Madrid

Last week, (as i always seem to write) I was lucky enough to travel to a place I've wanted to go to for a while - Madrid.  I have been once before but only for around 18 hours so this was a pretty great way to see the city again as the first time was quick, and involved a night out and hangover and organizing 8 snowboarders.  So this was much more pleasant.After a busy few days we snuck in a little time to check out the city, and like so many European cities, it blows my mind every time that pretty much each time you turn a corner you see a palace, a castle, or something like that.I believe this was the palace in Madrid, which was luckily enough right by a rather nice spot with a few nice pubs for an afternoon refreshment.One of the the delights in Madrid that we saw was the Reina Sofia museum.Now I am not for a minute pretending that I know too much about Art, but I have been to a few in Munich, London, the Dali Museum in Figeures which is an amazing place, but this was really something else.  Its crazy, you walk in and then first painting is a Picasso.  Not of the cubism era but before that I believe.The Museum itself is beautiful and takes you on a tour from the early days of Picasso through to 1970s..  I wish I knew the exact terms.  Post modernist maybe?  I'm not an artist.But each exhibit is amazing, and there is so much inside it took us about 3 hours to get through.This was one of the final pieces.  I imagine that many peoples spare rooms look like this.I seem to remember seeing these when i was young.They even had the Greek Goddess of Victory - Nike.The view from the top...One of the other amazing things with Spain, is the Tapas on most bars available in the evening.Fish, cured meat, cheese and more are the general offering and always good, always cheap, and along with these local beers they go down a treat. Meanwhile on the set... two of the best... Tuesday.Darien.  On point all day every day. I saw this also whilst in Madrid... 4 kids on the way home from playing football, 3 in mercurials... no wonder, since they have the man himself Ronaldo in the city.This was something which seems to have reared its ugly head.  "THE SELFIE STICK".  Give us peace from this evil.Like I say, its beautiful here, shame people just use these selfie sticks to take pictures of these places.