We had a fantastic, if busy, spread for breakfast before our morning sessions. There was a LOT of information. I feel better about some aspects of my trip, but have been introduced to some concerns that I had not considered. Still, it was more positive than not, so I think that our trip will be great.
We were on our own for lunch, so I followed a group to Mercado de San Fernando which is a large indoor food market. There I had a sausage/cheese roll and some churros with some chocolate dipping sauce that was a combination of hot chocolate and pudding (when the churros were done, I drank the rest of the sauce). While there, we saw hawkers with their wares laid out on sheets with ropes tied to the corners. More than once, the police came by and the hawkers pulled up their instant package and left. One of our members asked the police about it and discovered that the main problem is that the goods they were selling are forgeries.
We then toured the Royal Palace. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures of many of the most interesting parts of the palace due to security issues as the king of Spain still uses portions of it for official purposes. It was quite impressive—more so, considering that there is a separate palace for each season (this is the winter palace).
From there, we took a bus tour through Madrid that was full of interesting information from our guide. However, I had a hard time seeing what he was talking about and found myself dozing off. Still, what I saw was beautiful.
After the tour was over, we were given free time until our bus picked us up at ten. I followed a different group who were going to wander to places that didn’t involve phallic-shaped baked goods. Thus, I also had dinner at the Mercado. This time, I tried empanadas—which were great. We also shared topas—which in this case were hard slices of bread and twenty different kinds of cheese. Most of the cheeses were good, but the blue cheese got the most remarks as it was quite powerful.
From there, we just wandered around, looking in shops and stopping at a bar where they provided spicy potatoes due to some law that requires food to be served with drinks. A couple people ordered some more dishes, but I was entirely too full at that point, and thus did not join in aside from getting an expensive (3.5 Euro) water. Some of the places we walked through were a little sketchy before going back to the bus.
I definitely got in my steps.