What's up y'all thanks for joining the travel tales and talk podcast with Derek and Makayla.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
Hey, I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
And this is our podcast that we've been talking about for quite some time now.
We've made several trips to several destinations and people have always said we should talk
about these things and I've been mentioning it to you.
We should do a podcast.
So this is our first foray into the podcast thing.
I think it's going to be great.
It's going to be fun in my opinion.
I'm already having a good time.
So and this is the first five minutes of it.
If you got this far, you are the true champion.
That'll work.
Hang in there.
The best is yet to come.
That'll work.
So I know the first episode we wanted to talk about our trip to Spain, trip to Spain 2024.
And a lot of my co-workers, friends and family always asked the question, why Spain?
So why Spain, Makayla?
Well, I used to live in Spain as a child.
So it's, you know, has a, holds a special place in my heart.
I like to go back and visit often.
And I'm also a high school Spanish teacher.
So any chance I can get to go to a Spanish speaking country, I am taking it.
And I have a good friend from college who lives in Spain that I love to go visit frequently.
So yeah, that's why Spain.
That's why Spain and my why Spain is because Makayla said, so my wife said, we're going
to Spain.
We go to Spain.
Not only that, I do like the Spanish culture.
I like to visit the historical sites, especially those sites where we can trace them back to
the Moors.
Oh yeah.
I love that.
But most of all, because my wife said so.
So but here's the thing about this one.
We went back in 2017.
So in 2024, we actually plan this one around Lafetia.
So what was the planning like?
How do we get our flights?
People know how we got our flights trains.
Should you rent a car?
What about transferring dollars to euros?
Your credit card, debit cards, cell phone, international calling.
There's a whole thing to and then booking your hotel.
So let's speak about the planning process pretty much from getting our flights to hotel
euros.
Well, how did you find the flights?
Well, I use a couple of apps that I search frequently.
I use Momondo, I use Skyscanner and lately, excuse me, I've been using a lot of just Google
flights, just Googling the flights, which is how I found these flights.
And I have a number in mind that we usually do not go over $750.
Yes.
On a flight anywhere in Europe.
You know, South America is different.
In Europe, 750 is our max and this time we went right under.
I think our flights were like $746.
$746.
Yeah.
Something like that.
And that was just off of Google flights.
And then you do have the American Express.
You have credit cards where you can accumulate those points to get flights and you've used
that a couple of times, but not in this instance.
Because up until this point, we were like avid Delta travelers, but this time Delta flights
were in the 900s.
So we had to get American Airlines.
And so we were newbies, we didn't have any accumulated points to use.
You did?
The work.
Excuse me.
And that's another thing we try to tell people.
Sign up for the rewards for those carriers.
I mean, 20,000 points that can get you a hotel somewhere or you keep accumulating those points.
Eventually you get a flight.
So take advantage of those opportunities.
Even with the hotels, sign up for those rewards, those programs.
That's my suggestion.
What do you think?
Yep.
All great ideas.
And then we chose April because that was for, we wanted to go to Lafetti, which is in Sevilla.
So we would also recommend checking around non peak season.
So not those tourist spots.
You don't want to go doing those times of the years.
Flight.
Get high, gets high hotels, get high.
Everything goes up a little bit because of tourists.
So also I would Google the best time to travel to these locations.
Like you don't want to go doing peak tourist season.
You're going to get ripped off with those flights and hotels.
So try to go non peak season is my suggestion.
Same with the flights.
You want to book your flights to where you travel doing the non peak seasons.
So we also, for the first time, did high speed rail in Spain.
And there are a couple of companies we use.
How do you pronounce that word?
Iro?
Iro.
That was suggested by a family friend who lives in Spain.
Grace suggested, I thought that was an amazing train ride.
Even though it was my first time, it was first class to me.
It was.
The food was delicious.
Oh, yeah.
The seats were spacious.
The train was clean.
It was clean.
And it smelled good too.
I don't know if there were spring, fragrances in the air, but it smelled so good.
The train ride was very impressive.
And it wasn't very expensive either.
So we took it from Madrid to...
Our first stop was Cordova.
So we took it from Madrid to Cordova.
And then there's another company, Renfri.
Am I saying that correctly?
Renfri.
There are a couple of high speed rail companies there.
Just search them both on Google and plan accordingly.
