Madrid

As promised, this post is the second installment of the trip series. The other weekend, a group of us girls went to Madrid for two days. We left our various houses around 12:30 am Friday to meet up and walk to the bus station which we did mostly uneventfully. One of the girls hadn’t brought any form of ID, so she had to run back home and get it, but other than that, no mishaps. The bus ride was five hours, meaning we got to Madrid at 6:30 exhausted and sore from trying to sleep on the bus. Fortunately, the excitement of arriving in Madrid and trying to figure out how to get into the center of the city was enough to more or less wake us up. Our original plan had been to walk from the bus stop to the center…which probably would have taken hours. However, our bus driver found us wandering off into the unknown alone early in the morning and took pity on us. He stopped us and gave us directions for how to use the Metro. It actually wasn’t that complicated, and it was less than a euro to ride it, so definitely worthwhile. We were very proud of ourselves for successfully navigating the system and arriving downtown. Most things were still closed at 7:30, except for a…Starbucks. So yeah, we went to Starbucks yet again. We stayed there for quite some time going over our guidebook planning the day, freshening up in the bathroom (we had to use a code on our receipt to get into the bathroom!) and eating breakfast. To give Starbucks a little credit, the drinks are much, much better in Europe than in the US. We all agreed. Then after breakfast we began the search for our hostal. It took us a long time to find it and when we did, we were kicking ourselves because it was, quite literally, right next door to the Starbucks we spent the morning in. However, we couldn’t check in until 2:00, so we left our stuff there in the kitchen and went out to explore Madrid. The first thing we found was the Madrid Plaza de España which has a great big statue of Don Quixote and Sancho complete with horse and donkey. Like I think I’ve said before, Spain is a country of fountains. There are great big beautiful fountains all over the place. So we took pictures in front of the statue (actually, I don’t think I got my picture taken there, bummer) and then moved on. We visited the Puerta del Sol plaza and took pictures of the cows. The cows might need some explaining I guess. Apparently, Madrid is home to some kind of competition which involves decorated cow statues scattered all over the city. Some were quite clever, like the “Revacas” cow (Rebajas are the sales that were going on in January), others were weird, like the naked blue woman with a bull head sitting on the back of a cow (it was so odd we didn’t even feel comfortable looking at it more than once, let alone taking pictures) and some were adorable, like my favorite cow which is my facebook profile picture. This particular cow was designed by a seven year old and was the cutest thing ever. If I could have a cow statue to keep forever, this would be the one. Anyhow, so we visited that plaza, went into Pimkie and H&M but didn’t buy anything, and then wandered around trying to follow our historical tour that was outlined in the tour book. We couldn’t figure it out, so we just bumbled our way to a big famous plaza whose name completely escapes me at the moment. It was home to the flying cow, if that helps. While there we got suckered into buying café con leche or churros con chocolate and eating/drinking at an outside table. Madrid is not like Granada. It was cold. However, the waitress lady charmed us into sitting down and ordering and then we got hit with the bill which was larger both because it was in a famous plaza in Madrid, and because we ate outside which means the waitress had to carry our stuff farther. Anyway, we didn’t blame her too much; she was just good at her job. Alright, this is still Friday, and there’s much more to talk about, so I’m going to step up the pace. We wandered most of Friday until we stumbled upon the absolutely amazing Cathedral and the Palacio Real. We spend about an hour in the Cathedral because it's so cool. Maybe I'll post pictures sometime. Then we split off into several groups. Three of the girls went to check us into the hostal. They discovered upon getting there that our plan to squeeze 8 people into a 6 person room would not work, so two of the girls went and got a room in a hotel. Very posh from what I hear. Probably better than our room with my uber-squeaky bed. Seriously, I did not move at all, and the bed squeaked in time to my breathing. It was that bad. However, otherwise the hostal was pretty good considering the price we paid. Some of the girls went into the Palacio Real right away because they had to use the bathroom but couldn’t until they paid for the tickets. The last girl and I stayed on the steps of the Cathedral eating lunch (oranges