My lovely time in Spain!

Hello again all!

Boy have I missed everyone, I just got back yesterday and I am so excited to share my treats and sites with you all!

Let me start by saying I had an amazing time! I went to Madrid, Spain with my boyfriend and mom and dad. We stayed with a family friend in his Piso (which means apt or flat in Spanish) in an area called Lavapies, which was once the working class, Jewish part of town is now the hip place for bars and artsy people (I fit right in:)). The piso was on the 5th floor so we had a nice bit of exercise going up and down the stairs. Spain was cold but not too bad, I definitely packed right for the weather with a big coat, hats, scarves and gloves! We saw many museums (my favorite part of traveling!) and many Churches. We took a day trip to Toledo, the second largest oldest city after Rome. But mostly we were there to soak up the cultures food and way of life. We did not wake up once before 9am and didn't go to bed before 2am!!! What a life!

Well now onto the food.... I must say it was not what I had expected. There was a lot of olive oil on EVERYTHING and not many spices in the food. I did my best to eat 3 meals a day but it was hard when they eat on a completely different schedule. They eat like this; wake up have a cup of coffee and a pastry, have lunch between 1pm and 3pm (this is their biggest meal of the day and when I say big I mean BIG, always 3 courses and dessert and wine!!!) then it's siesta for the local shops and everything closes until 8pm then its time for Tapas, which was a variety of fried foods, bread and olives and more wine. Then around 10pm it's time for dinner, which could be lite or just as heavy as lunch, with more wine!!!

This may seem like a lot of food but we were walking at least 8 hours a day so we were burning lots of energy.

So for my blog have decided to post a bit of my trip each day, rather than one BIG post ( I have almost 700 pics:)) that way I won't exhaust you with a 10 page blog and I can also savor my trip for a few more days!

So to start here is my bfast from today; Multi grain oats with 1 banana, a sprinkle of Cinnamon, yogurt and coffee.

And now for some Spain pics, I have chosen to show you today my 1st day of pictures:

Above is a yummy Lentil soup from the Daily Grill in the airport at LAX international Bradley.

The beautiful Madrid Airport.
My parents on the metro heading to our piso!

When we arrived at the piso our friends had made us a wonderful meal full of Spanish treats, olives, these huge beans (I have never seen them in the States) with onions and soup with pork, wine, chips, orange juice....

This lovely salad with balsamic dressing and olives and tomatoes...

This is my dad, mom, boyfriend at the table of goodies and our friend Grace in the kitchen cooking up a storm!
Some cooking sherry and fresh fruits and veggiesLater that night we went out for Tapas of course and I had a fried anchovy, a ring of giant calamari, a piece of bread and a fried Green chili.

This was my view from my seat!

We all shared a plate of chorizo and patatas which is fried potatoes.

Then we went to go see Flamenco!! So good! The ladies feet move like firecrackers!

And ended our first night right with hot chocolate and churros!! Their hot chocolate is more like melted chocolate, so thick and rich, yummmmmm!

Well enough for this mornings post, I'll be back later with more from my trip to Spain and my lunch!

C