We chose the first one because of a family friend.
It came highly suggested.
So we jumped on it.
Yes.
Trying to book your seats together.
Yeah, the rates were a better deal for us on the aerial.
Yeah.
And then booking your seats together.
Were we four and four?
I can't remember where the first train ride.
The first train ride, we just set singular seats.
All seats were facing the same directions.
But on the ride back, we got the seats that sit in pods of four with a table in the middle.
So it's as if you're at a dinner table, two couples facing each other, if you will.
Yeah.
I like that.
I like the quad.
If you get four people, that's cool.
I don't like the quad.
Well, let me tell you about why I do not like the quad.
Because my tail didn't think to book all four seats.
So just our family was sitting at that table.
I booked it so that Derek and I were sitting at a table with two strangers.
And these strangers were booed up.
The woman was all in this man's lap laying all on them.
They were snuggling, playing with each other's toes.
And I'm like, really?
And our daughter, London Rose, was sitting on the next aisle over.
So she could clearly see this.
And she was sitting with a stranger.
I didn't plan it right, y'all.
And that's the school, though, if you can book the whole table, whole pot.
Book the whole table.
Book the whole pot.
It's cheap enough for you can just book the whole pot.
And then you can stretch out and have a good time and won't get a peep show like we did.
And then also we did something we've never done before in a foreign country.
We rented a car.
We drove around Southern Spain.
That was an adventure in itself.
Oh, yeah.
So there are some things that you must do prior to renting a car or driving a car in
a foreign country that we found out was you have to have an international driver's license.
Yes, you do.
You get.
OK, so basically an international driver's license.
It's not a separate driver's license like I originally thought.
Yeah, I thought we were going to take a new driving test.
Yeah.
But that it's basically a booklet that translates the information that is on your driver's license.
So you get this book.
It looks like a passport book and it just has different languages in it.
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, I think Korean, Japanese, Russian.
All of this is Spanish.
It's in this book that just translate information on your driver's license.
So, you know, if you happen to get pulled over, you just hand them that book and your
driver's license.
So you've got to have a valid driver's license.
Yes.
Please don't get locked up in a foreign country.
Don't do it.
Nope.
So you've got to have both in order to drive a car there.
And I had to show the international passport when I picked up my rental.
International driver's license.
Driver's license.
Sorry.
You're right.
I picked up my rental.
Yep.
And then also...
And you can get that at AAA.
Any AAA store.
Go on in.
They'll take your picture.
You'll pay your money.
I think it was what, $30?
I want to say it was around $20.
In between $20 and $30.
Yeah.
Somewhere in that ballpark.
And if you don't have a AAA location near you, just Google it.
Find out the options you have in your area, but we had AAA here and we got ours.
Your AAA.
And also while you're in AAA, it's a good idea to go ahead and get your money transferred
over.
So we knew that we were going to Spain and we needed your rose.
So we went on in and ordered.
They call it ordering your foreign exchange money.
And so we placed our order and they told us in two days, come back, pay them the money
and then they'll give us the exchange.
But the thing that we didn't realize is when we went in, the exchange rate was one price
and I thought it was locked in.
A whole no.
It's not.
Because when we returned in our two days, the exchange rate changed again in favor of
Spain.
So the money that I thought we were getting back was lower.
So to keep that in mind, the exchange rate is constantly changing.
And then also for AAA, there is $1,000 is the minimum without additional fees.
Additional fees.
So I was petty and I said, Hey, let's just transfer $1,001, you know, and hey, and that
qualified that that made us.
We were exempt from the fee.
But you know, my husband, no, we need more money than that.
So hey.
Yeah.
And we converted more cash.
So whenever you're traveling, I recommend that you have $100 a day in their currency,
wherever you're going to be, $100 per day should be your minimum when you're trying
to figure out how much money, how much cash to have on hand, $100 per day.
That doesn't mean spend $100 per day.
But that should be your budget.
Yeah.
That's that's your budget.
And then speaking of the exchange rates, you can also go to your bank or credit union
to transfer, convert those dollars to euros.
And usually they'll have a cheaper exchange rate than waiting to go to the airport or
when you land in that foreign country.
So if we were to convert our funds, when we got to Spain, that exchange rate is going
to be higher here, higher there than it would be in the States, especially at the airport.
