Aye Yi Yi Yi Yi

Good evening,

Left Burgos this morning.  You drop down from a hilly area into a rolling type prairie kind of like the foothills around Calgary or Denver.  Lot of grain farms the fields are bigger here ( a woodpecker would have to pack a lunch)  LOTS of wheat fields, they're larger but its almost like the strip type farming that they used to do in southern Alberta.  No zero tillage they plow everything and seem to rotate the crops and keep the crops seeded in the fields to about 40 acres max.   Not much cattle in this area at all.

About mid morning we pulled into a travel stop, lo and behold there was a McDonalds. About 2/3 of the bus made a beeline for the McDonalds and had a burger, fries and onion rings.   Its great trying all this different food and culture but it was nice to taste food that your used to as well :)

As we got closer in to Madrid we rose out of the prairie and drove into treed hills, saw a few cattle but not too many at all.  Madrid is a very modern and urban city lots of factories and distribution centers.   Once in the city center we went to the Prado museum (NOT Prada sorry) and saw a lot of paintings from the spanish masters, El Greco, Velasquez and Goya.  Went to have a drink afterwards at the Ritz Hotel Madrid across the street.  They are pretty proud of the place 18 Euros for a drink.  But we showed them we cleand out the bowl of cashews and almonds they put in front of us.

Here is a snapshot of our tour companion Brian, his daughter is following the blog back home in Australia!

This evening we went to a restaraunt that featured the local fare.  Had our choice of lamb, suckling pig, salmon or paella.  It was all delicious great little restaurant for dessert they brought out this huge baked Alaska and lit it on fire in front of everyone!

Then the big surprise a trio came out playing traditional Spanish music but we recognized a lot of the songs. (Blue Spanish Eyes, Guntanamera, and as I called it the Frito's Bandito song)  Tried our hand with trying to video it so hopefully you will be able to see a bit of it here.Larger video is here

After dinner we took an evening tour of the city a lot of the traffic circles have beautiful fountains in the center of them with statues.  (Good thing I didn't see these prior to Scott building our fountain at the new house)!  Their post office here dates back to the 1800s and looks like a cathedral.

Off to Toledo (setting for Don Quixote) tomorrow then back to Madrid to be on our own tomorrow afternoon and evening. 

Talk to y'all tomorrow night.

D & D