Thursday 12 April 2012

Madrid Part Dose

Appologies, my adoring fans, for taking so long to with part two of this Spanish adventure, but I've been a bit busy lately.  I won't go into the whys or wherefores, but lets just say it involved a car, a recovery truck and bags full of money.  Three weeks later and the car is nowhere near finished.  But enough about that, as I think it's about time I finished off Madrid.

We woke early enough on Saturday despite the hangovers, and headed out with the Doyles for breakfast at "la Taberna de Benjas", which was, and probably still is, directly across the road from our hotel on Santa Domingo.

I thought Benjas was a great little place, and the guy serving us, who I presume is the man himself, served up a lifesaver of a breakfast.

John ordered two lovely fried eggs on big fancy toast with a sprinkling of chunky sea salt.  I said Dose and the girls had toast.

To drink, we had six excellent coffees, and four freshly squeezed orange juices on ice.  All for €14.

So, if you every find yourself in Madrid and happen to be staying at the TRYP, don't bother with the hotel breakfast, which is €20 extra.  Head across the road to Benjas and tell them I sent you.

After that, we met up with Rolo, Kaz and Rolos parents at a nice terrace, where we settled the heads from the night before.  On the way, the drunkest man in Spain decided he wanted to hug and kiss me, but I dodged that bullet.  Doce carvesa later and we were heading to watch Ireland take on Scotland in the rugby.

Only after we got to the Irish bar, did we realise we were two hours early for the match, so Rolo brought myself and John out to buy some cigars at El Corte Ingles on Calle de Preciados, where there's a decent sized walk in humidor, with a selection of Cuban and non-Cuban cigars.  I picked up a few and we headed back to the pub.

Myself and John decided at half time that a cigar was in order, but were told we couldn't take our drinks outside, so we took ourselves up to Plaza Mayor and had a cigar in the sun. 

I had a Monte Open Master and John had a Bolivar Royal Corona, both tubed.  I'm pretty sure this was Johns first Royal Corona, and I must admit to trying to pawn off a smaller cigar on him earlier, but his eyes lit up when he saw the Boli, so that's what he had, and I'm sure he loved it.

The RC is a quality cigar and one of my favourites, and the Monte Open range are excellent cigars too, so either one is a winner.

The next few hours were a bit of a blur as we got ready to see M83 in concert.  I'll be brief about this.  The Doyles had to queue for almost an hour to get in, and M83 were poor at best.

They started off well enough but I lost interest after a while, and they looked like the might be miming.  Listening to their CDs is better.

We left there, had lots more alcohol and the rest of the night is even more blurrier.

So I'll leave this instalment with some pictures of my cigar monkeys, with the one on the left proving more entertaining than M83.  The one on the right wasn't bad either.


Cigar Monkey
Cigar Monkey




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