Madrid
SPAIN
Ticking a Box on my Bucket List
By AARON
Sunday, December 1, 2019
After a great 24 hours in the city of Ronda, we boarded the 10 a.m. train to Madrid, which sadly marked the last city we would visit in Spain, but also held one of the activities I had been looking forward to not just on this trip, but almost my entire life.
Starting at age 6, I’ve played and had an insane love for the game of soccer, and while I have been fortunate enough to attend live games in the US, as well as places like Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, watching a live game in one of the top flight leagues in the world has always been on my bucket list. So when Lyndi and I started planning our trip to Spain, a game in either Madrid or Barcelona was a must.
So $400USD later, we had booked our tickets at Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, where we would watch Barcelona play Atletico Madrid. Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I barely slept the night before.
Despite a really bad and cold “cheese & bread” breakfast sandwich for Lyndi at the train station, we had a pleasant train ride north as we headed towards Madrid and even got a break from our Spanish while watching Toy Story 4. In English!
The city metro connected seamlessly to Atocha Train Station, however our stop near our hotel was under construction, so we had to brave the rainy weather for a couple blocks before arriving at our hotel. Hotel Atlantico sits on Calle Gran Via in a more modern, busy part of Madrid. The hotel had a very 1970s chic vibe to it, including what we could only assume was a hair dryer contraption in the bathroom for your nether-regions?
We failed miserably in our afternoon nap (I blame my excitement for the game that night), and before I knew it we were heading out the door towards the stadium. I splurged on an Old Fashioned at a cool little speakeasy-style bar beforehand while Lyndi enjoyed a nice “mocktail” (if this is the only blog you read of ours – she’s 5 months pregnant at this point! While I write this, our beautiful 3-month old baby boy is next to me. Yes, I procrastinated on this blog.).
We decided to arrive at the stadium at least an hour before so we could take in the views, grab a bite to eat and just relax before the start. It’s a good thing we did because for some reason the food line took forever and we made it to our seats just as the players were coming out of the tunnel. I’ll spare you the nerdy soccer details, but just know that:
A) Despite the seats being pretty far away it totally lived up to my expectations
B) I got to see one of the greatest players of all time (Lionel Messi) not only play, but score the game-winning goal literally the night before he won the Golden Shoe for his third straight year.
Next morning, as the rains subsided and the sun came out, we took advantage of the nice weather and headed to the city Teleferico, which is a cable car that takes you up for some great views of Madrid, reserved especially for sunny days like this! Except it was closed for repairs. Boo.
So what do you do if you’re Lyndi, spending time in a big city? You go to a museum of course! (see: door museum in Buenos Aires blog.)
Museo Sofia Reina is a 4-story museum that houses everything from local exhibits to art from names such as Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. With all the well-laid out interpretive kiosks and descriptions next to every available work of art, you could easily spend a day here, in which I managed to polish off in about 3 hours which is pretty good for me. That even included a “modern art” exhibit featuring, and I’m not exaggerating, a mop and bucket, with a waxy-like tongue emerging from the mop. WTF?
I’m not an art aficionado, but put me in front of a Salvador Dali painting and I’m in awe as your eyes seem to play tricks on you due to his mesmerizing style. Put me in front of a mop with a waxy tongue and I’m asking for a refund. I saw an article a while back where someone had duct taped a banana to a wall and that was art. Our world is going to hell in a hand-basket. Idiocracy is not just a movie starring Luke Wilson, it’s a glimpse into our dire future.
“But Aaron!” you say: “In that movie the President of the United States is an ex-professional wrestler who knows nothing of politics and clearly has signs of brain damage, causing intelligence issues!”
To which I reply: “In 2016 we elected Donald Trump as our president”. But I digress…
I’ve been with Lyndi for 15 years now and if it’s one thing I know, it’s that she’ll read everything in a museum. Twice. Once, at a museum in Mexico City, she went back and re-read all the plaques in Spanish just to test herself and see how much she could understand. So needless to say after my 3 hours in the museum, I knew I had at least an hour or two to enjoy some Spanish wine at the connecting bar below.
After a glass of Tempranillo, and a glass of Grenache, okay, and maybe a glass of some red blend the bartender recommended (hey, I’m on vacation), Lyndi emerged about 1.5 hours later and we walked away exhausted, but not too exhausted to meander through the quaint side-streets of Madrid as we made our way back to the hotel.
That evening we finished in style at Mercado de San Miguel, an indoor marketplace with stalls selling local wine, tapas, desserts and more. You can get a glass of wine from one stall, and walk through the marketplace, sipping your wine as you see what tapas you’ll try next. When you’re done, you just leave your glass wherever, because each of the wine stalls have their own glasses that the marketplace staff will bus for you and return to the vendor! Brilliant.
After we had filled our bellies on some amazing Spanish food and wine, we walked back to the hotel for an early night as we had to get to the airport the next day for our return trip home.
