9/28 Madrid - First Day

 We arrived in Madrid last night.  Our "Welcome Taxi" driver spoke quite good English so going to pick up our key from a location about 10 minutes away from the apartment location turned out to not be a problem.  He waited as Michael used a code to retrieve the key from a lock box padlocked to bars on a window.  That's a first for us.  

There is a DIA grocery store close to us where we picked up bread ham, cheese, fruit etc for a French picnic meal for Sunday night and breakfasts for the next three days.  The nights are very quiet in the apartment.

Photo from around 7AM of the street below us - it is still pretty dark.  We are on the 4th floor or 5 for US - as they start with the first floor as being 0.

        We finally got out the door around late morning on Monday.  The skies are dark and overcast.  It makes for moody photos.

Our apartment is close to some major tourist attractions.  But also we are in a "lived in" neighborhood.  There are a lot of schools close to us.  Every store that you might need is within walking distance.

We started exploring the streets around us.

We passed by this couple on a bench.  The man seemed to be explaining something to the women as the other two men filmed them.

Just behind them was a door to this garden called Jardin del Principi Anglona.

Garden scene.

And on to more street scenes.

Couple in front of doors to a church.

Mosaics on a restaurant's walls.

We were headed towards Plaza Mayor - just through that archway.

Plaza Mayor.  

I was trying to take a photo of Casa de la Panadería which is a municipal and cultural building on the north side of the square.

We left plaza Mayor to head towards the Palace.  I think this is some ruins in a vacant lot.  But there is a lot of graffiti in front of it.

We wondered into the Plaza Isabel II where we found a restaurant with a menu of the day for $18 Euros each.

A lot of streets now have these nice identifying plaques.  As we finished out lunch it started raining.  We could see out the restaurant window that a lot of tourists were not prepared for rain.  Do people not check the weather app?  We walked briefly to the square in front of the palace and then decided to head home as the rain was coming down steadily.  No photos - it is very hard to hold an umbrella and focus your camera with out shake!

I could not resist stopping to take a phone photo of this guy.  His butt has been touched until it is burnished gold!

As I was photo'ing - A tour of Asians passed by.  Several of the tourists touched the statue on his shoulder or where ever - giggling as they did so.  But this guy did the deed!

9-24 A Few Final Photos from Turkey

 The last few days in Alanya were spent getting ready to leave.  Trying to eat whatever food we had left, but also buying a few snacks for the road.  We went on walks - sometimes taking photos - sometimes not.  No more big meals or expeditions to see sites.  

It did not really rain the whole time we were in Alanya.  But the clouds did roll in and a few drizzles happened.  This day we had great skies!

I will not miss the heat in Alanya - but I will miss what the heat causes to happen - beautiful flowers.

I have complained that Alanya is not on a shipping route and we have not seen any large ships - until 9-22 when I saw this boat.  I didn't think it was a cruise ship until I zoomed in - yup cruise ship!

That is the end of our visit to Turkey.  On 9-27 we got up early and spent most of the day flying to Spain.  We had a short layover in Istanbul and then landed in Madrid around 5pm.  As in Warsaw we waited and waited for our luggage.  The carousal stopped - not there.  Luckily the Lost Luggage desk for Turkish Air was close to #9 carousal.  So I kept watching it as we waited to speak to an agent.  

I saw new people gathering round the #9 carousal for a different flight arrival.  The carousal started again.  Sure enough after a few minutes all of our luggage appeared.  How is it possible that this has happened to us twice on this trip on different airlines?  

September - Turkish Foods

This is a foodie post - Michael did a lot of cooking while we were in Turkey.  The first restaurant we went to we could see from our apartment window.  It was call Eko - we met the owner who told us that was his name.  We liked the food and meant to go back - but never did.

This salad had one of the tastiest dressings we got in Turkey.

Shrimp Cocktail

I don't remember what this was called - but it is beef with flavorings

This one was more of a stew - which I ate on white rice - tasty.

We even got some vegetables!

This was at the Sultan Pide Restaurant.  All this food cost around $15.

Tea is served everywhere - anytime of the day.  A lot of times it comes free after a meal.  It is called Cay in Turkish and is pronounce "Chai".

We bought sweet corn at the local market.  It was very good - but had more of a chewy - field corn feel to it.

We went to the Uygurtuik Restaurant twice.  We found the food so much more flavorful than the Turkish food we had for the most part.  The food they serve here originated in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Northwestern China.  It is a fusion of Central Asia, Turkic, Middle Eastern and Chinese traditional foods.  We hope to go to China in 2018 and maybe visit this region.  But I am not sure how safe it is.  The Chinese government is trying to "Chinafy" the Uyghur people and there is unrest.

We made the mistake of getting these fancy fruit drinks the first time.  They were delicious - but also surgery and really filled you up.  They already give you huge portions of food here.  

I got this chicken dish.

Michael wanted the homemade noodles.  

We also got these dumplings - delicious.  Our waiter, both times was a guy from Ukraine.  He had been in Turkey for about 4 months and talked of going back.  He thought it might be better back home.  He looked fighting age - so I am thinking that is why he is in Turkey and not in Ukraine.  He was the only person with a little English at the restaurant.  He thought he could get the chef to fry the dumplings - told us it would happen - it did not.  Still good.

The Uyghur restaurant.

We got this pilaf dish with beef our second visit to the Uyghur restaurant.

And this mushroom with beef dish as well.

For our last meal out we wanted donor kabob with sauce.  The usual way in Turkey is mostly plain meat, some vegetables but no sauce.  I got mine in a wrap and Michael got a sandwich.  It was a nice way to finish our Turkish sojourn.