Madrid

Sunday the 20th of September:

We arrived in Madrid via AIFS Bus and got dropped off in the city center. I was in Madrid for about 30 minutes when we flew in 4 weeks ago from London, but not the actual city part.

We arrived with only an address of our reserved hostel, and immediately went in search of a map. I felt as if we were on.. what's that show called? Oh yeah. "the Amazing Race" in that we were also dropped off with 3 others from our AIFS group who were staying in a different hotel, flying to a different city. Anyway, we separated into two directions, piled with our luggage (one bulging backpack a piece), and sort of sped walked in search of information. The METRO failed us, but the Mall Tourism Office did not.

We headed off in the direction Kelley told us was correct, and about 20 minutes later discovered it was the wrong direction. (This is when I established a new group rule: always double check each other's instincts). We were all very toasty and exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of our search.

We found our hostel, located to the left of a star bucks building in a sort of narrow building three stories up. After buzzing in to open the door, we ascended the millions of stairs, panting, regretting that we were afraid of the sketchy elevator.

It was my first independent Hostel experience. I was a bit aprehensive, I must admit, especially when I saw how small the facility was. It was an interesting process, passports required at the desk, only cash accepted, shared bathroom and kitchen. Our room slept about 14 people and was co-ed. We put our things in a locker, at the expense of 2 Euro. (Luckily my laptop Quodlibet was small enough to fit in it, aww).

Picture of different kinds of moneys, displayed on Hostel wall:

The first night, we went out to dinner (mexican food! we finally found some! it was awful! but it somewhat sated our craving. We found the restaurant serendipitously because we decided to follow an accordian player around the city in case he was going to a gig. He lead us to a McDonalds where he played at people until they paid him to go away. We didn't want to go to McDonalds, but there was the Mexican restaurant right next door, and Kelley was very disappointed in the spiciness scale of her food. (not at all spicey.)

Also, we wanted to go see an opera, but no tickets were available. There was, however, a Spanish version of Spamalot... which we almost saw. We decided the puns wouldn't be funny enough in Spanish.

.

After a late night out (getting back around 3am.... ugh.. ) we didn't really sleep in. We were up for our included "breakfast" consisting of Toast and coffee. Spainiards. Sigh. There was a Turkish man in the Hostel too.. (amongst many others) and I found him in the kitchen looking through the fridge. I said "hola" not knowing he was Turkishand he looked at me and said ... "I am looking for the Cheese." Except "cheese" was pronounced "ches" and I was very confused, because I thought he didn't know english and so i only spoke Spanish at him until it was figured out that he did, in fact, know English. He is looking to get a job in New York eventually (or did I make that up? so many new people ...) and he is going to send me his research he's done in foreign studies (maybe).

Anyway, in Madrid, we were trying to be historical tourists and go to museums but they were all closed because it was Monday. (ughh. poor planning!). So we went to this lovely lovely park, called "Parque de Retiro" i think, and we went in a boat around the lake.

That day, we also discovered that we would probably not make our train trip to Venice, and we discovered that there was no way to refund and rebuy. I was all for trying to get a later ticket, but it was eventually decided that it would be too expensive, so we CANCELLED all of our hostel reservations with the new plan that we would play everything by ear. IF we could BY THE SMALLEST CHANCE make our train ride (which was unlikely because we had 1 hour 20 minutes to get off the plane, go through boarder check, get on a bus that leaves every 20 minutes which takes an hour to get to the station.... ) then we would play it by ear. As soon as we knew for certain that we would not make it to Venice (Ie, our flight being delayed, us getting to the airport to find that we missed the first bus to leave...) then we would directly make reservations in a place in Milan.

Stress levels and Disappointment levels were very high, and we needed some serious down time. So I decided to go back to the park to read, and Kelley and Ester decided to go shopping. Kelley and Esther got separated while shopping, and didn't make it to the meeting spot until 45 minutes after they said they would. I was very worried and was only consoled by the fact that there were very charming British people to talk to. (i think i wrote about this already.)

Anyway, this is where I waited :( also in the Park)

That night, we went out for dinner in a Turkish Restaurant and I ate hummus and bread. It was glorious. Then on the way back, I had my wallet stolen out of my pocket, immediately after I had taken it out to give some money to a cellist playing on the street. -__-. Panic ensued, of course, but I dealt with it in such a way that I was called "admirable" by my friends. It mostly involved me stealing Esther's phone, calling my parents so that they could cancel my credit card and forward me money via Western Union. I was up until 3 in the morning that night as well, even though we fully intended to go to sleep early that day. Also, I was still voiceless.. not the best of days.

The next morning, I went in search of the Western Union bank... walked about 6 blocks to the addressed building and walked up 5 stories only to find (after a lot of awkward Spanish) that it had moved to an unknown place. -__-. So I went next door to an exchange place to get cash from my travelors checks, just so I could pay for food in Italy in case I couldn't find a WU. It was a dreadfully stressful morning, in that I knew I had to figure things out before my 4:00 flight to Italy. Luckily we had an afternoon flight! After I had given up and started walking back to the Hostel to check out and look online for a WU, I found one only a block away from our Hostel. Silly me. It all worked out, (thank you padres.)

In the afternoon we went to the not-the-prada museum and we sped walked throughout the 3 stories of art. I liked the Flemish portraits the best. I was surprised by this fact.

We then METROd to the airport (were surprised to find out how cheap the tickets were, cursing the hours and hours spent walking across town) and had 3 hours to spare in the airport.

Es todo para Madrid :P

PHOTO ALBUM UPDATED: Access HERE or go to the right of the page and find it amongst other albums.