didn't know where they were and we would have had to get up early to go there... so its good (for many reasons we choose trixie bikes). After getting lost a little bit finding our way there, we found the store. There were only 2 other customers. two ladies from Australia, and so it was a pretty small tour. They seemed disappointed when we showed up, since they thought they were going to get a private tour... lol....

Here are Eric and I posing with our bikes. Pretty stylish, 3 gear, jet black, california cruisers.

Here is Allison posing with her bike. Also a pretty stylish, jet black, 3 gear california cruiser... turns out that was the only bike they had. :)
So the tour got underway... and Madrid is... not really the best city for biking, especially for people who live in Corvallis. So side note... I was driving with Eric a while back... and it was maybe like... 5:15.... and we stopped at a stop light, and there were 4 cars in front of us. The first comment and first thought in my mind... "Man, traffic is bad!" So you can see that I was very prepared for riding a bike through a city with no bike lanes and very little traffic regulations.. Bikes HO!!!!!

So yeah.... I managed to get lost within the first 10 minutes of riding. And the guide had to stop the tour and come back and get me. Its not that I got... lost per say. It is just I got freaked out because he rode across the street like there was no traffic when in reality there was lots... going muy rapido... so I waited... turns out he didnt like this... he came back and reprimanded me for not biking aggresively enough. I think living is better Mr. Bike Tour Guide! Gezo was his name by the way. He was from Hungary. He was a great guy, and everything from there was better.

Our first stop was at the temple de Debod, which was a temple that was moved all the way from egypt to spain to sit on this hill...... it seemed cool. Gezo didn't let us go in though, because we had to go see more exciting spots on the tour.
Eric and Allison sort of paid attention to the Temple talk.... at least Allison looks attentive.

Then we were off to our next desitination.. approximately 200 feet away! We stopped at this great little scenic overlooking place and we could see the palace and a cool roller coaster and a great view of the city. We are planning on going back. so not a lot of pictures.
This is a picture of the palace and the ... palace catherdral from that spot
Next we rode on, again merging with traffic, although this time fairly easily, and we made it to the Palace. It seems like a cool place, we are going to go there tomorrow. this is Gezo telling us about it and that it looks like a 7 story building but is really only 3 stories and has really high ceilings. oh... i just thought of this now. At the start of the tour, gezo started speaking in french and we all thought it was a joke.. and maybe it was, but he seemed confused when we asked him to speak in english.. lol... odd side story there... but important... maybe?
This is allison riding past the palace.

We next wove through the intertwining places of madrid, seeing the place where the arabs lived and the christians and the jews. Madrid was actually very segregated, but it seemed to work really way and according to gezo there was a lot of harmony amonst the people of the different religions... and actually it did sort of seem like that. Madrid definitely felt very culturally diverse and like everyone gets along.. but that could be because they won the World Cup. Our next stop was in the market of the straw plaza, which had a church that was really old, as well as a garden, which we took a tour through.

Here is the church, with me looking... something in the foreground... lol... I am probably realizing that I am not going to be on this blog. :)

Next we toured the garden a little, here is Eric checking out... a tree? I don't know what was so interesting about it. I don't think it is an ent... but I could be wrong.
Here is Allison and I posing at the end of the archway in the garden.
So we left that place and rode on, reaching our next stop rather quickly. In this case, the worlds oldest restaurant, as classified by the Guiness Book of World Records. It has been open since 1725... or something... I could look it up... but... I will leave that as an exercise to the reader :)
Our next stop was at the residence of Miquel Cervantes, the great author of the classic Don Quixote. He and Shakesphere died on the same date, same year! April 16.... I think, can't remember the year... long explanation from Gezo... not actually the same date, the two countries used different calendars, so it was actually 10 days apart... still really close though.

So we then wound our way through Madrid a little more and we stopped for a break in this big park with a huge monument. No pictures of the monument, but this is Eric and Allison relaxing... We got free drinks, so we tried an energy drink called aquarius, not bad at all.
After our "15 minute break" turned into a 40 minute one, Gezo realized we were late, and so we hurridly went off to the next stop, which was this cool Crystal Palace that was built to house things from the phillipeans, (spelling is off... lol its 2 AM, sorry readers) :)

Our tour continued through the park and then out back into the sprawling city of Madrid, and in front of the Barcelona gate, which was so named because it pointed in the direction of Barcelona.
Here is Eric and I marveling at the gate. Then Gezo hurried us along, since he felt like we were late. We all told him that we didn't care and that we had nothing to do, but he insisted that we go fast fast!
This is a picture of us biking in traffic.... ERic took it... i was too scared to even touch any electronic devices while on the bike :)
And... then we were done, the bike tour was great, we were able to see a lot of Centro Madrid, and we also got a recommendation for lunch. We went to........
THE MUSEUM OF HAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! woo hoo! It is an actual restaurant too... Gezo tried explaining where it was and I was like pishaw, I know where that is! Lol... it was pretty good... low priced and good food... 2 course lunch!

Allison's first course was Melon and Ham... very interesting presentation. Eric and I both got Paella. It was interesting, a seafood mix, which an octopus, shrimp and clams in it, then it was time for the second dish. Eric and Allison got Pork covered in sauce with fries...
And.... I got a baked Mackeral... which was interesting.... Eric and Allison couldn't finish everything, but I was able to... so... I guess I win?
After lunch, it was like 330. The entire city, basically takes a break and does nothing from 2-5. So it was siesta time. My roomies took advantage of this and napped, or in Eric's case rested. I did not. I did get a spanish english dictionary for the iPhone.

After siesta it was time for the Prado Museum. Which was free from 6-8. We thought it was open until 10... sadly we were mistaken. So we got there, then we had to stand in line, which was long, but eventually started moving. The art was pretty cool, I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it, but it was interesting.

Eric and I had problems finding el bano! The signs basically pointed in conflicting directions, one up the stairs, one down the stairs... it made no sense... the bano was not on the stairs? I dinally asked someone and despite the fact that i had absolutely no idea what he said, i followed his hand and was able to find it... My instructions to Eric did not help... but he found it eventually! A picture from outside, since none are allowed inside... probably for the best given the amount of pictures already in this entry.
After we got kicked out at 8... we thought they were open til 10!... we decided to sit down and decide what we wanted to do... I was able to snap this wonderful picture :)So unsure about what to do, we went to walk around the botanical gardens... sadly they were closed, but we saw lots of stray cats. Eric tried to make friends.. it didn't really work. For my feline readership (Hi sprinks, klatuu, gort, and henry!) I will post pictures of the cats tomorrow.

We then walked around the park from the bike tour a little and saw some interesting flora, a weird man made hill, a inpromptu soccer game, that we watched from behind a fence. Well Eric and I did... Allison declared us creepers and went off exploring a little on her own. This is what she missed!
Super exciting... look at the action, the drama, the intrigue....this is the country that won the world cup! OK... it wasnt great... but it was fun for a little while.

We finished out walk through the park... which at this time.. about 930 PM consisted of a lot of couples making out with each other.. which was very odd... since it was a public park and they werent hidden at all.... also the police drive through and don't seem to care... so I guess it is cool with them?

Ok... final picture... after the park we found this wall garden, which was cool... then we went and ate dinner, and came back to the room... where I managed to look at way too many pictures trying to compile this blog. :)
I hope you all enjoyed Day 2! Come back again tomorrow or as they say in Madrid, Feliz Cumpleanos!!!!! ;)