Madrid and London Pt. 2

More tapas, more amigos, and more football

Next stop on the journey was Madrid, where Mark and I studied abroad for a semester in college back in 2008. Neither of us had been back since and wow was it great to spend a week back in that beautiful city. Looking back on it, I feel like I kind of took my original time there for granted as it was my first time being abroad, and as a 21 year old college student we were primarily focused on partying and travelling to other places around Europe during that time. Additionally it’s worth calling out that we were all poor as hell, surviving on the cheapest bocadillos we could find and one euro bottles of wine. So, it was also nice to be able to experience Madrid with some money. The food in Madrid is outstanding and we spent a lot of time just wandering around neighborhoods grabbing a beer and sampling tapas from place to place. Tapas is a whole culture in Madrid and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Manchego cheese, jamon iberico, chorizo, patatas bravos, croquettes, grilled octopus, calamari, mussels, clams, olives, fried sardines, tortilla, grilled peppers, mushrooms, you name it, we ate it.

Our friend Stracco also rejoined us in Madrid for the week. Stracco deserves a special call out because this was his 4th time meeting up with me in my first 4 months of travelling and like the 8th city we explored together spread across 4 countries. What a guy. Additionally, that weekend we also had some more friends come join us in Madrid. Our friend Emily, who also studied abroad with us in Madrid came down from London to meet up and our buddy Rosey also joined us from Atlanta. Rosey is one of my best friends from Atlanta and had a baby about 6 months prior, which obviously creates some challenges travelling internationally. With that being said he was determined to come meet up with Mark and I for a leg of this trip. So he literally flew from Atlanta to Madrid for 48 hours 😂. If you think that’s crazy, I’d be inclined to agree with you, but you don’t know Rosey. That’s kind of his style.

We stayed in a great neighborhood that was pretty centrally located in Madrid and could walk pretty much everywhere. Spent a couple days wandering around Retiro park, which is definitely one of my favorite parks in the world. It’s massive, with lots of different gardens and statues and fountains and you can just wander around in there for hours. The 2 main art museums (Prado and Reina Sofia) are also located basically on the grounds of the park and we spent one afternoon at the Reina Sofia, which is the modern art museum. I’m not sure that I ever actually went to that one when we lived there. It was a great museum, with some really cool work from Picasso and Salvador Dali and many others. Also a few of the stranger exhibits I’ve ever seen, but hey that’s art.

Beyond that, we spent some time checking out some of the old areas we frequented back in our college days, ate and drank our way through various neighborhoods, saw some more flamenco, ate some more paella, and played a nightly game of Phase 10 (great card game btw).

After Madrid, we caught flights for a quick trip back to London, to see the Saints play the Vikings at Tottenham stadium. Our whole Madrid crew went, with the exception of Rosey, who had to get back to Atlanta before he turned into a pumpkin. Another one of our Tulane friends, Amna, also met us in London for the game. I hadn’t seen her in at least 10 years and it was great catching up.

What are the odds that my 2 favorite American football teams would both play in Europe during my 3 months there? Couldn’t miss cheering on the Saints, who knows maybe they would give away free Guinness again 😂. Notice how I called it American football? That is because the way British people pronounce the word soccer, sounds like “football”. The British accent is a funny thing innit?

I probably mentioned this in my last football post from the Nebraska game, but one of the best parts of going to an American football game in the UK is that everyone just wears whatever NFL gear they own, regardless of who is playing in the game. You see the most random jerseys from the most random teams, it’s like stepping into a time warp of obscure NFL players from the last 25 years.

Tottenham stadium is a beautiful world class place to watch a football game, regardless of the shape of the ball in play. It was just built a couple years ago and when planning it they accounted for yearly NFL matchups being played in London, as well as potentially an NFL team being based there someday. We had some amazing seats and had a great time at the game. Tragically, the Saints lost on a missed field goal that double doinked off the goalpost as time expired, which ultimately cost them a chance at the playoffs. But we still had plenty of fun. Other highlights included me inadvertently wearing the same shirt to the game as the stadium beer venders (which everyone in the stadium was sure to point out to me), Stracco nearly getting beat up by this large lady vikings fan in front of us, and hearing the revised British national anthem for the first time- God Bless the King (too soon…).

After the game, we spent another day in London and wandered down the Thames to Big Ben, British Parliament, Hyde Park, and the Buckingham Palace. We also had some amazing meals. People talk a lot of shit on British food. And for good reason. But the best British food is definitely Indian food, London has some unbelievable Indian food. We got a great Indian lunch at Deshooms and basically tried everything on their menu. Then that night we had a really great meal this vegan restaurant, Tofu Vegan. I wasn’t real sure what to expect at this place, but Mark is a vegetarian and he had put up with eating at all the carnivore restaurants the whole trip, so it was only fair. The meal was incredible and if you hadn’t told me that the food was vegan, I think you could of tricked me into thinking I was eating meat. It was pretty mind blowing.

After our quick London detour, it was time to head back to the Iberian peninsula to wrap up this Eurotrip. Next stop, Portugal!