Day 18 --- Madrid

After our breakfast in Café de Oriente, which was a chocolate Napolitano and café con leche, we embarked to the barrio Salamanca. This is an upscale area of Madrid (Beverly Hills of Madrid). Bo visited many shops and made several purchases. Our plan for the day was to meet Cristina at 2 pm. On the subway back Bo got a call from her asking to reschedule till 4:00 We got off the train at the next stop and retraced our way back. Some more shopping then 3 o’clock comida. We picked an outdoor café at random. When you sit and order 2 beers, you are given a plate of appetizers gratis. We have had sardines and cheese on bread, cheese and sausage on roll, olives and radishes, salads, etc. This place gave us a dish of salad with shrimp, crabmeat, pimientos, tomatoes. The dinner of the day includes a 1st course, 2nd course, bread, beer or wine, and dessert. There are several choices for each. We choose the rice with clams, shrimps and pimientos, then grilled veal with fries, and a chocolate mousse cake. This one portion of meal of the day is sufficient for the 2 of us.
We then went back to our hotel changed and met with Cristina. She is a Spaniard who was educated in LA who has formed a company here for facilitating international student exchange. She described the Spanish higher education system and the work her company does. There may be some ways Bo & Cristina can collaborate.
After a little siesta, we met with Pepe and his wife Celia for our flamenco night. The performance didn’t start until 10:30 pm so we hit two tapas bars on the way. There are several well known flamenco places/clubs in Madrid, and the one we went to -- Casa Patas is one of the best known. It’s a small room tightly packed with small tables so maybe about a hundred people can get in. You have to make a reservation in advance. The audience was mostly Spanish, but there were some foreigners too. The performance was amazing -- six musicians and two dancers performed for 1.5 hours with incredible intensity. It’s really impossible to describe. Here is a link to Casa Patas performance http://www.casapatas.com/videos.asp. When we got home at 1 am, we couldn’t open the apartment door so we had to ring the bell. senor Manuel opened the door fully dressed (He locked the door by mistake) and asked us when we were leaving tomorrow. When we told him we were leaving the day after tomorrow, he was very surprised. Evidently, he overbooked so we’ll see how he solves this little problem.