We're starting our pilgrim adventure in a not very spiritual way...spending a few days in busy crowded Madrid to get over jet lag and get acclimated. Even amidst all the touristic options, there are beautiful historic churches everywhere, reminding us of Spain's religious past.  I'm trying to use my fairly rudimentary Spanish, although it's awkward when you have a perfectly bilingual person standing next to you! After a ten hour layover at JFK and then a 7 hour overnight flight, we were hungry. But I wasn't prepared to find most of the restaurants here featuring so much 'jamon' (ham - seemingly hundreds of types). We ate dinner at "El Museo de Jamon." Joe's says the ham tradition began as a way to assert Christianity against the many Jews and Muslims historically here...but is that true? I'll have to research it.