Destination: Madrid

In early June, a friend and I travelled to Madrid.  I was very excited for the trip as I had never been to Madrid (yes I know, that's weird considering where else I've visited) and I was travelling there with an old friend (who made an excellent tour guide as he lived in the city for 1 year during undergrad).   Highlights included:

1. Taking the double-decker bus tour around the city. 

Growing up, my family would always take the double-decker bus tour when visiting new cities.  It's a great way to see the highlights of the city and figure out parts to visit later. Bonus if the bus is a hop-on, hop-off bus. This remains my favorite thing to do in new cities.  The Madrid bus tour was great, as it allowed us to see all the sites without over heating (the temperature made it miserable to be walking outside during the day). 

2. Seeing pictures on buildings. Many buildings in Madrid are covered in pictures.  Usually these are painted on the building or created from tile mosaic, however some are more unique and of wood carving, etc.  Even the street signs have pictures on them (and not graffiti).  Word to the wise: if you're not constantly looking up, it's easy to miss the pics.   

3. Visiting the Mercado de San Miguel.  

The Mercado de San Miguel is an indoors, up-scale farmer's market with small booths selling the speciality foods and drinks of Spain.  People meet here after work to snack on tapas from the different stalls and drink good wine. The few bar tables in the center of the building are always packed.  This is a good place to make Madrid friends and share a table. 

 4. Watching the Sunset on the Calle de Bailen (near the Jardins de Sabatini). 

Madrid locals make an event of the sunset viewing.  Around 8:30pm, groups of friends go to the park next to the Royal Palace, eat tapas and drink Spanish wine, enjoy the company of friends, and watch the sunset.  Madrid locals definitely know how to enjoy life.

 
 



5. Window shopping on the Calle de Claudio Coello.

The southern most part of the street is crowded with the stores of many designers. I like the the northern part of the street better which had stores of up-and-coming designers selling things at reasonable prices. This area is great for people watching. It's also interesting to see the reaction of sales people when you walk into their store (I looked very unglamourous on my afternoon visit as I spent the entire morning walking around and sweating in 100 degree temps). Madrid has great fashion.

All in all, it was a very good trip.  On my next trip, I'll stay out later.  Madrid is a town that comes alive at night and should be seen then.  Also, I'd like to go to a club where locals are dancing modern flamenco.  And I'd like to visit the Museum of the Americas, which I've heard provides a great history of Spain and showcases it's relics.

Restaurant & Hotel Review. (for all who wanted to know my thoughts on where to stay and eat)

Restaurant: El Estragon (Plaza de la Paja 10, 28005 Madrid). Great vegetarian restaurant in a non-veggie town.  Thie dishes were flavorful and contained large amounts of the essential nutrients which vegetarians have a tough time getting (protein, calcium, iron). The service & location were great - I wanted to sit there for hourse and people watch.

Restaurant: Teatriz (Hermosilla 15, 28001 Madrid). This has an amazing set-up as it's in an old theatre.  Tables are located in all audience sections, including the box seats.  On stage was a bar with huge mirrors around it.  And the food was amazing (my descriptions of food only go far). 

Hotel: Suites 33.  This was a good hotel at a good rate (I stayed here the 1st night when I was by myself).  It was located 2 min from the Plaza de Espana, but it was on a quiet street.  The hotel room & bathroom were large and clean (by American standards).  The A/C worked.  And there was free wi-fi for all guests.  The concierge was very helpful.

Hotel: Westin Palace.  Fabulous is the only way to describe the Westin (my friend and I stayed here the rest of the trip by using friequent flier points). The room, bathroom, and service was all fabulous.  The highlight was the breakfast buffet. It included every breakfast food possible, including champagne, and was served in a gorgeous atrium.  On weekends, a piano player and opera singer serenade everyone.  Bon Jovi was also staying at the hotel while we were there.  Groupies camped out 24/7 to catch a glimpse of the band.

