Took the metro out to the far train station today to book tix for Fridayīs trip to Barcelona .. turns out our train leaves from the other train station which is w/in walking distance of our hostal ... good for getting to on Friday morning, but kindaīa bummer since we couldīve gone there to reserve tix & saved the metro ride. Oh well. Being at the train station tho reminded me of when we were waiting for our train from Paris to Madrid (which I forgot to write about) there were all these soldiers patrolling the station w/ big guns & dogs. Felt so surreal. Thatīs something I expect to see on the news, not strolling along in front of me! After the tix reservations, made our way over to the Museo del Prado & spent hours there checking out the old paintings & some sculptures too ... very nice. Discovered an artist I like that I had never heard of before: El Greco .. so Iīll have to check into him further. Took a walk thru the Parque del Retiro - a huge park w/ manmade lakes, sculptures & palaces. It also looked like it has outdor cafes, but today the Park was all but deserted & everything was closed b/c of the cold (13 degrees) & rainy weather I assume. Booo crappy weather! This is my summer vacation ... come on, gimme some sun! Made our way to the Templo de Debod. Itīs an Egyptian temple that was flooded when they installed a Dam in Egypt to generate electricity. B/c of their efforts to help preserve & restore the temple after the flooding, Spain was given the temple. So the pieces that were recovered were brought to Madrid & reconstructed to rebuild the temple here. We took a little tour thru, saw old reliefs on the stone walls, learned about some of the other temples, strolled thru the different rooms, learned about how the temple was used back in the day ... very neat ... a nice change too from the many museums w/ thousands of paintings weīve been going to (which are also great, but itīs always nice to mix it up a little!). Mostly Madrid seems very urban ... Some old buildings, the cute little side streets that you canīt imagine driving down until a car comes barreling up behind you giving you a heart attack as you were casually strolling down the middle of the narrow road. Tons of people, my lame attempts at communication! Dinner was crackers & cheese from the grocery store since we didnīt actually eat lunch until about 5:00 in the afternoon & so werenīt very hungry! 
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