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*Liam's Wild Ride*

As on most of my travelling days, the skies were a mix of bright and dark. Sometimes I just felt like gettin' goin', and other times you just feel like sleeping. You can criss-cross to many tourist sights within a day or two if you don't spend too much time in the museums. This is the Oriental Garden outside the Palacio Real.

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There are nice buildings in the surrounding area, and a large church. I can't remember the names right now because I forgot my travel book.

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These doors to the church are at least 12 feet tall, and it's quite intimidating up close. The craftmanship is beautiful. . . . but I hear that Italy is the place to go for more like this.

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Made it across the tourist/shipping area to a huge park in the city center. It's a great place to walk around and relax and there are cafe's strewn throughout so you can stop and have a cafe. There's also a lake in the middle and you can rent boats to cruise around on.

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Here's a nice place outside the park. Such a contrast with the Coke truck. Although Madrid is definitely a large city, it reminds me of L.A. a little bit in that it's really spread out. The sprawl makes it hard to see a lot without a vehicle, but the subway system is pretty good. The downtown/shopping area didn't impress me much but some of the restaurants were outstanding. If you're in the area, check out El Armario. Great food, good prices, and ambiance.

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A shot from the other side of the Palace. There was another little lake filled with ducks, geese, and even a couple swans. The best part was when a little Jack Russell ran through the bars of the fence and promptly got the smack-down from an angry goose, wings outspread and hissing.

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I only had a few days to do the tourist thing, and I was fighting a cold for part of the time. The weather wasn't helping, but I survived by drinking lots of pacharan. Early one morning I headed towards the outskirts of the city to meet up with a friend of mine name Javier. He lived a ways out of the city so I took the subway to it's final stop to meet him. While I waited at a bus stop the sky looked grim and the cloud cover wouldn't burn off for several hours.

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The bus stop happenned to be right outside of a large Bull-fighting arena. I don't really condone it, but who am I to talk?

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We drove for about forty five minutes listening to techno (wake-up music for Javi) and chain-smoking. We finally arrived at a very non-descript building in an industrial area. The doors were bullet-proof, and heavy!

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The only thing that tipped me off that this building was special was this truck parked in the alley on the side. What's that sticker in the window say?

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Upon entering the warehouse I immediately noticed all these shipping containers. We all know what fits inside of these, right?

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Welcome to the home of D'antin's racing headquarters in Madrid! It's a large warehouse building that is split into various storage and work rooms. On the main floor there are the Spanish CEV bikes in one room, and another large room dedicated to the MotoGP effort. Upstairs is mostly storage and was filled with all manner of things.

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Lots of old leathers upstairs. The stories these suits could tell!

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Another room was filled with almost a hundred magnesium wheels, and pricey parts were everywhere. Here's some of the old scooter and bikes that were tooked away in a corner under the stairs. I see an old Bultaco and a Montessa in there, somewhere :)

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