{adventures abroad} spain: day seven - royal palace and reina sofia

at 7:30 am we were rudely awakened by what i can only assume was the ghost of some angry madrileno soccer fan. the television came on of its own accord and so did the shower.  more exhausted than frightened, we simply opened the windows and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.
when it was time for breakfast we found a table outside on the plaza mayor at the museo del jamon (yes, that's ham museum). just a side note: lots of dead pig parts hanging around at this place. and the "american breakfast" does not involve any sort of scrambled eggs. we shared our scraps with the little hoppy birds begging by our table and then headed for the royal palace.

upon our arrival at the palace we were informed that they were preparing for some sort of official state function and only seven of the twenty-five rooms would be available for touring.  i guess it's pretty common for rooms to be closed without notice, and we got a discounted rate because of it, so we didn't mind so much.  the palace was lavish and over the top (it is a palace after all).  after our tour, we got a window seat in the cozy cafe and sipped some espresso while we wrote in our journal.
leaving the palace, we walked back up calle mayor to sol and then headed to the reina sofia. i could barely contain my excitement.  salvador dali, joan miro, juan gris, rene magritte, alexander calder, and the most amazing of all: picasso's guernica.  i stood and drooled for what must have been hours.

after being amazed by modern art, we went back to puerta del sol and did a little shopping at the corte ingles. a cute dress, a pair of harem pants, and a box of sangria later we went to our space ship hotel to freshen up for dinner.  *travel tip: if your sangria comes in a box and costs one euro, it's going to be gross.  especially if your hotel mini-fridge is less than fully functional.* 
since our boxed sangria was not so fantastico, we opted instead for cervezas on the plaza mayor before dinner. this was the night we'd decided to celebrate our anniversary, so a little splurge was in order.  we had a reservation at sobrino del botin, supposedly the oldest restaurant in the world. we sat on the first floor where it was dark and romantic in a medieval sort of way. the service and the food were spectacular. *vegetarians: beware. every last dish, including the mixed vegetables, involves ham.*

once we had made disgusting pigs of ourselves, we decided to wander around the city for a bit.  we mostly stayed along the calle mayor and puerta del sol, surrounded by the lights and sounds of madrid. we walked off about half of one cream puff and then wandered ourselves right back to our hotel.