Day 20: Madrid to Dublin

Since our new flight today didn't leave until 8:35, we had an entire afternoon in Madrid to explore the things we didn't have time for yesterday. To start off the day, we had a breakfast in a little cafe which actually held us over for longer than we expected. Then we walked southeast and walked through the beautiful Botanical Gardens, which was something we wanted to do yesterday, but couldn't because we had to get to the bullfight. But we were so glad we found the time to do it today because the green oasis was a relaxing atmosphere in which to just mosey the day away. Next, we went to the Prado Museum which houses famous art from Raphael, Rembrandt, De Goya and Reubens. It is also free for students under the age of 25 (and a whole slew of other people in very specific other circumstances, so you might check that list if you ever find yourself in Madrid). That was a nice way to spend peak sun and most of the rest of our day in Madrid, until we finally got hungry for lunch. We again found a unique little cafe (with records for placemats and cassette tape cases for bill holders) where we "enjoyed" some unique food. The Menu del Dia included a choice of a first course, a second course, and a drink. Brandon chose a salad, steak bruschetta, and a coke, while I chose soup, ham and mushroom bruschetta, and a coke. However, the menu did not specify that the salad was drenched in a ice-cream-sweet dressing and that the soup was refrigerated (UPDATE: I just googled it and found out that is Gazpacho, a typical spanish soup. Glad we tried it!). Also my bruschetta was made of mostly garlic, so that was interesting, but it was a unique experience that we will never forget. Finally, around 5pm, we headed to the airport for our penultimate journey, the flight from Madrid to Dublin. We were there pretty early but eventually got checked in and sent on our way. Now we are writing from the Dublin Airport McDonalds, where we are hunkered down in a very secure fort-type table where we will endure the final night of our trip before flying tomorrow to Chicago at 11:25am local time, arriving in Chicago at 1:45pm local time. We will be sure to let you know we made it safely when we are back in the good ol' U S of A.