and cheese for me) and singing oldies while waiting for the hostal girls to come back and join us in the tour of Palacio Real. It took some time so I hope we didn’t annoy too many people with our singing. Eventually we went into the Palace. The palace was A-mazing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures. There were a bunch of different rooms, all decorated in lavish and gorgeous ways. True, some of them were overdone, but others were just cool. For example, one room was made entirely out of porcelain, another room housed a coin collection with some coins the size of a dinner plate, and the dining room was humongous with the biggest table I’ve ever seen taking up the bulk of it. The armory was also pretty sweet but we had to go through it really quickly because the Palace was closing and they wanted us out. Plus, we were supposed to meet up with one of the girls who had left us after the bus ride to go get her boyfriend from the airport. We met up with them, met the boyfriend who we’d been hearing about so were all eager to meet and then wandered through some parks until evening when we split up again. I went back to the hostal with one other girl to nap and then met up with girl and boyfriend and one other of our group for dinner. We had a good dinner at a nice restaurant and then went back to the hostal where we found some of the girls “pre-gaming” with some vodka mixed with Fanta. Not cool, because if they’d been found out, we could have been kicked out of the hostal. That didn’t happen, fortunately, but still, not a good plan guys! So everyone except one girl and I went out. I am not much of a partier, so I stayed home and went to bed. Wow. That was day one. Day two involved me and two of the girls wandering over to the Prado and waiting around for everyone else to join us but then giving up and going in. We were at the Prado for a long time. It was awesome, but also exhausting. My favorites were probably some from Goya in his “dark era,” the ones by “El Greco” because of the way he used contrasts and colors, and the Velasquez Crucifixion. There was so much there that after about an hour we became kind of numbed. The sense of awe at all these famous paintings wore off and we just walked through all the rooms looking at everything without really getting all that into it anymore. Afterwards we met up with the other girls who had eventually shown up and found a café for lunch. Lunch was disappointing. After all that walking, we were starving but lunch ended up being pretty darn small. A piece of toast with onion and cheese on it cost about 4 euro and then I got a beer for 3 euro. All of which is ridiculous pricing and not enough food. Oh well, we survived. After lunch we went to a really huge park where I got busted for sitting on the grass. Apparently it is illegal to sit on the grass…but only in some parts of the park? Either that or all the couples lying all over each other and the grass were somehow given exceptions. Seriously, I had to avert my maidenly gaze so often that I could hardly look anywhere safely. It was, “Oh look! A pretty bush! Wait, actually don’t look too closely at what’s going on behind the bush. In fact, don’t look at the bush, you’ll regret it.” I didn’t stay long in the park because I was going to meet up with MG who lives in Madrid now for coffee and had to walk back to the Puerta del Sol. It was Carnival week and a Saturday, so it was crazy busy at the plaza. I saw two mariachi bands and a (you’ll never guess!) hammered dulcimer group! The dulcimer group was awesome, the mariachi bands were cute. Anyhow, I met up with MG and had a great time chatting with her about her job and life in Madrid and telling her about Granada and my engagement etc. since I hadn’t seen her in ages. So it was a good time. Eventually she had to go, so I went back to the hostal briefly and then went and sat in the Plaza de España until the girls got done with the Reina Sophia museum and wanted to meet up for dinner. I enjoyed just sitting in the plaza with the fountains all lit up and these two cute little boys running around doing “tricks” and trying to get this skater boy to watch them and be impressed. It was cute. There was some huge carnival parade going on somewhere in the city and I could hear the drums and shouting from where I was. However, we managed to miss most of the carnival stuff going on which was just fine with me since I’ve heard nothing good about it. Some of my crazy friends are in Cádiz for the Carnival this weekend and I can just hope and pray that they’ll come back safely. I went to dinner with three of the girls at Fridays because they wanted some American food. It was pretty good, have to admit. Then we went back the the hostal and chatted until we all fell asleep. The next morning we went home to Granada and we were all glad to be back. It was a good weekend, but exhausting.