9:30am Arrived in Madrid, Spain from Los Angeles, CA! Our U.S. Airways flight was quick and painless, not to mention inexpensive! After much needed catching up, we swapped books(How to be a Super Hot Woman: 339 Tips, Tao of Dating), magazines, watched movies, television (Flight of the Concords, anyone?) and took what has saved me from jetlag in over 20 countries, Jet Zone all natural jet lag tablets. No lost luggage, and we are off to our hotel!

11:00am Grab a quick bite at Hotel Regina Madrid Cafe while our room was getting made up.  For being in the city center, English was not very common. Shantelle kept ordering a cheese danish, and kept getting pieces of cheese cake and cheese sandwiches thrust at her!  I settled on a sandwich and a very strong coffee.

Noon Checked into the room. Unpacked. Shower. Get dressed.  Thought it was freezing and put on the layers…all 6 of them.  After stepping outside for 30 seconds and realizing it was 90 degrees, ran back upstairs to change into something a bit more weather appropriate.

2:30pm Tourist attractions! We planned to go on a tour with Sandmans New Madrid, but a protest of free tours from other tour guides was way too much drama for us to handle!  We called up a Madrid local, Rodrigo, to take us on tour instead, and saw the Royal Palace, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol and many more!

6:00pm Had the first Sangria of the trip. Our Spanish friend let us in on a little secret: locals do not drink Sangria! Also, they do not take siesta during the week!

7:00pm One of the best little cafes we found was El Riojana. Walking distance from our hotel, this little shop serves up all kinds of light and fluffy pastries and has been there since 1855.

10:30pm: One of our favorite places in Madrid was the Me Hotel in Plaza Santa Ana! The Penthouse restaurant and bar serves awesome tapas with a stunning view of the city! We sipped on a 2004 Viva Herminia Criaza as we nibbled on our chicken skewers, fried shrimp and cheese plate.  The very international crowd comes from all over the world and is quite friendly!

1:00am We had heard the rumors that the nightclubs didn’t get started till super early morning hours…and had to find out if it was true or not for ourselves! First stop: Joy Eslava. Great music, even better people watching.

6:30am the next morning Back to the hotel!
To Be Continued…