Friday:
Me, Jen, Gwen, Carey, Riley and Greg caught a taxi at 4:30am from campus to the bus stop in Brighton and took a bus to Gatwick airport. It only takes about 40 minutes to get there by bus which is very convenient. We got through to the gate and then took another bus to the airplane. We got to walk up stairs to get on to the airplane, very cool. We flew EasyJet and they don't do assigned seat so it was pretty much a free for all once we got on the plane. Luckily we all got to sit next to each other and didn't have to sit next to some weirdos. There definitely were some on the plane. Once on the plane we taxied for over an hour and finally took off! I basically just slept the entire time until landing in Madrid. To get to the hostel we had to take the metro so we bought 3-day passes and eventually made it to the hostel. Since there were 6 of us we got our own hostel room and didn't have to deal with strangers. NICE. Once settled we decided to go exploring around the city for a bit.
We chilled in a pretty park that had FLOWERS. In FEBRUARY.
Then we continued walking around and got some lunch at this pretty nice but overly expensive restaurant. Greg was pretty adventurous and got some goose liver. Ew. We spent the rest of the day napping back at the hostel, getting dinner and getting good use out of our metro passes. We looked on our metro maps and chose a couple of stops to go and explore. Some were cool but others... not so much. A bit sketchy.
Saturday:
Our hostel conveniently provided breakfast every morning but only from 8am-10am. This food served as motivation for us to get up early. It seemed to work pretty well. After breakfast we ventured to the Prado Museum to look at some cool art.
They had lots of art from all over Europe but most of the museum was dedicated to Spanish art. This was one of the first times that I actually spent a long time looked at and appreciating art. I think my art history class is proving to be quite useful. Some of the paintings were amazing, they looked like photographs. My favorite painting was called El JardÃn de las Delicias by El Bosco:
I could have stared at it for hours. The left side is supposed to be heaven, the middle is what happens when humans give in to temptations and the right is hell.
After the museum we met up with Pat, Olivia and Juliet, other Clarkies studying in Madrid for the semester. Gwen and I went to walk around a park with them while Carey, Greg and Riley went to a bull fight. I contemplated going and I'm glad I didn't because I didn't know that the point of a bull fight is to kill the bull. That would have been a shocker. Even the pictures made me nauseous. Anyways, the park was really beautiful and the sun finally decided to make an appearance. It was much appreciated because we had a rainy week in England last week. Big surprise.
They had these benches with little stationary bike pedals so I snapped a shot of some ladies pedaling away.
There was also a really cool glass building that serves as an art museum during the day.
After our playtime in the park Gwen and I went back to our hostel to nap and a few hours later we all got ready for our traditional Spanish night out. We met up with Juliet, Pat and Olivia and went out to a bar where we got yummy mojitos. We waited until midnight to order drinks because happy hour didn't start until then. Then we made our way over to a club and got our groove on. It was nice to have some different music than what I've been hearing in the clubs here in England. After the club we went over to this churro restaurant. We got churros with chocolate which was literally melted chocolate in a cup. This is their version of hot chocolate and you can buy it just plain and drink it straight.
Once our bellies were full we made it over to the Plaza Mayor to bounce around a bit.
Here's a picture of a bunch of us Clarkies in the plaza!
Eventually we made it back to our hostel and crawled into bed at around 6am, typical Madrid style.
Sunday
Untypical of Madrid style we woke up a few hours later to make it to breakfast by 10am. We walked over to the Reina Sophia art museum and got in for free! Maybe because it was a Sunday? This was the first art museum that I've been able to take pictures in so I took full advantage of that. The museum had a lot of more modern/cubist/surrealist work, a nice contrast to the art we had seen the day before in the Prado. The most famous artists with work in Raina Sophia were Spanish painters Picasso and Dali. Here are some pictures of some of their work and some others that I liked.
Our next stop was a really big flea market called the Rastro. Juliet lives right next to the market so we met her there and looked around for a bit. They had everything from old books and magazines to scarves (of which I bought a few) to chastity belts and even some second hand clothes and antique furniture. Juliet told us that the whole city comes out for the market every Sunday and we could tell, it was really crowded. Afterward we sat out in the sun and ate some tapas.
The one closest to the camera is smoked salmon, the one with the pepper on top is chicken, the pink one is shrimp and the gray spaghetti looking one is eel.
The weather was beautiful in Madrid so we took our afternoon naps in the sun and I even got a bit of color!
After the market we said goodbye to Juliet and headed over to the Sol metro station which is the center of the touristy part of Madrid. We walked around, bought some postcards, listened to street performers and enjoyed the magic of the city.
Joey's Spanish cousin?!
Next we made our way to the Royal Palace which was gorgeous. So much more breathtaking than Buckingham Palace.
That night Gwen, Riley and Greg went to a soccer game but Carey and I didn't want to go so we spent the evening hanging out and then going to this food market for dinner. It was an indoor market that we had stopped at earlier in the day for a fruity snack and they had all these different stands with different kinds of food. We went to the cheese stand and got a bunch of different kinds of tasty cheeses and we got some yummy bread. Then delicious chocolate mousse. It was really tasty and fun to walk around to all the different stands looking at the food and the people. That night we all just hung out in the hostel and enjoyed our last few hours in Madrid. The next morning we left the hostel early and ventured back to the airport where our flight was very delayed and finally made it back to Brighton by a bit past 4 in the afternoon. Overall it was an amazing trip and a great way to kick off my travels around Europe.
Here are some things I noticed about Spain and Spaniards:
-Boys do not have good haircuts. ATTENTION ALL SPANISH MEN: Mullets went out of style a very long time ago and it is not attractive to have one clump of dreads in the back of your head. It's just wrong.
-Spaniards are, in general very short. I fit right in.
-They don't eat fruit or veggies in Spain. If they do serve them, they are covered in oil.
-The two main food groups are ham and seafood. This is a popular restaurant in Madrid with a few different locations around the city. It's called the museum of ham.
-Unlike England, smoking is allowed indoors in Spain. And the Spaniards take full advantage of this, smoking in restaurants, the airport, clubs and bars.
-The metro in Madrid is amazing. It's clean, fast, runs frequently and goes everywhere.
Since the weekend I've been doing homework and relaxing, catching up on a bit of much needed sleep. Tomorrow I'm going with Gwen and Riley to Bristol to spend the weekend with Gwen's grandparents and eat some home cooked food. Should be a relaxing and tasty weekend!
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