Destination: London, England

London was my "city trip" of the summer.  As I live in a small town where there is suburbia and students (and not much in between), London is always a welcome change.  The goal of my weekend was to meet up with friends, to get away to a large city, and to have fun.  All were successfully accomplished.

Highlights from this trip:

1. Riding the London Eye at sunset. 

The London Eye is the gigantic (135m tall) ferris wheel on the River Thames.  Passengers ride in capsules. Sunset is my favorite time to go as you get to see London in daylight for the 1st half (15 min) and London lit-up by lights for the 1nd half (15 min).  If you're lucky, there is a gorgeous sunset. 
 

If you want to impress a date, take them here. But expect to share the capsule with many other people... this means waiting patiently for others to move so that you can take your pics, or elbowing them out of the way.

2. Visiting the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.   

This fountain is a small, circular stream with twists, twirls, and some small rapids.  On warm days, hundreds of kids run in the stream.  This is my favorite place to rest after a long day of walking.   The water is reasonably chilled, which feels wonderful on tired feet.

Beware: Prepare to get wet if you're anywhere near the stream. Kids are running and splashing everywhere. A friend and I tried to walk the entire circular loop of the fountain (with our pants rolled up). Being very dry, some little girls decided to splash my friend... then their friends joined in the splashing... then they got cups for water and super-soakers. Apparantely these little girls really liked him. And they showed it by ensuring that he was drenched in water when exiting the stream.

3. Visiting Camden (Camden St., Camden Market, & Camden Lock).

Camden is an up & coming, edgier neighborhood in London.  Day or night, this place is packed.  Camden is made-up of 3 parts: Camden St, Camden Market and Camden Lock. Camden St. has great shopping.  Small boutiques, featuring soon-to-be up & coming designers line the streets.  At night, the street is alive with restaurants and bars. 

If you like flee markets, Camden Market is the place to go.  It has stalls with cheaply made trendy clothes (think Forever 21) and mass produced items (like t-shirts).   Only clothing, jewlerly, and shoes are sold here. The clothing selection here is better than many other flee markets that I've seen.  If you don't like flee markets, avoid this place.  The stalls are tightly packed and can make anyone clusterphobic.

Camden Lock is my favorite part of Camden.  It used to be a horse stable (hence the horse statues everywhere).  Now it's home to up & coming designer boutiques (selling very edgy and very Indy clothing), boutiques selling random clothing (think great place to shop for Halloween costumes), and tons of food stands (with every type of food).  At lunch, you can wander around, sampling different foods.  When you decide where to eat, you can purchase a large box for £3-4 and fill it with all food that you want from that food stand. 

4. Watching a football match at Wembley Stadium. 

One of my favorite things to do in when visiting a country is to watch a local, sports match. The crowd atmosphere at these matches tells a lot about the people in the country.  Knowing that I love football, a good friend got us tickets to the England v. Mexico.  As this was a pre-World Cup practice match, the atmosphere was even louder than normal.  Everyone was decked out in England or Mexico colors. Almost everyone attending the match is a die-hard fan of their team... they attend both home and away matches of their team.

It was during this match that I learned "Our Country Tis of Thee" was written to the tune of "God Save the Queen" (the British national anthem).  Apparantely the British do not like the US lyrics and don't appreciate someone singing the US lyrics during the playing of their national anthem... they consider it butchering it. 

5. Visiting Hyde park.  When the weather gets warm, Londoners spend all day in parks. They're a great place to meet friends.  It's completely common to see many groups still in the park at 9pm (the sun is still out at 9pm in summer). On another note, it's also completely common to see (almost) naked people, specifically guys, in the parks during hot weather.   Many Londoners like to strip down when it's sunny with the purpose of getting a tan.   This can be a scary sight, depending on the person with their clothes off. 

Destination: Flower Parade, Holland

The highlight of the Holland trip was the flower parade.  On the last Saturday in April, all the flower growers from the region of Am Lisse, Holland create floats made of thousands of flowers.  The attention to detail is absolutely amazing.  Each float has a different theme.  And they all smell wonderful. 

