Good morning and Happy Good Friday!

Everyone is looking so much more alert this morning!

Our tour director is Matthew and is a character. Imagine Joe Pesci from Home Alone and you have him pictured. A real storyteller who loves to entertain. He is actually an American who left the USA and moved here.

Notes from the bus:

Spaniards eat breakfast like a prince, lunch like a king and dinner like a pauper.

Full belly, content heart

Bull fighting. A dying terrible event according to Matthew

Madrid is very much a festival city. Something like 800 festivals a year – I’m thinking an exaggeration but who knows. Madrid is not a monument city. For activity then looking.

Spaniards work to live, not live to work.

City centre. Puerto du sol.

Deck you may. Say it with gusto. “Leave me alone” in Spanish. it is considered harsh. We had a Gypsy woman panhandling and learned to push them away.

We learned this morning about the trials of travelling with a large group when we were left waiting for the other group. No worries all good, but our perfect Canadians proved golden as usual ❤️.

We went and spent time this morning at a beautiful park. Our guide was excited about it as he rarely has enough time to take group there. Very beautiful with kayaking on the water and classical music being played by a random musician.

We had a lunch of tapas (small plates of food) which consisted of read, cheese, prosciutto, potatoes, frittatas, tater tot like things, calamari, and jalapeños. I may have forgot some as there was so much selection. The adults were given a sample of sangria while students had pop and water. The picture I have included shows the leftovers.

We also toured around the city central and saw many beautiful places. We went to a unique market that was like a large expensive food court with incredible selections: olive kabobs which would be great with a Caesar 😘, ceviche, potato chips with cut up pieces of ham (Brooklyn thought she would prefer her chips plain), desserts, and so much more. It would be a great place to return. It was very similar to the St Lawrence Market in Toronto.

We visited the Royal Palace in Madrid. Quite beautiful and so vast. We understand why they don’t use it much any more because it needs a a good cleaning, and the flooring makes for sore feet.

We had a city tour on a bus. We learned lots of info, but we stopped at the bull fighting arena. They fight one bull a day in May and then again in September or October. This is mostly a tourist activity as the locals frown upon it

Weather today started cool with minor showers, but raincoats and umbrellas did appear do a very short time. After supper we were going to wait for an Easter procession. As we waited, it started to rain and I mean rain. Our bus couldn’t get to us so we trudged through the street with thousands of Spaniards who were also wanting to see the procession. It rained so hard that the water ran down the street. Good thing we packed an extra pair of shoes as an alternate pair will be needed.

Supper tonight was tapas again, but different ones than we had earlier.

Step count is going to be high today as mine is at almost 19000, but Connie’s is over 20000. It depends on your length of leg.

A group of tired travellers tonight, but many smiles and giggles tonight. We need a good sleep because tomorrow we go sword shopping (what Toledo is known for – Ben is pumped!) and zip lining!

Highlight of the day:

Ciara: palace.

Brooklyn: the park

Jacey: the park

Roz: seeing the castle.

Ben: palace tour

Everyone is good! Thank you for sending your kids with us! We have a group of rockstars as they are reliable, punctual, and good attitudes! We will try for more pics tomorrow!