Chocolate con churros x dos

Ok. Blogger is driving me crazy! Ignore this picture, please.

Imagine the thickest, darkest, richest hot chocolate you've ever had--and multiply that by about a factor of 10. You might be close to the chocolate we had today. It's a little like hot chocolate pudding, but not as sweet or milky. Served with churros hot out of the fryer for dunking. Pure heaven, I'm telling you! Our friendly Javier suggested a place near by called, fittingly, Chocolate, as a breakfast destination.  We also had yummy breakfast sandwiches of eggs, lettuce, bacon, tomatoes, and cheese. Hannah had orange juice squeezed from oranges before our very eyes and Lori and I had diet Coke. Best of all it came with glasses of real ice cubes and a slice of lemon! Breakfast doesn't get much better than that!

We were perusing our maps while we waited. 

Seriously. 

Matthew had his conference today, so we were on our own without our interpreter. After breakfast we successfully navigated ourselves to Puerta del Sol where we did the Rick Steves walking tour loop. 

A couple of sights along the way:

A beautiful old church and 

This cool wedge-shape building that used to be a bank and is being renovated.
It was a long day, but really fun and interesting. The plaza was interesting not the least because there were very strange street performers who wanted you to pay to take a picture of them. Some were dressed as Bart and Homer Simpson, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Mini Mouse, and several strange creatures that had goat heads and long colorful Mylar tinsel covered bodies. Not sure what they were supposed to be. So weird. There were also a few other interesting costumes: Jesus carrying his cross, Michael Jackson all in the white captain get-up, and a guy covered in reddish mud on a motorcycle. The only people who seemed to like it were the Asian tourists.

The plaza is surrounded with historic buildings that were used for various government purposes through out the centuries. The architecture is interesting because you can see how the different periods and styles are represented, updated over each other, and restored. Here are a couple of classic examples of typical Madrid style architecture. Narrow cobbled or stone streets with colorful 4-5 story buildings, lots of wrought iron balconies, and very mixed use between retail, business, entertainment, and residential. 

That's the back of Lori and Hannah. I thought I should point that out lest anybody mistake them for native Madridians.

Hannah

Please excuse this interruption in the narrative.  I accidentally touched and uploaded this photo, and after much research discovered that it's practically impossible to delete a photo after you put it on. They should fix that. This picture will be explained later.

More beautiful buildings.  I especially love the curved balconies on the pink building on the right. 

Hannah had to buy something at this store, because, well, it's obvious.

We wondered through more plazas and gardens and streets with very old buildings. I'm finding that I have a real affinity for old beautiful doors.  Many of them have the year the building was built such as Ano 1826, Ano 1668, and so on. Really amazing but so dark they didn't photograph well. I'll try another time of day.

We wound out way to the Mercada de San Miguel which is a market full of all kinds of fruits and meats and sweets and tapas and yummy things.  Lori was especially excited to see all the fun stuff there.

Hannah was amazed by this angler fish in display

So many delectable choices

This is Lori and I in front of the oldest door on the oldest building in Madrid inhabited since 1480 with a Moorish key-hole arch and a prison tower above it. 

The official symbol of Madrid is a bear pawing a berry tree, yes, that is how they describe it, and versions of this are everywhere. Even inlaid into the sidewalk. 

There is a giant and beautiful cathedral right next to the royal palace. It took 100 years to build and was just completed in 1996. The next series of pictures show some of the splendor. There are so many things we were not allowed to take pictures of, but you can snap away all you want in church--go figure.

Outside from the south.

The organ

One of the sides, showing some of the tops of the pillers.

Us sitting in a pew

The alter

And the north side

I think the Catholics have us totally beat when it comes to fancy.  And saints.  I am really missing out on so much art and religious iconography meaning because I don't know all the stories of all the saints.

The story if this day will be continued...