Madrid, lá ciudad que no duerme

A trip to Madrid was one of the first plans we had when we arrived to Bilbao. Therefore we decided to leave this trip to the end of our stay here in Spain. Getting to the train we were bit happy about how we were going to sit, we had four seats two turning to each other and a table in between plus the garbage box in the corner of the table, that was a good start to our trip. The train was confortable and the trip didn't feel so tiresome and we were also excitede to get to Madrid (Capital of Spain).

For our surprise, during the trip one lady came to talk to us in English (that as been rare here) and she ask from where we are and what we are doing here in Spain. It felt good to speak English because many times I have to survive with my 'portunhol' the mix of Portuguese and Spanish. The lady was so kind and when we arrived to Madrid she kindly warn us about the thefts in Madrid specially because we were arring to a big station. Day before I went to by a smaller sholder bag to control it better and it helped me a lot.

Well, its easy to know when a tourist arrives because they don't know were to go. We wanted to buy tickts to get to our hostel where we didn't know yet the area. The lady who we met in the train came again to help us, she was really kind and luckily she met one friend or colleague of her that helped us to buy tickets using the same train tickets from the trip Bilbao to Madrid, that was good because we wouldn't do that alone, we defenetly would buy new tickets.

Puerta del Sol was the area where our our hostel was located, in the center of Madrid, close to Gran Via and close to everything, we just use train once during the all trip because we were really tired. We got to the hostel, we quickly made the check in and we head off to to have lunch. After lunch we went for a walk in Grand Via getting crazy for the last 'rebajas' = sales.

Before we came to Madrid I talked to Neidy, an old friend from my childhood who is living in Madrid, actually we are not really friends (maybe we will become now), but we grew up in the same area and in Africa everyboby is friend of everybody. We agreed to meet at 10pm at Praza del Sol as her boyfriend was living at 9 from work. We couldn't avoind the warm and long hug, it felt really good. Neidy and Diego planned to take us to a typical Spanish restaurant which was a great choise and we would never go there by ourself. The waiting time was nothing more than an hour and 15 min, yes, that long! It was crowd but the good thing is that the starter is for free and we got two small plates of chorizo and small breads, Neidy told me a little story about those little breads but better not write it here because it involves politicians.

We got our table and it was time to choose our dishes. Neidy and Diego recomended us to take small plates so that we could tast many things and that was an awesome idea. The only thing that was missing between our choices was the famous rabo de toro that I though I would taste it in Madrid but they didn't have.

Between our choices there was something I couldn't forget the name because I have seen many  times here in Bilbao, jamón. The jamón is quite famous in Spain and they also have Jamón museums around the city. its like a butchery but there they sell Jamón which is a meat from pig's leg. They cover the meat with salt for almost 8 months and after that its ready to slice it and eat. Its so tasty that I would take a leg home if it would't be so expensive. Its about 200€ to get one leg of jamón and you can have a better quality if you want but it could cost 500€. I got interested about that and ask from Neidy and Diego what makes it have better quality. Well, it's about how they grow and what they eat. When they grow freely and eat acorn the tast of the Jamón is different, wow, interesting!

To accompany our dinner we decided to order sangria, nothing better, once in Spain why not to drink the real sangria? It was also tasty! To finalize it we had cheese cake which is also different than the ones I have eaten, huum, nami nami. We closed the dinner with some licors, one was baileys and the other one was something different, can't remember the name but its similar to Port wine.

The talking with Neidy made me get back a little bit to my childhood, we laugh a lot and from time to time I felt bad because we were speaking Portuguese and nobody else could follow us.

After the great dinner Neidy wanted to take all of us to see Madrid by night, the girls were already tired but I decided to go to enjoy a little bit more Neidy's company. We went to La Latina. Is an area where mostly of the bars and discos are located and our hostel was at the same area. Just some minutes walking and we were there.


It was already six o'clock when I got back to the hostel and the girls where complaining that they could't sleep because of the noise. That was a minus point to Equity point hostel or maybe to many of them as they are all in the middle of this city that ever sleeps.

