Madrid Day 2

 Today we shook off the cobwebs, and with the aid of only two naps and multiple café con leches, we walked around Madrid while Martha prepared for an evening with her formerly online-only friend, Joaquin the artist.

We walked through Retiro Park (think Central Park but in Spain), land set aside by the royal family for themselves in the 1500’s. It’s still very beautiful and is now open to commoners, which I guess goes to show not everything about a monarchy is bad.

Spain is full of statues of men on horses and most of those men did some pretty terrible things, but King Alfonso XII, who sits precariously on a very tall pedestal overseeing rowboats in Retiro Park, seems like a cool guy. For one thing, he named himself Alfonso XII even though he was the first king of Spain named Alfonso. He also married for love, which caused his mother the queen to be so upset that she didn’t attend the wedding (and I’m sure she also never let him forget it). And unlike his predecessors, who focused on genocide and conquering stuff, he promoted arts and letters as well as public education. So all in all not a bad guy.

You may ask “why a cow gallery in the Retiro Park?” Madrid says that is the wrong question – “Why not a cow gallery?” is the correct question.

Then we walked down the Grand Via (think 5th Avenue, or if you want to feel more cosmopolitan, think Champs-Élysées) and passed a lot of stylish people. 

After another café con leche, Martha went off to meet with Joaquin and I came back to our apartment where I waited for a while to see if she would decide to come back so that we could find a good tapas place together. Which we did, and then we ran across this food court, which also did the trick.