So you can save a couple of coins by doing it in advance versus waiting to get to Spain,
get to France or wherever and convert that money.
So I would suggest doing it here in the States before you leave.
And then also with your credit debit card.
So most credit cards, there is no international fee.
So but your debit card, there is.
So if you swipe your debit card, there is a international fee for that transaction.
So a lot of people use their credit cards instead of their debit cards because that
international fee is not fair.
Now my call out will be call your credit card company and call your debit, your bank, let
the knowledge going out the country.
Because if you don't, you go to Spain, you go to Portugal and you swipe the card, it'll
block it.
Yeah.
So sometimes the bank will freeze your card and then you'll have to call them because
they'll think someone has stolen your card.
It's a fraudulent transaction.
So you don't want to run into that, especially when you're at an foreign country.
Yeah.
That'll be a problem.
So in addition to prepping for your international trip, you're going to want to figure out what
you're going to do about your cell phone.
Cell phone uses internationally.
So we recommend downloading the WhatsApp.
For WhatsApp, it's an app that allows you to call, text free as long as you're on Wi-Fi.
But if you don't want to limit yourself to just that, most cell phone plans allow you
to use your phone internationally, but for $10 a day.
24-hour period.
For 24-hour periods.
And you don't get notices.
For us, there was no notice.
It was just, this is how I read my text.
Got you.
We got another day, 24-hour.
The notice came five hours after we used it.
Like what?
If we didn't use it.
Literally because like my child takes me, like Aliana, my daughter, oldest daughter takes
me and then, uh-uh, you have triggered your...
It has been triggered.
We got you $10 more today.
Uh-huh.
That's the way that I read that text.
Yeah, we used the heck out of WhatsApp, jump on Wi-Fi.
It's crazy.
Some of those towns, some of those cities that we were in, the city has Wi-Fi.
So you can be walking down the street and boom, Madrid's Wi-Fi pops up.
You can jump on your WhatsApp, make a call, text, whatever.
I thought that was cool.
And then all the places that we visited, most of them had Wi-Fi.
You can just jump on and boom, you're on your WhatsApp.
You can make a call.
You can make a text.
We love the WhatsApp.
And ironically, I was watching other people's phones, the people there use the WhatsApp.
Yes.
All the time.
Yeah, we find that people overseas tend to use WhatsApp way more than they do here in
the States.
A lot of our friends are like, what's a WhatsApp?
Yeah.
We're like, huh?
Yeah, I told, I don't know, it was Jasmine or Taylor, whoever, I said, hey, download the
WhatsApp.
Like, what the WhatsApp?
I'm not going to speak to you all about the country because I'm not going to use my 10
bucks a day.
No.
Jasmine and Taylor are our middle daughters.
Yes.
Sorry, sorry.
But then from there, we're still in the planning stage and we look up our hotels or hostels.
Hey, okay, a hostel.
Let's explain it.
A hostel, we like to think of, that's where the college kids stay, right?
A hostel is a dorm.
It's a lot like, but you know what?
Turn your nose up at a hostel because we actually stayed in a hostel in Guatemala and it was
really nice.
It was nice.
It was real nice and that's another episode, by the way.
We'll talk more about that later.
So we didn't do a hostel on this trip because in a hostel, you normally get, you're a room
with a lot of beds that you share with strangers.
You may have a restroom in your room.
You may not.
It might be a community bathroom down the hall.
Community bathroom, community shower.
Yeah, community, community germs, community.
Community, everything.
You might get an eye feel of something you don't want to see.
You name it, you get it.
But you know, my experience, I've stayed in a hostel twice, once with my family and
once when I traveled of solo to Peru and both hostels were nice.
I have to admit.
And I was looking online.
They've upgraded some of these hostels too.
They're like real nice.
Like boutique style hostels.
Yes.
And I want to stay in one, but I don't know if we could have done it.
No, our oldest tried to get us to stay in a hostel a couple of weeks ago in Ottawa, Canada
that was in a prison, a converted prison.
It was nice.
I looked at the pictures and I was like, ooh, girl, we don't want that juju.
Yeah, I can have that one.
I'm not doing that.
But it was so pretty.
Come back with something on my spirit.
No, no, no, no, no.
But back to the hotel.
So one thing we noticed in Spain, they are very strict on their hotel occupancy.
So if your room says there should only be two people in the room, they mean it.
