I am in Madrid!...and have been for about a week

I arrived in Madrid last Monday (my luggage arrived this time too!) and have been attempting to settle in ever since. I feel pretty comfortable here now aside from my inability to speak the language and my lack of directional awareness. I'm counting on those two making an appearance hopefully before long.

When I came to visit Madrid in June/July I never got a chance to see the presidential palace so last Tuesday I set about trying to remedy that. The palace is basically in the south/center of the city so I was able to see quite a bit of the sights as I walked by.

My first sight:

Oh, yeah. Right back at home in the midwest. I'm not sure why this state in particular made such an impression as to get a restaurant chain named after it, but I'll take it (I've also seen an Iowa Restaurant). They're everywhere too. We went grocery shopping last night and I swear we passed two in two blocks. Ilan tells me you can find American pancakes at Nebraska so I'm sure I'll be making an appearance before long.

Anyway, back to my palace quest. My map showed that the palace was just next to a park that Ilan had taken me before so I figured I'd retrace my steps and I'd be there.

No such luck. This picture illustrates just how far I was from my desired destination (It also reflects my genius at taking a picture of the cathedral, NOT the palace. The palace is the huge building on the left I cut out of the picture, thinking that the cathedral was the palace. Rookie mistake.) Turns out there's a giant hill and neighborhood in between the park and the palace. Thanks, map. It made it look so easy.

Forty-five minutes later I finally found my way to the palace as the sun was going down. This time I took a picture of the real palace, also known as the Palacio Real ("real" means royal in Spanish).