The morning of the 31st of August found us on our way to Madrid to meet up with Cherie 'Flamenco' Morgan and celebrate a very special occasion... the 25th anniversary of the day Natalie 'Raelene' Blackledge bounded into this world.

We arrived in Madrid around lunch time and after checking into our very nice and centrally located hostel, we headed off to Parque del Retiro, voted one of the most beautiful parks in Europe, with a pinic of cheeses, salami & chorizo, fresh breads, Milka chocolate philadelphia cream spread, bottle of Baileys, bag of ice and iPad for tunes to celebrate the day. The weather could not have been more perfect as we settled under a tree on the grass and began our birthday feast to the cruisy ballads of Busby Marou.

After several hours of indulgence, we departed for our hostel to shower and meet up with Cherie for evening birthday celebrations! This took us to a very Spanish bar in the hip gay area nearby where the trannie prostitutes frequent, for some cervezas and tintos and free tapas (the way tapas originally began). After a few drinks we called it a night with plenty of things to do ahead with our local tour guide in Cherie!

The next few days were fun filled as Cherie took us to all the cool spots around Madrid. We had amazing chocolate con churros at a famous cafe, huge paella of chicken and rabbit at a cool restaurant, and even sampled the typical Madrid breakfast to accompany a morning coffee; toast with tomato purée spread over it with a dash of oil... simple but amazing!

One other amazing experience we had thanks to Cherie was to see her flamenco class perform their various dances at a performance for family and friends. We basically got to see every kind of flamenco dance you can in spain; with the fans, with the maracas, drums and some weird alternative 'contemporary' routine at the end with young girls in black outfits pretending to be dead and then rising up and flying around the room... hmmm.

We had a great time in Madrid and were very sad to say goodbye to Cherie when we left her at the airport for our next stop; Basel in Switzerland!!