If you show up with three, they can deny you access to that room or they can ask you to
leave if you've already moved, you know, went into the room.
Or make you buy another room.
Yes.
And they will make you buy another room or you have to just leave.
Yeah.
I am overfaced with that, Mr. Dairy.
I was trying to save a dollar.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I wasn't trying to save a dollar.
This is how I always book my rooms.
I just, if it's going to be me and you and London Rose, hey, get the double queens.
And just one person.
I never do multiple people when I book my room.
I just book the room.
And it almost cost me.
I almost got a butt in my butt because on the app it did say, hey, you can only have
two people in this room.
Okay, whatever, and the guy when we checked in, he was like, how many people with you?
I said, just us.
They're like, us?
I was like three.
Am I too close?
Okay.
So, so he thought we had four people at first.
There's four people.
I know it's just us three.
But because I checked in on my app, I use my Hilton app.
I believe that's why he let us slide.
Yeah.
Otherwise he was prepared to kick us out.
Yeah, we were going to get the boot.
But the hotel was nice.
I use my Hilton points to pay for it.
I believe that room, those two nights was like $99.
So we really got a deal.
If I wouldn't have to pay cash, a hundred bucks a night for that hotel.
Well worth it.
Yes.
And even though we were in Madrid at that time for one night, I insist that Derek pay
for the two nights, which he's still rolling his eyes about right now.
Yes.
Well, because we have been traveling.
Our flight landed in Madrid at 7am.
Now mind you, our travel started the day before.
So which means check in is three, four o'clock.
So had we landed and had to wait to three or four o'clock, that would have been a miserable
day for us.
So I insisted that Derek purchased this night before so that our room would be available
for us when, you know, from when we land.
Right.
And we can go straight to the room.
Great idea.
It was an amazing idea.
Great idea.
I think I lost about 40,000 Hilton points.
That's okay.
You needed that.
It was nice to be able to take a bath, freshen up, or in our case, drop them back.
Drop them back to hit the streets.
That's what we do.
Oh my goodness.
We hit the ground running.
But that's pretty much the planning phase for us.
I would suggest if you're going to travel, you should really plan all this stuff out.
It'll make your trip much smoother in my opinion.
There will be some hiccups on the way, but if it's planned out, I think it'll make it
much easier.
I want to add one thing.
So when you're thinking of a place to go to, I usually let the flights dictate when we
travel.
So I have a place in mind, and then I just start searching my apps for the cheap flights,
and then I'll try to lock in that date when I see a price that I like.
Now in this case, for us going to Spain in April, the date dictated our travel because
Laferia, which is the reason why we went this time, was happening in this specific amount
of time, and we had to travel during that window.
So just to put that out there.
She always wanted to plan a trip to Montreal in December because the flights were cheap.
There's a reason why they're cheap, maybe they're nine feet of snow.
You know up ten on the truth.
I know it's Iceland.
I'm trying to go to Reykjavik.
I want to go to Reykjavik tomorrow.
In the dead of winter, she wants to go to the Iceland.
I want to go in the winter because of Northern Lights, and I want to stay in one of those
glass houses and look at the Northern Lights as I sleep.
Then I want to go now because we'll get to that.
We'll get to Iceland.
Let's get to Madrid.
So my wife, the planner, we had everything planned out for our day in Madrid.
We finally arrived on April 14th, which is a Sunday.
One thing that annoyed me the moment we got there was all the passport checks.
I don't recall the last time I went to Spain and being harassed for my passport as many
times as I was on this visit.
Harassed?
Baby, every corner of somebody wanted my passport.
I think they checked my passport to get on the escalator.
Did they not?
Grief.
Well, typically when we travel international, we're used to getting our passport checked
once, maybe twice.
But in Madrid, it was four times easy.
I don't know why I need to see it four times, but it was four times.
So keep that in mind.
Just have your passport out, ready to go.
Yeah.
Keep it in your hand.
Don't put it up because I guarantee you're going to need it.
Five steps from the last checkpoint.
You're going to need it again.
Make sure I know Madrid.
Okay.
There are some countries that don't stamp, they don't do stamps, passport stamps, but
Madrid, Spain is one of those countries that still do passport stamps.
So make sure you get your passport stamped on the way in because Derek, for some reason,
did not get his passport stamped on the way in.
