Bienvenido a Madrid: Mi Maleta Es No Aquí!

In which our luggage (almost) gets lost in transit

Hola from our new favorite city in Europe: Madrid! We’ve been sincerely enjoying ourselves in this wonderful center of vibrant culture, tasty food, and cheap wine…like, seriously, so cheap. A bottle of mid-ranged rosé is about €2 at Lidl, our new preferred grocery store. Unlike in England, where we had to take a bus to get to the Morrison’s, there’s a Lidl, several generic local grocery stores, and about 4 produce shops all within two blocks of our apartment here. It’s a welcome change of pace from the hustle and bustle of London. Madrid feels much more relaxed; there’s hardly any traffic, likely because it’s so easy to walk almost everywhere in the main city center and because there’s a robust system of public transit to help take cars off the roads. 

It didn’t quite start out quite so relaxed, though…

We flew to Madrid from Reykjavik back on January 7th. That morning, we woke up around 6:30am in order to make it to the hotel breakfast (we weren’t kidding about how great it was) before catching a cab to the bus station, where our 8am airport shuttle was waiting. After the hour-long ride to the Klefavik Airport, we had some time for a coffee, and then got on an 11:30am flight to London-Heathrow. The flight was slightly delayed so as we deplaned in London, we were in a bit of a panic–our flight to Madrid was supposed to board in just 30 minutes. However, that flight ended up being delayed as well, so we enjoyed another coffee (and our stolen sandwiches from the hotel breakfast!) while we waited. And waited. And waited.  All this to say–rather than arriving in Madrid at our scheduled time of 8pm, we got in closer to 9:30pm. Luckily, at that hour, passport control was quick, and we were about to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done…when our bags didn’t show up on the carousel. 

At that point, we’d been traveling for over 12 hours, so we didn’t even have the energy to be angry. Della stayed and waited at the carousel while Ross scouted the others for misplaced bags. But when we checked our AirTags and saw the last known location was London, we accepted reality and went off to find a lost-and-found office. In line, we re-grouped and felt a little better for ourselves after chatting with some other Americans who had been waiting for over 3 hours for their missing bags (at least we weren’t them)! It was at this point, around 10:30pm, we noticed one of the guys at the desk was straight-up playing Solitaire on his computer, and we desperately wanted to call him out to the other workers. But…to be honest, nobody behind the desk really seemed to have any sense of urgency about helping the long line of travelers in front of them, so maybe they already knew. Eventually, we walked up to the desk and gave the man (not Mr Solitaire, a different and more-helpful-seeming older Spanish man) our checked bag receipts, and prayed. 

The man stared at his screen for what seemed like ages, furrowing his brow and clicking around and not saying a single word to us. Finally, he brightened and said, “I think, good news…hang on.” He printed out a piece of paper for us and told us that our bags would be arriving on the next flight from London, we just had to wait for the plane to land and keep our eye on the arrivals board. 

Filled with a glimmer of hope, we walked back to the baggage reclaim area and again we waited…waited…waited. And then finally, coming around the conveyor belt–there they were! First Ross’s black suitcase, then Della’s green one; a sight for sore eyes if there had ever been one. 

Of course, we still had to get to our apartment from the airport…and by now it was past 11pm and it had started to rain. Luckily, the beginning of that journey was all underground, on Madrid’s fast, clean, and extensive subway system. Unluckily, when we emerged from the metro station, we had a half-mile walk to do in the pouring rain, with all of our luggage in tow. We finally checked into our tiny AirBnB around midnight. But before we got too comfortable, we dashed back out to get some late-night dinner from the nearest open burrito spot–Tierra Burrito, where we used what little Spanish we remembered to grab two huge burritos para llevar (to go). We housed them on the couch and then collapsed into bed, nearly a full day after starting our journey. 

Luckily, we have been pretty much entirely without stress since that point in time. 

As mentioned earlier, Madrid is a total walker’s paradise. Though we loved using the Tube and buses in London, it’s really nice to be able to set out on foot and get most anywhere we want to go within an hour. It’s also by far the most temperate weather we’ve seen on the trip so far, especially compared to the freezing conditions we experienced in Iceland.

Since we’re already running a little long in this post, here are some of our favorite parts of Madrid so far…

Parque de El Retiro

Located near the center of Madrid, Parque de El Retiro is one of the largest parks in the city and features a large pond on which you can rent cute little rowboats! Naturally, when we spotted boats, we hopped right on board.

The park is obviously great to walk through, but also has some cool statues and buildings, including a building called the Crystal Palace, which had some giant mirrors inside it at crazy angles for some funhouse-style selfies.

Cirque du Soleil: LUZIA

We got lucky and found some cheap seats just a few days before this show left town. If you get the chance, we highly recommend checking it out. Cirque du Soleil rarely disappoints, and we got what we hoped for: breathtaking stunts, cool music, and trippy visuals. Some highlights include:

• The beginning of the show, where a man was suspended from the top of the stage and mimed falling from an airplane with a parachute that wouldn’t open. He tumbled through the air, looking exactly as if he was simply falling rather than doing complex acrobatics, before finally opening a parasol and floating gently to the stage.

• An act featuring two huge treadmills that ran the diameter of the circular stage, allowing performers to run along them and tumble/jump as if they were frolicking through a field. Three performers clad in black got under a giant horse puppet and manipulated it to look like it was gracefully galloping through a field of flowers, chasing a woman dressed as a butterfly who was similarly leaping and tumbling as the treadmill ran beneath her.

• The stage had a waterfall built into the ceiling that would occasionally rain onto the performers; one act had a trapeze artist flying above the stage and two acrobats in Cyr wheels rolling around. The act started dry, but then started raining, with the trapeze artist flying back and forth through the waterfall and flinging water into the crowd while the other two gyrated these big metal circles around, seeming to defy gravity themselves.

We wish we could have taken more pictures of the actual acts, but trust us, this is worth seeing if you have the chance!

Tacos/Tapas/Tortillas (Food and Bev in general)

Some of you have asked for more food pics, and honestly, we simply eat too fast to remember to take photos, but here’s some excellent stuff we’ve eaten:

1. Empanadas! These ones were especially yummy from Tinto y Tapas San Pedro.

2. Candied Bacon and Padrón Peppers from Bee Beer

3. Spanish-style Tortillas from Pez Tortilla

4. TACOS TACOS TACOS! These were from Tiki Taco

5. BREAD (and pastries). Featured bread from Santo Bake House (which happens to be owned by a friend’s cousin!) which we devoured in under 24 hours.

6. Bocadillo de Calamares, which is a calamari sandwich! This one was from one of the stands at the Mercado de San Miguel, aka “The Temple of Tapas”

The large wine cups you see in most of these pictures are filled with Tinto de verano, aka “the drink of the summer,” which is basically red wine and lemon soda. It rules.

We still have a long list of places to go, including a reservation at Restaurante Botin (the oldest still-operating restaurant in THE WORLD!) this coming Monday, and a lot of food still to eat, so we ~promise~ we’ll try and remember to snap some photos before it’s all gone. 😉

(Nobody told us this was going to be like work!)

Prado Museum

This one was an easy favorite: We made sure to hit up the free entry hours for the main Spanish national art museum, Museo Nacional del Prado.

This museum is so huge we only got through about a quarter of it in 2 hours, so we’ll certainly be returning.

Among our favorite artworks displayed there were The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch, and The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. (For reference below, for those interested!)

We really can’t say enough about how much we love Madrid - in fact, this post is already nearing the literal limit - so we will follow up with more in the coming days!