Madrid. First impressions.

Loving it. We're staying in a hostel in the center of town. I think they're calling it a hostel because it's just a set of rooms in an apartment building without the usual hotel trappings. Very cool old building. The security guard has a sense of humour. Vicki was struggling to open the wrought iron entrance door so he intervened and just pulled it open explaining that it was "digital" (while showing us his hand.). Other than that, he doesn't speak English.

On the subject of language I made the mistake of ordering a glass of white wine in pitch perfect Spanish. The flurry of Spanish in response was wasted on me. Given the context, all I could think of was seco. I don't think there's a Spanish word for bagnum. Casa? I'll stick to please, thank you and pointing.

The central area of Madrid is big boulevards connected by a maze of narrow cobbled streets full of shops, restaurants and bars. All low rise and fancy facades. It feels very sophisticated, clean and safe. It's also heavily policed.

We did a fair bit of wandering around as an exercise in immersion. Our first official tourist stop is the Prado Museum. We haven't reached cultural overload yet so hoping to spend longer than 15 minutes there.