There are between 15-20 floats each year.  They travel 40km throughout the day.  We caught the parade at the end of the day (hence the reason some of the flowers are drooping in the pics below).  Below are some of my favorite floats.  To make pics bigger, click on them.


Holland float - with windmills, cows, and dancing Dutchmen in clogs (both flower covered dutchman and actual dutchman dancing).

Train float - with engine & caboose.  The detailing on the side of the train is really pretty, as are the tulip box on the caboose.

 

Viking float - the detailing on the shields on the boat is amazing.  The use of veggies, sea shells and flowers together is nice.

 

Under the Sea float - this is my favorite.  The lobster is awesome!  It would be cool if there were blue and pink lobsters. 

Hiking in Holland float - the sheep are cool.  It would have been fun for them to add animanl noises (many floats had singers or dancers).

Dancing Dolls float - the red lily along the sides are pretty.

Finish Line of Bike Race float - this is really cool in that they made flowers out of flowers.  The sizing of the flowers and people is a lot like Alice & Wonderland... with spandex.

Destination: Keukenhof Gardens, Holland

I love tulips. They are my 2nd favorite flower (stargazer lily's are my fav).  So I was quite happy when a friend agreed to accompany me on 30-hour roadtrip to Kuekenhof Gardens, Holland in late April to see the tulips in bloom.   This was the perfect way to spend my bday weekend!

There were fields of flowers everywhere in the area around Keukenhof (called Am Lisse, Holland).  As we were stuck in a massive traffic jam going to Keukenhof, we had plenty of time to take pictures of the fields. 

 

As it was late April (near the end of tulip season), many of the fields were half-picked.  Migrant workers, many from Eastern Europe, are hired on a seasonal basis to pick the flowers.

The are 36-acre Gardens have 3 sections: 1) a lawn area with gorgeous flowerbeds, 2) a greenhouse for exotic flowers, and 3) rows of planted flowers which will later be picked and sold.  In the lawn area, the gardeners have done an amazing job landscaping.  In between patches of well-maincured grass are beautifully designed flower beds.  There is also a windmill, a play ground for kids, and some animals. 

The gardeners have done a phenomenal job deciding which flowers to plant together.  They all compliment each other nicely.  It is easy to see why this has the #1 photographed flowers in the world (according to the Keukenhof Gardens website).

The 2nd section, the greenhouse, has many exotic flowers that come in interesting shapes & colors... like the flowers below which remind me of pineapples, spiders, starfish, and fireworks.

A good way to see the 3rd section of Keukenhof (the flower fields) is via a 1-hour boat ride on the canal.  If you have more time, I recommend renting a bike, making a picnic, and spending the day biking around the Am Lisse area.

A decent portion of the day was spent looking for good pic locations and posing for pics (this also included trampling flowers to get these pics, as my friend noted).  I needed a new facebook photo (I rarely update mine, and an update was needed).  Keukenhof seemed like a perfect place to take this pic.  The photo below was the runner-up to the facebook photo...

Tips for visiting Keukenhof:
1. Go mid to late April.  Flowers are at their full bloom then. 

2. Avoid being there on weekends.  The last 2 weekends in April have special events going on - 1) the Russian flower market (where 70% of the world's tulips are sold) and 2) the flower parade (lots of floats made entirely of flowers).  These events draw thousands of tourists which really get in the way of picture taking.

3. Spend 1 day biking around the flower fields in Am Lisse (important: bring a picnic lunch, as there are no food stands).

4. Buy flowers while out biking.  Keukenhof sells-out quickly of flowers.  So it's better to purchase the flowers from another location.  If you're looking for a business opportunity, arrange with the 6EUR for 50 tulips suppliers in Amsterdam to sell their flowers at Keukenhof on the weekends in April and take a cut of the profit.