El Rastro was our first visit on Sunday. The Sunday market is bigger than what I could imagine. All what you can imagine and also what you can't imagine is available there. Art, clothes, antiques even electronics are available there. I think we have been walking for almost 3 hours. Neene found a huge scissors, she loved it but she coud't explect what was coming. The first price was bit high and I tried to deal with my portunhol to lower it and the final deal wasn't bad. krista also got a funny and small motorcicle and we also made a good deal for that, getting professional in dealing in Spanish, ha ha...

We met Neidy in the afternood and she took us for a walk by Grand Via to Praza de España and also to Temple of Depod, we took some pictures in front of the Palacio Real and after this we went to Principe Pio the shopping mall which was built in an old train station. We stayed there for almost two hours and we had dinner there. My feet were so sore that I could't walk long distance and I think the girls were also as tired as me and we decided to go to hostel by metro.

The night was quite ok, not that bad to sleep. At 4 o'clock I heard some people talking and some of them were Finns, I think they were at the same hostel. The bad thing was that before seven there was some people having a conversation outside and we could hear it so well. After that was difficult to sleep.

The rain didn't prevent our visit to El Retito, the huge park close to Plaza da Indepencia. We could appreciate the Cristal Palace inside the park, amaizing.

After that we went to make our las shopping, me and Jenna to shoos shop and Krista and Neene to their favourite shop, yes, fabric stop.

We still had sometime and we went to eat in MacDonalds and after we went quickly to Mercado del San Miguel (San Mighuel's market), its an indoors market where they use to sell vegetables and fruits in the past and in nowadays they made it a bit more mordern, they have pintxos (the Spanish scacks), small bars... Pity we didnt have time to stay there and enjoy.

It was Tim to go Back home.

Live healthy

Olatz (the owner and designer of Ian Mosh) cares a lot about health and wellness so she gave me the responsibility to create some articles about some fruits and vegetables that are good to our heath. I learned a lot about some fruits and get to know how healthy they are to our body.

I appreciate this 'creativity' of connection the health and wellness to the web page. The beauty is not just buy beautiful clothes, wear it and that's it. The process of being beauty is a long one starting to take care of yourself. It's not about money, is about changing the habits to have a healthier life. Read articles about health and wellness from time to time is also good because we learn a lot. Small things that can change our lives.

Olatz was happy about the article and it was grateful for me to know that the articles I wrote will go to the Ian Mosh's Web page.

New tasks + Santander

The Ian Mosh's articles are available not inly in Spain but in some other countries in Europe but not yet in the Scandinavian countries. As they want to expand their sales they gave me a task to search for some retailers in the Scandinavia. It's not easy to get a contract in this way as usually those companies are the ones who contact you if their are interested in your products but its always good to try. First I searched for the contacts in the Web pages, then I made a presentation of the brand (Ian Mosh), after the presentation I called to the companies to ask from them the proper e-mail address to where I could send the presentation. Have been sending applications for the all week and also looking for more online stores.

On Saturday I went with the girls to Casco Veijo (the old town), we spent the all new day there. After walking around the old city of Bilbao we stop for a cup of café con leche/té = coffee and milk/tea. Neene left us there because she was going to meet her work colleagues. On our way home we decided to go to Abando station just to see how much a ticket to Madrid costs from Bilbao. For our surprise it was cheaper than going by bus as we were planning. We decided to buy the tickets right away.

Getting home Krista cooked food for dinner. After dinner we set for long time. This Saturday we went to bed quite late!

It was 1:30pm when I decided to check in internet the buses to Santander from Bilbao. The price was excellent for a quick decision, 12€ round trip. I quickly got out from the bed and went to talk with the girls before they fall asleep as we have been awake untill 1:15am. The idea was well accepted by Jenna and Krista once Neene already had a plan to Sunday.

We decided to take the bus at 9:30 so we could get some sleep.

Santander...

We were ready in time but we were afraid the tickets were sold out but no, we got it!

