Spain, Day Twenty-Nine

Today was a transitional day for me that began at about 9 in the morning with breakfast and some goodbyes. I had packed all of my stuff up from my host mom's house and was getting ready to head over to my parent's flat for the remainder of my stay in Madrid. My roommate, Maria, decided to come hang out with us for a little while too since her flight out of Madrid wasn't until about midnight anyways. So on this Saturday morning, we gathered our things and said a final goodbye to our host mom–not without taking a selfie before we left though.

In Spanish, selfie just means selfie

Surprisingly, our flat was already cleaned and ready for check-in when we arrived at the new location. The housekeeper let us in and gave us the lowdown of the place. She only spoke Spanish though so I got the full blast of how everything works and had to translate for my parents. That was quick enough though, so after the housekeeper left, we unpacked our things and then headed out to explore the area a little bit. I had actually mapped out a good shopping area for us to check out for this adventure, which led us to the Tiffany and Co. store, where mom and I purchased some charms for our Tiffany travel bracelets. We decided to go with a bear charm because of the bear statue that is in Puerta del Sol because it is a pretty big symbol for the Madrid area and Spain doesn't actually have a specific charm from the Tiffany collection. We had no problem taking the creative liberty to decide on the bear though.

This is my charm. Mom got a similar one but it was a 3D bear instead of flattened.

After shopping was done, we headed over to El Corte Ingles, which had a rooftop restaurant called the Gourmet Experience. I don't know how gourmet it actually was but we tried some interesting things, the weirdest of which being pig's ear, which brings me to our palabra del dia. If you ever want to know how to say pig's ear for whatever reason you encounter, it is said "oreja de cerdo." Honestly, it tastes exactly how you might expect a pig's ear to taste. But yeah, it wasn't my favorite but I'm glad I tried something new. By the time we were finished eating, my jet-lagged parents were pretty sleepy so we decided to head back to the flat and siesta for a little while.

Once we woke up, Maria decided it was time for her to head on over to the airport, so we said our goodbyes and bid her farewell. Then it was off to the grocery for us. One of the things I really like about Europe is that each neighborhood has its own little grocery, which I think is way more convenient than the mega-groceries that we have back in the U.S. Although, my parents had a few difficulties understanding what some of the foods were since the labels were in Spanish, but I was happy I was there to translate for them.

After unpacking our groceries and having a little snack, it was nearing dinner time (for Americans) so we decided to do a little exploring in downtown Madrid before sitting down for our meal. We decided to go to the area I know best: Puerta del Sol. We walked from the bear statue to Plaza Mayor, where we had a few tapas before dinner. My parents discovered they really enjoy the Tortilla de Patatas here, which is a classic Spanish dish.

The famous bear and tree statue.

Dad found his Spanish ancestor at the tapas restaurant in Plaza Mayor

After our tapas appetizer, we headed over to our restaurant, Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas, which was an underground cave restaurant that had lots of bull fighting history in it. After our long and slow dinner, we stopped across the street at the Mercado de San Miguel (obviously my new favorite place) to look around a little and then grab some ice cream. We headed home early so that everyone could get a good night's sleep before our first full day together in Madrid.

We had some live entertainment at dinner!