After studying abroad in Sevilla, I wasn't sure what I'd think about Madrid. I was concerned it would be as more sterile version of the Spain I love - and fortunately I was wrong. It was simply a bigger and more abundant version :-)

In this post, I'll go through our Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday (since we were in Toledo on Monday), and go over the highlights. I talk a lot about food in this one.

Sunday - the Rastro Flea Market, Reina Sofia, Cien Montaditos and La Descubierta

We had a lazy morning on Sunday before walking down to El Rastro for its Sunday Flea Market. We had to walk nearly directly south from our AirBnB to a new part of the city we hadn't yet visited, and saw some cool street art along the way.

the Flea Market

We made it to the flea market and entered the sea of slowly walking Spaniards down the street. Boy, was it overwhelming. This fleamarket sold EVERYTHING, and at incredibly low prices. We were honestly a bit too overwhelmed to stop and shop, so we continued onward to the bottom of the market.

When we got to the bottom of the market, we were surpised to see that the market continued to the left. We walked through the rest of the market to our next destination, while singing "This is the market that doesn't end."

We made it to barrio Lavapies, a traditionally immigrant neighborhood, and stopped into a cafe for a coffee and a light snack.

After that, we were off to the Reina Sofia - Spain's Modern Art museum.

the Reina Sofia

We got to the Reina Sofia, and there was quite the line to get in. It turns out, that in 10 minutes from the time we arrived, the museum would be free! Thanks, Madrid!

We were not allowed to take photos within the Reina Sofia, but it was my favorite museum in Madrid. The Reina Sofia groups its collection by time period and style, so we began in the early 1930s, before the Spanish civil war, and made our way onward. Claire carried the Rick Steves Spain guidebook, and read the details of each room. We made our way through the cubist works of Picasso and others, until making it to the Cubism grand finale, Picasso's Geurnica - Picasso's cubist masterpeice depicting the horror of the Spanish Civil War, specifically a german bombing raid on civilians in northern Spain.

In the museum was also saw plenty of work by Salvador Dalì, and I learned that I'm a fan of the work of Juan Mirò. Unfortunately by the time we tried to see it, the 4th floor was closed. We'd be back on Tuesday before our train to see the rest.

Cien Montaditos - an aside

We walked back to the airBnB after the museum, but not before stopping at Cien Montaditos. Cien Montaditos is a Spanish fast food chain, and is absolute perfection in a way that only Spain could pull off.

Cien Montaditos translates to "100 little sandwiches", which is exactly what they offer. Sandwich prices range from 1 euro to a euro fifty, but on Sunday and Wednesday,nearly everything on the menu is a euro. The only items not a euro are the salads, down to two euros from three fifty.

Alright, so they're cheap. They're also shockingly good. The menu includes sandwiches of Spanish ham, Spanish tortilla (an egg and potato delicacy), chorizo, squid in squid ink, and on and on and on. Like I said, there are 100. For the sweet tooth - they have desert ditos on chocolate bread.

In addition, this place serves Cruzcampo, a light lager from Sevilla that no trip to Cien Montaditos can be complete without. And no worries - a large mug is only 1.50, or just a Euro on Sunday and Wednesday.

The only day in Madrid we didn't eat at Cien Montaditos was our first day in the city. I'm kind of upset we didn't keep a perfect record. Every time we go to Cien (We're on a first-word basis at this point), the place is packed, and we're two of the only foreigners in the place. I've been to the New York City location, but it's sadly not the same.

Dinner that night - Taberna La Discubierta

More on food :-) That night, Claire and I went to Taberna La Discubierta on recommendation from Zane Matsko (shout out). This place was a no frills Spanish tapas place about a 10 minute walk from our AirBnB, blocks from Puerta Del Sol. Service was just weird, but the food was delicious.

The place was packed and understaffed, so we'd put in half our order, pause in inhale. and the waiter was gone. That said, we ordered patatas bravas and two half racions of jamon iberico and chorizo iberico respectively.

Jamon Iberico is truly something special - Italian Prociutto has absolutely nothing on this stuff. The pigs that are used for this ham are raised free range and fed acorns. It's said they grow super muscular, and all the fat ends up inside the muscles, instead of on the outside of the pig, like a pink pig you'd see in te US. Regardless of how accurate this is, you end up with a cured ham with streaks of fat within, which melt into silk the moment it enters your mouth. Jamon Iberico over everything is the key takeaway here.

We ate our copious amount of pork product perfection, sipped rioja, and battled to eventually get our check.

Monday - The US Consulate, the Royal Palace and el Mercado de San Miguel

Monday morning I realized that my passport was no longer in my possession. I think I know where I left it (the bathroom at the airport), but that's neither here nor there. Fortunately our only concrete plan was to go to the Palacio Real, so we had buffer time to run to the US Consulate.

the US Consulate

After a half hour walk through some new neighborhoods, we arrived back on US soil (technically, right?). We had to turn off our cell phones and give security all of our electronics while inside. I took a number, deli style, and was called up pretty quickly. The woman at the window gave me the appropriate degree of ribbing for losing my passport before giving me the forms needed to provide me an emergency passport. Once filling out the forms, I waited like two hours to get the passport - but who really knows because I had none of my time-telling electronics on me. At one point Claire left to go reclaim her kindle and go read at a local Starbucks (pronounced Estarbucks in Spain) while I waited.

