Okay, FINALLY here.

SIGH. It's been a long two days. I'll spare you the boring details and just give you what is mostly a highlight list:

- Got here after an uneventful flight. Slept through most of it, thankfully. I don't care what anyone says, I LOVE airplane food. It's so damned well thought out. You just know a team of people lost sleep over making sure your food reheats well, is large enough to hold you over for 4 hours, while remaining conveniently sized, and is compartmentalized into different courses (appetizer, entree, dessert). It's so anal, and it makes me so happy.
-Barajas Airport impresses my sister; I am unmoved.
- My theory that all European men love shirts/sweaters with horizontal stripes and super fancy jeans gains more support in Spain.
- We find our hostel and are sketched out by the ghetto door. We climb the four flights of stairs and find it quite nice, indeed.
- The sound of a didgeridoo floats up from the street...for HOURS. STOP.
- We eat bad salads for lunch.
- We return to the hostel, where the sound of a recorder playing the same 10 seconds of Greensleeves floats up...for HOURS. PLEASE STOP.
- We order what we think are tapas for dinner, but end up with 8 different kinds of fried balls. We feel like crap.
- We discover the source of the music is downstairs is buskers, who are frickin everywhere.
- We sleep for 11 hours.

Day 2:
- We eat croissants and hot chocolate for breakfast. We're starting to get the hang of going to a restaurant and not looking like complete idiots.

Poll: What is more offensive and why? Hobo or beggar? What is the PC term? Bum? Street person?
- Hours spent at the Prado. Audio tours are helpful and add much to the experience of looking at a bunch of crusty old pictures.
- We bump into Americans due to my sister's "Obama for your Mama" t-shirt.
- We wander through El Parque del Retiro, which is goooorgeous. The weather today was amazing. Not ONE cloud. No wonder these people don't have A/C anywhere. Nature didn't curse them with 1 billion percent humidity.
- We eat a tiny meal (what the hell, I was starving).













The madrilena diet for staying thin:
1) Smoke as many cigarettes are you can get your hands on, and some that others are holding.
2) Climb billions of stairs as you zip through metro stations.
3) Make out in the park. It's good exercise...apparently!
4) Eat only a croissant for breakfast, the world's tiniest ham sandwich for lunch, and one tapa for dinner. Drink copious copas.

That's it for now, I suppose. Much more to come later. We're doing a Segway tour tomorrow, and we're leaving for Bilbao on the 21st. Whee!

- LaDaun