Meg & Jesse Do Europe

Just Kidding!!

Okay, so we did a flip-flop and went to Madrid first and then Toledo (where we are writing from now). Madrid was a much better city than Paris, and the city center was very beautiful with lots of parks and beautiful buildings. Our first day there we went to the modern art museum and saw Picasso´s Guernica. It blew me away, partially because we had info on all of the symbolism, but none the less it was amazing!

The next day we did a walking tour of the city and I had churros con chocolate. Eating that for breakfast everyday I´m surprised that the majority of Madrid hasn´t dropped dead from heart failure yet. It´s pretty much deep fried dough that they dip in a mug of hot liquid chocolate pudding. Tasty, but deadly!

After that we checked out the Naval Museum, which was cool except for it was all in Spanish. My favorite part of the day (or dia en español) was the great picnic lunch we had in the park. We picked up a tomato and a softball-sized avocado at a local produce store and then got this awesome seafood salad and some empanadas and a deli. We then just took a siesta, just like the Spanish do and it was very relaxing. We also walked by the royal palace, but couldn't enter since there was a state event being held there. We had a pretty good time laughing at the guards silly looking hats. Supposedly, they are supposed to allow you to lean against the wall while smoking. Side effects include: looking stupid.

After that we went to the Prado Musuem, and is was great until I was attacked by the curator bitch from hell. I wish I spoke Spanish now so I could tell her off, but the only thing I could think of would have probably gotten me kicked out. The musuem had some great work though, Jesse and I liked the one showing Zeus trying to get it on with a mortal, they were perverts back in the day! Jesse was also particularly fond of the scenes showing decapitated people and hell and all that stuff (twisted much?). For dinner we had paella at the place next to our room, it was pretty tasty stuff.

This morning we caught the train to Toledo just barely. Our hostel here is very cool. It is in an old Arab fortress/monastery and it is so nice, they just renovated it. It even has a pool! We headed into town, I guess I should say "hiked" since it´s a hill town. We took this dorky tourist train around the area and almost got whiplash. The combo of no shocks and cobblestone streets is pretty deadly. Then we had mazapan in the main square. It was kind of like raw cookie dough with chocolate and fruit jam in the middle, and tasty to boot! We decided to head back to the hostel after that and hop into the swimming pool. Talk about cold, but it was very refreshing- especially after our hike up the hill. We then went to the bar here and had a glass of wine for only 80 cents!!! I´ve decided I´m moving here.

Then Jesse and I got hungry so we headed down the hill to a local bar and tried some tapas. Most of it was anchovies and salmon in oil or something like that, but they did have these tasty croquettes that were filled with ham and other stuff. We also had this awesome potato pie which was like potatoes au gratin, mmmmmmm....gratin . The bar had only a couple of locals in it, so we were the only Americans there. The staff was very nice and one of them came up and started talking to us. He said his name was Enrique and he asked us where we were from. When he found out it was Texas he went throught the whole cowboy thing in his broken English. It was pretty funny, we were miming things back and forth. He was super nice. We then met another couple who were with their baby- very cute. Everyone was really nice and it was great to meet the locals and get to interact with them. That was my favorite part of the day. Our second favorite was that our 8 croquettes and potato pie only cost 2 euros!!!

Okay, that about wraps it up for this post. We are in Toledo until tomorrow (the 30th) then it is off to Barcelona. Hopefully we can find a better internet connection there and upload some more pictures for you guys. Miss you all tons!!

Love,
Meghan and JeSSe

posted by Meghan @ 2:30 PM