And he almost got detained on the way out from Spain.
They were not going to let him on that plane.
The lady said, you don't have a stamp, how did you get here?
Yes, how did you get in?
I'm like, with them?
And I'm looking like, what?
And I was prepared, like, look, you got to go check the tape.
You go have to go back and rewind that VCR because I came in with them.
So your man didn't stamp my passport.
That's not me.
So just keep that in mind.
Madrid stamps.
Or you can just, when you get to a foreign country, just, hey, do you stamp?
Yes, because we got our feelings heard in Canada.
We got our feelings heard in Jamaica.
They don't stamp.
It's crazy.
Well, I take that back.
Some of the booths did stamp, ours did not and refused to.
Yeah, he did.
So in Aruba, and he did say no money.
In Aruba, the guy let me stamp it.
He gave me the stamp because I'm like, oh, OK, well, thank you.
He said, no, we don't stamp, but you can.
I was like, OK.
Sweet.
Thank you.
So keep that in mind.
So we land, we go through all the passport checks and we finally get to the hotel and
this is where the rubber meets the road.
My wife has the day planned by the second.
Sure do.
So we get to the hotel.
We throw our bags in the room.
And first stop is the museum.
Rena Sophia.
What?
Raina Sophia.
Muceo.
Raina Sophia.
Yes.
Muceo.
But let's tell you about Raina Sophia and how the hotel almost got a hundred aeros out
of us.
They were going to scam us.
Euros.
They were going to scam us back.
Yeah, we went down there asking them just basically how to get to the museum.
Should we take the metros?
Should we take the Uber?
Yeah, just questions.
And it was like, hey, do you have tickets?
And we're like, no, we're just going to get them at the door.
We can get your tickets here.
We can hook you up here.
And I was like, OK, cuanta cuasta, how much, right?
And he was like, oh, for the three of you?
Like yeah.
Because we had our youngest London Rose with us.
He was like, oh, seeing aeros, 100 euros.
And I was like, oh.
Red Flag Storgo.
So I started having weird feelings because you know I planned this trip to it.
So you know I don't look at the rates.
I was like, I'm trying to do math on my fingers.
Like, wait a minute, divide about three.
That's like 33 points.
You have me do it too.
So I knew the prices.
You know, I'm a penny pitcher.
So Derek looked at me.
He's like, well, let me go back upstairs and get the cash.
Because you know.
I forgot it upstairs.
Yeah.
And he went up there and I guess he did some thinking and he calls me from the room.
My collar don't get them ticked.
Mike goes to see how it was going to hurt.
They feel as they try to get over this.
Don't get them tickets.
I'm standing there like, what do you want me to do?
And don't buy them tickets.
Don't buy them tickets.
They so we told them no tickets, but do get us a car.
So we waited for our car to show up and we get to this this museum and let me tell y'all.
Would y'all like to know how much our tickets cost to that museum?
I would like to know how much.
Why don't you tell them Derek?
$3.99.
It was free.
Free.
$3.99.
The museum tickets were free y'all.
So this hotel is about to get a hundred euros out of us.
And they was about to kick it.
They were.
When they got out of work, they were going somewhere.
They were about to make it rain.
They were going to do some with the money.
I don't know what they do in Spain.
And the museum tickets were free.
So one thing about Spain, you got to look like really, really pay attention to their
websites because they, they, all the museums have a free day or free time.
So that particular museum was free from.
12.30 to 2.30.
Yeah.
12.30 to 2.30 was a Sunday.
And we showed up about one o'clock.
Now granted, the line was snaking all the way around that place.
But that free 99 and being at that time, that was our only day in Madrid.
And we stood there.
Yeah.
The line out.
We was in line about a good 45 minutes.
Now the, the great thing about that museum, the last two hours of every day is free.
So let's say Monday, seven to nine is free.
The last two hours of the day that it's open.
And then you also want to check their website because they have holidays.
So their holidays, of course, are different than our holidays.
We Americans assume that everyone is on our holiday schedule.
That's not true.
So just be mindful of that.
You know, you may be there doing a time of a holiday and it's close.
So I always check their website and make sure.
But to get back to the scam artists, even if we arrived earlier, tickets are only 12
euros, 12 euros.
Now they have other options.
I did my research.
You can do the art walk pass, which is 32 euros.
