Spain - Madrid - Oh Beautiful Madrid!

Sunday was PERFECT. We slept in late, not getting out of bed until after 11am. I was feeling alot better, and Vee was feeling worse. My cough was still there, but it no longer hurt, but now Vee's little sniffles had grown into a sore throat, deep cough, and a fully congested head. Regardless, we had alot we wanted to accomplish, and we were successful on all fronts. First, we realized that the electric plug adapter we brought for our computer was not going to work. It did not accept the 3 prong plug that our computers cables use, so we had to find a new adapter. On Sunday, alot of the stores are closed, but we found that the huge 5-story store called FNAC was open, and since they seemed to specialize in selling electronics, we felt assured that we would find the adapter there. No luck, they were all sold out and did not know where we could go to find the adapter. Once back outside, I heard classical music, and walked towards it, and we were rewarded to find a street group, consisting of 5 to 6 men playing ragged string instruments, and it was absolutely amazing. They were drawing a decent crowd, and the music was beautiful. Who needs the symphony? We stuck around for a few songs and then continued onward. Then I spotted a tiny camera shop, went inside and found a friendly shopkeeper who had plenty of the adapters we were looking for, and we bought one for 4 euros. Now, we were golden. Next up, was medication for Vee. We found a pharmacy selling Aspirina Complex and quickly knocked that out. We wanted something to eat and wandered into the Museo de Jamon (Museum of Ham) and had a tastey stand-up meal in what was a fun and vibrant place. I had a beer (Amstel) and ham, egg and cheese mixto, and Vee had a smoked ham and cheeze baguette. We also had a plate of olives. It hit the spot perfectly. The weather was alot nicer, with blues skies and puffy white clouds. A cold breeze was blowing, so we savored the moments in the sun. We wanted to go to the large open-air market that runs each Sunday in the Barrio La Latina, called El Rastro. Another place we wanted to see was the Plaza Mayor, and without even knowing it, we wandered right inside. At the time, we were just ambling down Calle Mayor towards La Latina, when I spotted some kind of activity to our left, and it just happened to be a Carnival parade inside the Plaza Mayor, full of crowds, people in costume, fireworks, horse-drawn floats, etc. We shot some video and some pics, hardly believing our dumb-luck, and then continued on our way. Each street was like Christmas morning for a child, revealing surprise after beautiful surprise. We found a great Cafe Italia where we pulled ourselves up to the bar and had two delicious coffees and a wonderful fluffy tiramisu. Absolute heaven. Vee's map interpretation and navigation skills were excellent and we were at El Rastro in no time. The market was full of clothes, both new and used, trinkets, hardware, shoes, etc. We found a table selling locks, and having none with combinations, they pointed us to a store where we bought 3 more combination locks for our packs. Another mission accomplished! So far, 3 for 3. What a day! After perusing the market, we wandered around the viscinity and stumbled upon one treasure after another. Having finally gotten some pictures and video taken, we were feeling more comfortable with taking more. We ended up at a beautiful edge of the city where we found some incredible valley vistas, city-vews, mountain-views, and wonderful buildings, including a huge cathedral that turned out to be the Archdiocese of Spain. We went inside and explored it's entirety, then once back outside, walked to La Puerta De Toledo, which wasn't very impressive, but still fun to see. Something that amazed us was the fact that here it was Sunday late afternoon, and it seemed as if every pub, cerveceria, and cafe was at pretty much capacity. This city has a vibrancy unlike any other I've experienced, especially on a Sunday afternoon. Everywhere, it was aflutter, with groups of people marching this way and that. It was quite a fantastic afternoon, and we had experienced much more than we had expected, and felt extremely fortunate and ready to head back to the hostale. Back in our room, using the wireless Internet connection, we called home on Skype to talk with Mom, made our next reservations for Toledo and Sevilla using www.bookings.es, and also attempted to reserve our seats on Eurail, but learned you have to call at least 27 hours in advance to do so. Vee worked on editing our pics and videos, and I got some more reading done. Then, around 10:45 or so, we went to a pub around the corner that we had tried to get into the previous night, but couldn't because it was too full. It was still packed, but there was a little wall-mounted bar area where we pulled up two stools. I had a lasagna and two beers, and Vee had a delicious cheesecake and zumo de pina. It was a fun place with lots of young people, a mix of pop music, and for seating in the main area, they had little pod-like clusters not much different from the spinning cups in Disney or Dutch Wonderland back home. We didn't stay out too late, and came back to the room for some more work on the computer and reading, and then eventually to sleep around 1am or so.