Madrid Barajas Airport is a beautiful building and I was transported back to my Structures and the Urban Environment class with Professor David Billington where we'd studied Terminal 4 as an example of structural art...
The taxi driver played Santana in the car... Hola Spain!
We arrived at our hotel around midnight. I went straight to bed but Mr. F went out to get dinner.
The hotel breakfast was really good! They had everything from samosas and miso soup to gourmet yogurt and nutella :) After breakfast, Mr. F took me sight-seeing (he'd been to Madrid before). We visited a lot of historic monuments and took pictures around the Plaza de Sol, met up with Mr. F's friend Arturo for lunch and had Spanish tortillas for dinner. So Spanish tortillas are made with egg instead of corn (which is the Mexican staple) and it's basically a thick potato omelette... I think I prefer the Tex-Mex version :-p. We also had tapas and cold soup which were kinda icky :p
The following day, I took the train to Toledo (Mr. F had to attend the conference). It's a beautiful city with history all around! I only had energy to visit the castle and fortress with lots of towers and turrets and then I sat on the steps catching my breath and nursing my water bottle... I guess I look Spanish because people kept speaking to me in Spanish and asking for directions... lol!
Dinner was fun. I went as "the spouse" but I had to make do with a nice shirt and a jacket as I hadn't really brought formal wear with me... the other ladies were wearing cocktail dresses and diamonds. At our table were Jaffer from Jordan and his wife Lubna and Doug and Brenda from Chicago and a couple of Qatari guys who didn't talk much. I was easily the youngest person there but I guess I'm used to it now...
Dinner was followed by a Flamenco show. The music was good but the dancers were amateurs and the costumes were rather tacky. I think Aishwarya Rai did a better job in Udi :-p
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"Tortilla" in Spain actually refers to an omelette. Tortilla de patatas is an egg omelette with potatoes embedded within (the famous one), whereas tortilla de francesa is the typical omelette you make with egg and cheese.
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