At the end of August, I made the rather long trip to Madrid, Spain to attend the IUCR conference. One of the big draws of these triennial meetings, naturally, is getting to visit great locations. Although my hotel was not close to the conference, necessitating a ~40min metro ride each way, it was conveniently located in the heart of Madrid near the Puerta del Sol.
Early on, Debanu and I rode the (very pleasant) bus out to Segovia, where we visited some fantastic old structures. It was also great to see the Spanish countryside along the way, and I was amazed at how similar looking it was to California!
After that most of my touring was done via a combination of the metro and walking. There are a lot of great things to do, see, and experience, and getting around was never a problem. In fact, the only real problem was getting a full stomach, as the Spanish definitely prefer meat to veggies! Still, with some help from a guidebook it was possible to find a few good vegetarian places and avert starvation.