January 6 is a national holiday in Spain, so many of the museums were closed. We decided to try to find our way to the zoo (metro stop Balàn) in the big Parque del Campo on the west side of town.
After an amusing encounter with the park's prostitutes (mainly African women who seemed to be the only people in Madrid who spoke English!), we got to the zoo just at closing time.
Fortunately, Tom had remembered to bring some bread for feeding the ducks.
Downtown was all lit up for the festival. The streets were jam-packed with strollers, and everyone seemed in a festive mood.
It was a little too crowded for our tastes, so we decided to hop the metro and go look at some of the modern architecture on the Castellanos.
Fortunately
for us, outside of every metro stop is a well-lit map of the area, so
it was very easy to always keep track of where you were.
After a couple of Irish pubs, we decided to check out one of Madrid's famous historical plazas, Dos de Mayo. It seemed to be the center of the seedy teenage hangout group!
On the way back to our neighborhood, we decided to stop at El Remanso Argentino ("The Original Argentine Grill") for dinner. Tom had blood sausage (appetizer) and beefsteak (main course), I had potatoes with scrambled eggs (appetizer) and filet mignon (main course), all of which we washed down with Argentine Syrah wine. Every half an hour, we were treated to (or tormented by, in Tom's view) an exhibition of live Tango!