And this gets you access into three different museums, Sophia Prada and the Thiesin Museum.
Thiesin Prado and the, the, the Reina Sofia.
I'll let you handle the Spanish.
Okay.
Um, but, but, but think about it, baby.
32 times three.
It's still less than a hundred euros.
They were going to bust our heads.
I'm kind of mad.
I should call Hilton.
So you got some scammers down working.
But the reason why we chose that particular museum was, um, because I wanted to see Gornica
Picasso's large oil painting of his depiction of, um, the bombing of the town.
It's, um, it was quite.
It's a massive.
It's a mural.
It's the size of a mural, but it's actually, it's actually sorry.
Um, oil on canvas.
And it's the only, well, it's not even the only art piece in the room.
It takes up almost that.
I think that entire side of that wing was for Picasso, for Picasso.
Yes.
Cause they, cause in that room, it was just a big room on one wall was Gornica and on
the other side of the wall was his sketching and of what he was going to draw in Gornica.
So and just like if, if you've ever been to the Louvre and you went to go see the Mona
Lisa, you know how crowded it can be around that little bitty piece of art.
So Gornica was no difference.
Very crowded.
Um, personal space is not a thing.
Not a thing.
People will step on you, push you, spray, spray you with it.
They will jostle you to get spray you with their stink.
To get what?
You know, the stinky guy.
Uh, yes.
Um, so yeah, be ready to fight for your personal space.
If you want to take a picture of the artwork in that museum.
Or you can wait and run in like maybe 30, 40 minutes before it closes.
Yeah.
That's a good idea.
Yeah.
I wanted to kind of hang around and wait for it to thin out.
Derek was not having it.
Now, I think about we should have done that.
We should have came back, came back near the end.
Yeah.
Probably could have had the entire museum to ourselves because then the rest of the
museum was crowded as well.
Yes.
So not as crowded as Gornica though.
Yeah.
So from there we made our walk.
So we walked to this next location.
Um, I'll let you handle this.
Yes.
We decided to walk, you know, Madrid is a very walkable city.
Yes.
A very easily walkable city.
And on our way we went to go see the Palacio de Cibeles.
We want to go to the viewpoint.
And on your way from Reina Sofia, you and you will pass the Prado.
I know you've heard of the Prado, the famous art museum there.
Because I guess that's the art district.
So all the museums are in that.
Yes.
Pretty much in that area.
So in Cibeles, if you want to go see Madrid from one of its highest points, you can pay
three euros to go up and see Madrid from.
You get a 360 view of Madrid from the Spanish point.
Yep.
And it's suggested, if you go to their website, it's suggested that.
You take the stairs, there are 88 of them and we took them.
So this gives you an opportunity to see the amazing architecture and the uniqueness of
the building.
It's awesome building.
It's amazing it's been around for that long and it's still in great shape.
I'm sure they maintain it.
But just you think about, they didn't have the equipment we have now and they built something
like that.
I think that is amazing.
I don't think you told us when it was built.
I didn't see a date on the day it was built.
I'm sure it was 1700 somewhere.
Well, yes, a lot of the buildings in Madrid or in Europe in general are really old.
Who's going to think about it?
The United States is a really young country compared to the rest of the world.
We went to some sites that were built in 700 and they're still standing.
Yes.
So, yes, I thought that I took a panoramic photograph and have a nice picture of Madrid
from this vantage point.
Then we took a metro ride, right?
I like public transportation.
My wife, not so much.
No.
There's only one metro that I don't mind riding and that is the Tube in England.
For some reason, they keep that fairly clean and these other places.
Well, I would say it's like riding in New York subway.
Madrid subway.
I thought it was fairly clean.
I like it because I get to see, I get the people watch just like the guy rolling up
a cigarette to decide.
Right next to me.
Yes.
You don't know what you're going to see.
That's the favorite part.
How do you want to whip out paper, get your tobacco, lick it?
Mind you, I have London Rose, my 11-year-old sitting right next to me seeing all this and
she's like, what is he doing?
And I just whipped out my phone to make him, like I did it on purpose because I knew I
make him feel uncomfortable.
He's rolling his own cigarette.
This man was rolling his own cigarette on the subway and London Rose was like, Mom,
you didn't ask him for his permission to film him.
I looked at her like, I want to tell her, Kaiite so bad, which means shut up.
