“Free Tour” of Madrid- too good to be true...

Upon arriving at our Hostal, we picked up a brochure advertising a “free tour of Madrid”. Being ever so budget conscious we thought “great!!” and planned to join the tour on Saturday afternoon. With some difficulty we found the meeting spot for the tour, we were rushing thinking we would be late- we kept asking for directions. I’ll add in something about the language barrier here, Steve and I seem to have developed a pattern of communication. Usually goes like this: 

-We need help (ie directions, ordering food, asking questions etc)

-Together and with our phrase book we put together the question

-I have to ask the questions

-The reply is in spanish, with the accent, and fast

-Steve pretends to know or assumes the reply 

-We walk away guessing at what the answer really is- I will say that Steve is really good with understanding numbers and money- probably because he is so cheap! :)

So, after asking directions we found the meeting spot. The guides for this company wear red shirts however they were hard to spot through the crowd of protesters and camera crew. Hmmm...what is going? The protestors turned out to be licensed tour guides in Mardrid. They were holding signs that said “Illegal tours!”, “tourist trap!” & “stop intruders!” The red shirt guide told us to ignore them and that they were mad because they didn’t like the competition. So, on with the tour we went (starting late) with about 20 other tourists and the camera crew and the protesters. The tour guide was entertaining and we found the protestors presence annoying. However, we soon realized that the spanish public were supportive of the protesters- they would shout out at the guide and several old dudes would get in arguments with the him- one gave him the “ok” sign in a way we can only presume held negative meaning. So we decided to get the other side of the story (they were very nice to the tourists as this had nothing to do with us). The protester licensed guide we spoke to explained that in Spain you must go to school and become certified to be a guide- whereas the ‘free’ guide was not licensed- and the tour is in fact not free- you are required to tip and also that he would take us to bars that pay him for our patronage. At this point Steve and I left “free tour”- it just didn’t feel right, and to top it all off we found out that the legal tours only cost 3 euro! 

We explored the area for a bit on our own...we were walking up a busy street that didn’t allow cars and began to notice a significant number of prostitutes standing in doorways along the street. They didn’t look like hookers at home...more upscale- its hard to explain. This is the only place we saw them...anyways, we were starving so we ate some pizza and pasta- both very bland and overpriced. Some observations on food:

-Not so much spice- Colombus went the wrong way :)

-There is ham EVERYWHERE!! There are Jamon stores on every street displaying the Ham. Its hanging in windows and from the ceiling. Everywhere we eat has Jamon con Quesa (ham and cheese) baguettes, croissants, stuffed buns, even grilled cheese sandwhiches have the jamon so lovingly stuffed into them. 

-When you think you have escaped the ham invasion, you realize you are once again eating it- just cured differently and called something else!

-Groceries are cheap- and the ham too.

-We have eaten ham every day since being in Madrid.