Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

In case you didn't know, Nikki and I went to Madrid this weekend past. We got the flights as a gift from her Mum & Dad for Christmas (thanks!), which was nice. We had a grand old time, spent mostly idly wandering around the streets and plazas, parks and Tapas Bars. And Starbucks (seriously, breakfast in Madrid was hard to come by, we settled for SB's out of sheer desperation, and convenience).

Madrid is pretty amazing, but definitely what I'd call a typical European Capital City. Very grand in it's architectural stylings, with huge streets, lots of people, a huge amount of history and things to do, but what really struck me as odd was the really low level of English speakers, in all establishments, even restaurants which would seem to be "touristy".. What's really nice is that all over the city there are loads of little parks and gardens, which is perfect for a couple looking to do some serious chilling out of a weekend away. There are also a serious, and I mean serious, amount of fountains. I mean hundreds of them. Everywhere.

Some observations about the city:

• The speed limits in Madrid are seen by the locals as a sort of "minimum suggested speed". Everyone tears about the place.
• Taxi Drivers only wear their seat-belts on motorways.
• As I said, the level of English speaking is incredibly poor, probably worse than Paris.
• The Omelette Sandwiches are fantastic.
• The wine is really, really cheap for a big city.
• So is the food, in general. We only spent over ?50 on dinner once, and that was a big dinner.
• I still love smoking in bars, something sadly missed in Dublin.
• Although we didn't wander far from the "Centro" district, the majority of the city seems to be fairly devoid of rubbish/trash.
• The parks and gardens seem to be the preferred spot for the local stoners to skin up and mellow out.
• The Traffic cops use their whistles, a LOT, to direct the traffic.
• Speaking of cops, they use scooters! Pretty cool, I thought. But they also carry guns, which is not cool.
• Madrid is an artificial city. It developed as a city after it was made Spain's capital. Which is weird.

Anyhoo. We had a fab time. We strolled around for hours, ate some nice food (lots of bocadillos de tortílla, found one of the only vegetarian restaurants (for me) and one of the only tea rooms (for Nikki) with the help of the AA "city guide" drank some nice wine and beer, went to the zoo (!), and constantly struggled to get out a couple of basic Spanish phrases. And Ryanair kinda redeemed themselves with the ease of getting there and back. Kinda. We're still never flying with them again, unless we really, really have to.

Flickr photoset here.