I was like, girl, be quiet.
I'm trying to make this man uncomfortable.
He'll put this thing away.
Macalah goes, don't you like that?
I didn't tell him.
I said no.
But he came back.
No, no, no.
He came back.
He said it, no, no, no.
He knew the rules.
So he wasn't going to light it up.
So Macalah was going to slap it out his hand probably.
Then I would have to beat a guy up on the metro in Madrid.
That's why I drew the line.
I was like, uh-uh, I don't watch you roll this thing up.
You can't light it up in here now.
That was funny.
That was my favorite part of being on that metro.
So one thing about the metro, if you're only going to be there for a short amount of time,
I recommend you getting the red card.
Yeah.
I want 10 trips.
Yeah, you get 10 trips on that red card.
Now, mind you, it's only valid for zone one.
Well, zone one, I'll take that back.
Zone A, you have zone A, you have zone B, zone B one, zone B two, zone B three.
So it's only valid in like zone A.
Zone A is pretty big.
It's, I would say, Madrid proper.
So like the urban center of Madrid a little bit out further out.
Now if you're in that urban center and I say you're in zone A, you need to get to the airport.
There is an additional fee that you have to purchase onto that car so you can get access
to the airport.
So we found that out the hardware trying to get back to our hotel the last night in Madrid.
So I would download the app, the metro app.
I would also download the metro map so you have it.
Just great idea.
I love the public transportation because it takes you everywhere in Madrid.
Once you get to a certain location, you got to step it out.
You got to walk, but it's cheaper than an Uber, even though their Ubers are pretty cheap.
I prefer the metro.
You don't look like you do.
And then also I would check out the website and they have an option for a tourist ticket.
So the tourist tickets allows you to ride the metro, see the tourist spots.
So just look into those options.
If you're going to spend any amount of time in Madrid, that's my suggestion.
I know I have an anti-public transportation person sitting in front of me.
So we take the metro to, we get off at the opera stop to have churros.
Yes.
So if you're ever in Madrid, you're going to want to go get churros at the Chocolatería
de San Gines.
Get off there at the opera stop from the metro.
They have fantastic churros.
It is one of the oldest in the country.
It was opened in 1800s.
1884, 94.
Yes.
And they are very good.
So you get these long churros and they're going to give you a coffee cup full of chocolate.
So London Rose over here trying to drink the chocolate.
I'm like, no, ma'am.
You know what?
I thought you drank the chocolate too.
I just didn't do it.
It's a lot of chocolate.
It is pure.
Just imagine having like 10 candy bars melted in a cup.
A coffee cup full of chocolate.
Yeah, liquid chocolate.
And I never had churros before.
It was the first time I've had churros and they were delicious.
So from there, you can walk a little ways to make it to the Plaza Mayor.
I'm sorry.
Let's go back to the churros.
Think about this.
We ordered, we thought we were going to get individual sticks of churros.
So they said, how many do you want?
Call the quest all right?
I said, those.
We got two orders and two orders of churros like what?
12.
12 sticks.
I was like, we should have just said one.
Now we know.
But yeah, those were delicious.
But go ahead.
So we walked to the Plaza Mayor, which is a short walk from Chocolateria.
And in the Plaza Mayor, this is part of the plan.
Oh yeah.
Because you know, Spanish teacher, I teach my students about the Plaza Mayor.
And I've always, you know, I want to go visit a person.
So it is basically a square.
It's a large rectangle, in like in the middle of a building.
And inside this building, there are individual buildings.
Like there's the tourist.
Place there.
There are apartments.
There are other stores.
And there's shops.
And then there's like vendors inside of the Plaza Mayor.
There's a visitor center there as well.
And but we chose to just walk through the Plaza Mayor and go out, go out to the other
side to go visit the Mercado San Miguel.
Derek, would you like to talk about Mercado San Miguel?
Oh.
That place is in the food in that place.
Let me tell you, it's fresh.
They have, I don't eat seafood, but they have fresh seafood.
When I say fresh, it just got to the building like an hour before they opened.
There's a whole octopus sitting on ice.
There's an octopus sitting on ice.
There is a, what was that, a swordfish head sitting in ice and they were cutting it up.
And people were buying it shrimp.
I think the shrimp was still crawling.
It is fresh seafood.