The waiting time wasn't so bad but the cold inside the bus when we got in, ought, I even put the gloves on.

We enjoyed the lovely sea view on the way to Santander and after 1:30h we were there. The sun was shining brightly.

The weather was excellent and the pleasure of being outdoors without coat was aweome. People wearing only T-shirt and eating ice-cream gave me a great Spring feeling. I would have taken an ice-cream but unfortunately I was still recovering from the flu :(

We went first to the beach as Krista suggested. It was a long walk till we got to the great Sta Madalena park, green and blue are the colors to describe the park. An amazing place to walk, to have a picnic and yeees, to make beautiful pictures as we did.

After being at Sta Madalena's park we were bit hungry and it was time to find a pace to eat. That was another challenge, find a suitable place (for us) to eat. The places by the sea were quite expensive. But with a five minutes walk we find a good place to eat and not expensive.

After lunch we were bit lazy and tired and we didn't know anymore were to go and what to do. We just walked by the boardwalk enjoying the weather. We stop in a cafetaria to have a cup of tea and plan our next three hours. We saw on the map that there was a park near by and we decided to visit the park. I think we were bit tired and we could't find out where was the park. At least Jenna realized that there was no park to the direction we were going to. We turned on our left and decided to walk and look for the bus station in time. Suddenly we realized that we were walking on a green area, ha ha... that was the park, it was a water park but without water ops, maybe they close it during the winter but at that time we didn't care anymore. We just wanted to get to the bus station after being walking for 8 hours. The best part was when we realized that the bus station was in the end of the park, yes! We could sit before the time to get back home.

It was once again a lovely trip. Now can't wait to go to Madrid.

Neguri

Sunday (9.2.) morning the sun was shinning and the first thing that came to my mind was to go to Neguri, the place I have been waiting for a good weather since Laura told me about it. It was a sunny morning but it started to be cloudy. At least it was not raining and we had a great and long walk along the marginal. Neguri is one more beautiful place in Bilbao which was great to visit on Sunday. We couldn't go to Puerto Desportivo because it started to rain and we ran away from Neguri but we had enough time to enjoy it.

Guggenheim museum

Guggenheim was one of the first places we visited when we arrived to Bilbao actually we have been outside the museum on the day we arrived. Looks awesome from outside, steel museum + the huge spider outside. What about the flower dog? Cute!

The Ernesto Neto exhibition took place in Guggenheim museum on 14.2. We couldn't choose a better day to visit the museum. Never been in such a different exhibition. There were different Djs and they were all good. Drinks available in the bar and we could walk around to appreciate the Ernesto Neto's exhibition + Guggenheim's. We got crazy about the huge iron walls built in the middle of the museum...

Ernesto Neto have been created so that they may be penetrated, inhabited, felt, and even smelled, allowing viewers to experience their own bodies, feelings, and minds through the works of art. Neto has commented: “What we have in common is more important than what makes us different.” I just loved it. 

Unfortunately we couldn't try our bodies there because something happened and we couldn't understand what. We were so excited to go that Neene took her shoes off but had to put them back :( 

Groups of friends were standing outside with their drinks, enjoying   the music and nobody cared about the cold. 

Artxanda

Sounded good when Jenna talked about going to Artxanda today as we didn't have nothing planned for this Sunday. The sun was shinning and we had a nice walk taking some pictures until we get to the station from where we took the Funicular to Artxanda.

Funicular is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.

The up hill view from inside the funicular and the great feeling of being in that fancy 'elevator' was quite good combination. We got there and the first thing I could say was wow, what a view.

We took as many pictures as possible, with our cameras even I think that the best pictures I took with my memory and I will keep them in my mind. The view wouldn't be better, maybe we just got there in wrong timing because we all agreed that it would be amazing to see the sun set from there but as we still here we will have time to enjoy the sun set from Artxanda.
It was fun to see the Guggenheim museum and try to find 'Sarriko' our home and we did find the direction to home :)
After our lovely pictures, a cup of tea + pintxos and a good walk we went down still thinking about the lovely view.