Madrid!

I definitely had a busy, long weekend in Madrid with lots of stories like I promised.

So we left late on Thursday and got to Madrid around midnight. We went straight to our hostal and the whole time I'm freaking out internally thinking, "omg, I can't believe that I am staying at a hostal." I just never saw myself staying in one. I always thought of them as really creepy, sketchy, and dirty. This one however was not at all. It cost 20 euros a night and it was sooo clean and so nice. It was almost ridiculous, but I liked it. Since it was late by the time we got to our hostal and "checked-in" (if you can really call it that...) we were pretty tired and decided we would rather have a good nights rest so we can get up at a decent hour and start seeing the city. The next morning we got going around 10 and went to this cafe muy barato (very cheap, as the lady who owned our hostal described it) and had breakfast. It was delicious. I was not really in the mood for just another pastry and coffee and they had this ham cheese and egg sandwich that they made fresh when you ordered it. It definitely hit the spot. I was loving it. After breakfast we headed off to the Prado Museum. Its the most famous museum in Spain. It had a ton of religious art. I'd say about half of the paintings were about Jesus' life. It was really amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The museum was HUGE! We were there for like three hours and probably only saw half of it. After we left we were all feeling hungry and wanted to eat lunch before we continued our tour. We found this little Mexican restaurant that was sooo good! We all "bonded" and "visited" (visited is for my dad, mom you know what I'm talking about) it was definitely a good lunch with good food and margaritas. After lunch, we made our way to the Palace Real, the Royal Spanish palace. It was out of this world. I would definitely say that it is the most unique, lavish palace I have been to or even see pictures of. There was so much detail and intricate designs that one could only stand there and be amazed. The coolest room was the one with the King's throne. It is beyond description. The tour took about 45 minutes, you could only see like 1/4 of the rooms, if even that. We then went back to the hostal to take a nap before we went out for a traditional Spanish meal - Tapas! One of the girls I was with had a friend studying abroad in Madrid so we met up with him and he took us to this really authentic Spanish tapas place. For those of you who don't know what tapas are, here's a little lesson - Tapas are just like appetizers. There are many different kinds and it usually consists of something on top of a piece of bread. The name comes from back in the day because at parties people would walk around and socialize with their wine in one hand and a plate of appetizers on top of their drinks. They did this because they would be socializing as I said, and would want one hand free to greet people or whatever. So anyways, some of the tapas we tried (and to save my fingers, I would usually say "save my breath," just know these were all on top of a piece of like french or baguette bread) were a piece of spicy sausage, blackberry jelly with cheese, a red pepper stuffed with cheese, rice and beans, ham and cheese, shrimp with this cheese stuff and the list could go on but those are the ones that I can remember right now. So we just stood around this crowded, small tapas bar, acting like a native. Definitely one of the cooler things that I have done since being here. I felt like I was really experiencing the true, Spanish culture. After that we went back to one of the main plazas in Madrid. Its so funny to see the difference in cultures. The plaza was crowed with all ages of people, grandparents, parents, people my age and children, and it was around midnight! Everyone was just walking around, conversing, hanging out. So different from the US. We found a little bar and went in and hung out for a while and then decided to head back to our hostal. Our hostal was only like a ten minute, if even that, walk from the plaza we were in. It was located in a really nice location. The next day we slept in because we didn't really have all that much to do. We got up and decided we wanted to have a picnic in the park, with sandwiches and a bottle of wine. So, we get ready and decide not to eat anything before we have our picnic. We walk to the park, it was like a 20 minute walk. We had decided to wait until we get closer to the park to buy food so we wouldn't have to carry it all the way there, bad idea. When we got to the park we noticed there was no grocery store and hardly any cafes around. And then it was siesta time so the things that were around were closed. We were all starving and getting pretty cranky. Five, hungry, tired girls is never a good combination. (I think we learned that from now on we need to travel with guys to relieve the stress of being with only girls 24/7) So we walked back to a busier area and searched for what seemed like 5 days for food. We finally decided that Madrid didn't have any grocery stores and we were too hungry to continue searching for one. Then we had to decide on a restaurant. Another difficult thing to do with five starving, cranky girls. Finally we just chose one. It was weird. It was a Cuban restaurant. They had a special where you could get a starter, main course, and desert. I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered, apparently I was in some weird state of mind due to my life threatening hunger. For starters, I ordered cold tomato soup with garlic, oil and vinegar, please someone tell me why I ever thought that was a good idea? Then for my main course I ordered scrambled eggs with vegetables. Once again, for lunch, good idea? Probably not. It didn't taste bad it was just a weird lunch. Finally desert, can't go wrong with this right?! They had helado (ice cream). That's what I tried to order but oh wait, they were out. Of course they were. So I had natailla, I guess it was just like a vanilla custard. It was really good actually. But it was only desert and it was small... I know, fatty right? But I was still hungry because I didn't eat my starter and my scrambled eggs were just weird for lunch. So we left that restaurant and went back to the park and walked around for a while. It was a HUGE park. It reminded me of Central Park. It was very pretty minus the fact that it was sooo cold out! Madrid is like 10 degrees cooler than Barcelona, at least. So after a while we decided to leave, some of the girls went shopping, but I was sick of spending money (I know right?! You never thought that I would be sick of spending money!) so one of the girls and I just went and got some cafe con leche and churros with chocolate. We stumbled upon a demonstration in one of the main plazas. I was a little freaked out, like there was going to be a bomb going off any minute, but it was cool to see a Spanish demonstration. We then went back to the room and took a nap until the other girls got back. I think by this point we were all wishing we would have just flown out on Saturday night instead of early this morning. Our trip was getting a little long. The other girls got back and we decided to find a nice restaurant to eat dinner at and just chill out. So we walked for a while, and couldn't find one that we could all agree on. Imagine that. So we knew there was a Mexican restaurant, yes Mexican again, right across the street from our hostal. We went there and had another amazing meal and good Margaritas. I guess you can't go wrong with Mexican food. We went back to the hostal around 1, because in Spain you don't eat dinner before 10, especially not on the weekends. We had to get up this morning at 5 to get to the airport in time. So we had like three hours of sleep, great. But the flight to Madrid is less than an hour and we didn't check any bags and so we didn't have to wait in baggage claim. We came back to the apartment and all just passed out.

Madrid was fun, but I am partial to Barcelona. Barcelona just seems friendlier and more unique than Madrid. I still had a good time and I'm glad I went but it feels good to be back in Barcelona.

I'm the first one up, of course. But its nice because I wanted to catch you up on my weekend. Today I have so many things to do. Or at least I feel like I do. I have like two hours of Spanish homework. Yuck. Oh well, gotta do it. In a little bit, one of my room mates and I are going to go grocery shopping and I really want to buy stuff to make chocolate chip cookies, for some reason I have been craving to bake them, I don't even really want to eat them, but I know I will. Then I want to get a run in sometime today and I also have some things to fill out for Butler so I can have an internship in the fall. Then I'll have the rest of the day to chill out and get things ready for this week... So I miss you all, and I'm sorry this was soo long, but hopefully it makes up for the really short one before it.

-Adios.

walking in Madrid

Prado Museum

The Palace

Tapas

The Park