You have about 20 plus shops there that sell pastries, adult beverages.
And we had the churros.
We had chorizo.
Chorizo.
And the name of the restaurant I founded last night, the name of the spot is Madria.
M-A-D-R-I.
Maddi.
And their food is amazing.
Yeah.
That became our new hot spot.
They serve you your churros.
I mean, it's not churros, your chorizo in like a little wooden bowl with a wooden fork.
Because they're being on recycling in Europe.
Yes.
So our chorizo is kind of, it's like a wild sausage in a sauce.
They're like, the ones from that place was the size of like a vina sausage.
And we got like 12 of them.
And they were delicious.
They were delicious.
Best I ever had.
Yes.
So every time we're in Madrid, we go there.
Go there.
Check that place out.
If it's, they have something you like or just try something.
You're going to like it.
Yeah.
Open your mind up and try something different.
They have bocadillos, their sandwiches.
They have pastries.
Pastries, tapas.
Tapas.
They serve drinks.
What's that where they're cutting the leg?
Yeah.
So you're going to see, is that pork?
I think it's pork.
What kind of leg is that?
No, no.
I think it's pork.
Yeah.
So you'll see like a thigh.
Is that a thigh?
You'll see an animal's leg.
A big chunk of a, looks like a thigh all the way down to the hoof.
And it's just that one leg and it's always hanging up.
Yep.
And they're cutting pieces.
And they're cutting pieces of that meat.
And they're making sandwiches out of it.
It is fresh.
And at the end of the day.
It is so fresh that it's literally cut off of the leg.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, when it's done, they're not going to wrap it up and put it in plastic
and put it in refrigerator, they're going to toss it.
And tomorrow they're going to have a new leg up there.
Brand new.
And even in the grocery stores, like you'll see that leg everywhere.
Yes.
Restaurants, you name it.
That leg is.
Street vendors, they're going to have a leg.
They're going to have that leg out there.
And the amazing part about this market, we missed it because it happened in May.
So every Monday they were given away an art and wine experience in conjunction with Deeson
Museum, Deeson Museum, sorry.
I wish we could have won that.
It would have been nice.
That would have been awesome.
But while Derek and I are obsessed with legs, London Rose was obsessed with the Kauai Cafe.
She says that is her new restaurant, her new favorite restaurant in the world.
And they need to have a Kauai Cafe here in the United States.
Yes.
Because everything is like anime themed.
Anime themed.
There was a guy dressed up like a.
Dragon Ball Z.
And then you had the young ladies dressed up like lady characters from.
Anime.
So there's a wall with stuffed animals, everything is pink drawings of anime characters.
Drawings.
Everything you walk in.
They have macarons.
They have a bowl full of hats and headbands.
I think I had on the what?
You had on Minnie Mouse bunny ears or something bunny ears.
You wore Minnie Mouse ears with bows and but the food was delicious.
Food is good.
And the food is colorful.
It's very colorful.
Everything is going to be colorful.
No matter what you order, you go.
You want macaroni cheese is going to be pink.
The pancakes were green like everything has a color.
It's a colorful restaurant.
So and everything is Instagramable.
It is they have an Instagram handle.
I think it's just Kauai Cafe K A W A I then Cafe C A F E they they have an Instagram presence
and you can go in there and you can see our guy dressed up the Dragon Ball Z guy.
He's on there.
I was like, Hey, there he is.
He's IG famous.
He is.
And then from there, I guess we it's time to wrap it up because we have to catch a train
the next day and we take our metro back to the hotel.
The metro station was about 15 20 minute walk from our hotel.
I didn't think it was far.
No, it's good.
It's good.
Our thing is whenever we land in Madrid, we like to get our steps up.
So we are always clocking to see how how we can get.
I think our highest was 30,000 steps in one day in Madrid.
I don't think we made it this time.
We got close.
We got 20.
22 24.
So right there.
So that is our first day in Spain.
In Madrid.
The next day is Monday.
We have to get up and catch our high speed train.
And then we're going to rent a car or a car.
Sinaligans.
Now we'll talk about that next episode.
All right, until next time.
I'll see you later.
If you made it this far, you are the true champion.
You could have been anywhere doing anything, but you instead chose to spend your time with
us.
And for that, we say thank you.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makaela.
Great.
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Do good.
Be good.
Until next time.
Bye.