For some reason, I thought Spain would be all Sangria on the beach and octopus at cobblestone cafes but Madrid is more like New York City the buildings are tall and say you can’t see landmarks to orient yourself. Tapas are most often pieces of bread with different toppings like raw fish or tomatoes or mashed avocado. They call prosciutto smoked ham.

It seems like more people spoke English in Portugal, whereas people in Madrid just speak Spanish and don’t know as much English. I wonder if that’s because Portuguese is a less dominant language. So people are forced to learn English whereas Spanish is a more dominant language so more people don’t bother learning English.

The architecture is more beautiful here. Buildings in America are boxy. All the architecture here is ornate. Curved terraces, fences.

It’s true that people eat much later here. Our reservation for dinner last night was at 10:30. And there were still groups being seated past 11. One theory we have for why people stay up later. Here is the heat. It’s hard to do anything when it’s hot. Outside, you almost immediately start sweating. So maybe people stay up later to take advantage of more hours when they can be outside without sweating.