Adiós for Now, Daylight Savings...

The other evening I was out and about taking care of a couple of appointments and running various errands.  With the combination of having a few hours between said appointments and having had the rear blinky light stolen off my bike (which means I don't ride after dark), I was able to make my way slowly enough through the city center to appreciate some of the neat nighttime scenes.  Enjoy :)

Mounted police officers hanging out as people pass through Plaza Mayor

A couple of statues, and their dog, standing guard over Plaza de la Provincia

A snack vendor near the Reina Sofia Museum takes a break
from her TV show to chat with a passerby

Metro Alonso Martínez

Día de Todos los Santos y Huesitos

Last night I was out and about in the city center with one of my language exchange partners.  She enjoys photography, and I do as well, so we occasionally hunt down various exhibitions and go check them out together.  Telefónica (the largest telecommunications company in Spain) has a four floor exhibition area in their building on Grand Via, so we headed down there to see what they had for photography.  We enjoyed browsing around, but after getting kicked out due to closing time, decided to visit a nearby bakery for a snack and to escape from the brisk-ish weather.  And that is where we discovered these little guys :).

Huesitos (little bones) - each one is as long as two quarters laid side-by-side.

Now, Halloween is a relatively new thing for Spain, but All Saints Day (Día de Todos los Santos) is on November 1 and is a national holiday.  The huesitos (also known as hueso de santo - saint's bones) are a typical pastry for this holiday.  They're made of marzipan, stuffed with various flavorings (creme, egg yolk, raspberry, hazelnut, etc.), and covered with glaze.  I ended up buying a small box of them to share with my roommates, but my language exchange partner and I had to try a couple first :).  They're a little too sweet for me on their own, but are really good when enjoyed with a cup of tea or coffee :).

Plaza de Cibeles

Yesterday I was out wandering around Madrid with a language exchange partner.  We were near Plaza de Cibeles when I remembered that I had heard you can go inside the Palacio de Comunicaciones and get some pretty neat views from above.  Turns out there are also various floors of different exhibitions, so we spent some time checking those out.  Gotta love it when you can discover new things about a city with someone who has lived in it their whole life :).

No Hot Water = Difference in Perspective

Last Saturday the water heater broke in our apartment.  If you've ever experienced something like that, you know quite well how not fun it is.  The technician came and fixed it on Tuesday, but I was ready for a hot shower prior to that :).

As such, I decided to turn lemons into lemonade and tracked down an inexpensive hostel with a private bathroom.  It also had the bonus of a terraza facing northwest. So, I enjoyed watching the sun set over the city and thought I'd share a little bit of the view with you.

Some teenagers have taken over the rooftop of an abandoned building
near Plaza de España, so they were watching the sun set also.

Those are actually clouds, I didn't notice until later that it kind of looks like smoke
coming from that building.

The Royal Palace at Sunset

Cuisine

As someone who loves to cook and try new foods, I find Spain to be incredibly captivating.  A couple of weeks ago, I ran into these postcards which list some classic Spanish foods.  So, I bought them as a little bit of a personal challenge since I haven't tried all of them yet :).

There's quite a list here, so I'm going to decline the opportunity to explain them all at this time.  If there are a few that you're really interested in, mention them in the comments and I'll explain them in a future blog post.  Ok?  Neat.