While I waited, I met an 18 year old girl living in Segovia, who needed an emergency passport so she could go to India for 2.5 months in a week. She hadn't yet started her visa application, because she didn't have a valid passport with which to do so. We chatted a bit, and she told me she left home when she was 15 and has been traveling since - including through some incredibly dangerous sounding situations across the Sahara. She's going in India to receive enough practice hours for a Yoga certification. I hope the country allows her in.

My Emergency Passport is good for a year, after which I'll need to have an official passport again. I paid a fee for the emergency passport, but that fee will roll over and count for my official passport when I return to the state and apply so... no harm no foul? Shout out to the US Consulate for functioning and what not. The longer I'm away from the States to more I appreciate our government.

We stopped at Cien Montaditos on the way back, because duh.

the Royal Palace

By the time we got back to the AirBnB, we have about two hours before the Palacio Real closed. For context, the Palacio Real is the historic palace of the King and Queen of Spain, but since restoring the monarchy in the 70s, the royal family has lived just outside of the city proper, turning the palace itself into a museum. The palace is still used for official royal functions from time to time, at which point the museum closes.

By the time we showed up, the line for tickets was discouragingly long. We only had two hours before the place closed, so things weren't looking good.

Fortunately, the line was moving quickly, and there was a talented accordion player to keep us entertained, jamming along to recognizable pop hits.

To our surprise, when we got to the front of the line, we learned that the museum was currently free to enter. Woohoo! Just look how pleased we are with this discovery.

The royal palace was spectacular, and kind of maddening. The tourist in me was amazed with the marvels, and the liberal American in me was disgusted with the opulence.

Claire, with the good word of Rick Steves, guided us through the museum.

We couldn't take photos inside the museum proper, but below are a few shots of the first few rooms where photos were permitted. In short, the royal family lived in this enormous palace since the 1700s, each king building additions to the palace, making it the largest royal palace in all of Europe.

Each room had an amazing fresco on its ceiling.

and many had enormous, hand sewn rugs.

Within the palace proper, we saw a multitude of enormous crystal and silver chandeliers, gold and gold leaf plated everything, large sculptures of royalty, multi-million dollar Stratovarius violins, violas and cellos, the royal crown, and a lot of fascinating and expensive looking clocks.

El Mercado de San Miguel

From the palace, we headed to the Mercado de San Miguel, a food market with a bunch of different vendors, right by Plaza Mayor, for a quick treat. Claire went with sweet, while I went with salty... and then alcoholic.

This is basically an empanada filled with ice cream.

The idea was cool, but the implementation was a bit messy. But also delicious.

I got an olive stuffed with a mussel and red pepper, and it took me to salty umami heaven - and for only a euro.

I then got a vermouth, or as they call it "Vermut", because for two euro, it seemed like a very Madrileño thing to do. It was quite good - served with an orange slice.

back at the AirBnB

We get back to the AirBnB, and hang out for a bit before heading to dinner. Our AirBnB hosts more brief mention of film festival they host, and we asked them more about it. It was also then when we really noticed how amazing the artwork is in the apartment.

Our hosts Javier and Belen put on an annual short film festival in Soria, Spain, and we discussed the details for quite some time.

Dinner at Malpica

For dinner we returned to a local favorite, Malpica. We ordered a few tapas and main plates. The one that truly stood out was the deep fried eggplant with parmesan cheese and honey mustard. "we need to cook more eggplant", Claire keeps saying after that.

Our Last Day in Madrid - talks over breakfast, a return to the Reina Sofia, and the train to Sevilla

We had a later start on our last day, with the plan to pack up, go to the Reina Sofia andd then take the train to Sevilla at 3pm. Over breakfast at the airBnB, we had a fascinating conversation with a fellow AirBnB guest, Viviek, a man of Indian descent living in Hong Kong. He was in Madrid for an extended period of time doing work at the Madrid School of Architecture. His line of study was in housing the homeless, with the intention of designing housing plans and working with NGOs and governments to implement them. We discussed everything from the housing crisis affecting urban areas across the world, IT and big data, and government action vs. 3rd party circumvention.

From there, we packed up and took an uber to the train station. As the advertisement at the airport said, "Uber in Spain is 'Uber'". For just over five euros we were able to throw our luggage in a storage locker and return to the Reina Sofia to see the Post-WWII collection on the fourth floor. This time we had to actually buy tickets.

We wandered through the dark era of the 1950s into the modern art era of the 1960s. A lot of the work was gripping and fascinating, while a lot of the more abstract modern art was more hit or miss, with certain pieces absolutely wowing us, and certain pieces looking like 3 black lines in a white canvas.

Before we knew it, it was off to Sevilla! But not before a quick lunch at Cien Montaditos.

While we were excited for Sevilla, leaving Madrid made us feel like this child.