“My Best Airport Pick Up Ever!”
My sister recently came to visit from the UK. We picked her up from Madrid airport and whisked her straight up to the mountains to the north of Madrid. Puerto de Navacerrada (station below) was covered with snow…
And the snowy pine-covered slopes were impressive enough (“I didn’t think you meant we were going to proper snowy mountains like this!” my sister said), but nothing beat lunch:
Judiones de la Granja, the biggest beans in Spain, and my sister’s favourite dish. We ate them in a lovely old family-run restaurant just below the station, then worked them off by building a snowman in the woods.
“This is my best airport pick up ever!” she said, “straight up to the top of snowy mountains for bean stew!”
It certainly beat another day in front of the computer 
The beans look nice Ben. Did they send you to sleep like in Asturias!?
Amazingly not! I discovered that a big walk in deep snow afterwards meant they got burnt off very effectively!!
Did the snowman get built? Where’s his photo op?
On the few occasions that we have visitors here in northern California, from the airport we whisk them into San Francisco for a bite at Tartine (www.tartinebakery.com/) and a walk around Dolores Park (sfrecpark.org/destination/mission-dolores-park). You gotta walk off those almond croissants!
WEll if I ever fly in to SF, I know who I’ll be asking to pick me up!!
Bienvendos! You’re always welcome.
I like the snow-covered station; it reminds me of the Persian movie “The Frozen Rose…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOd6_u8FV6E
Margaret from Taiwan