I just got back from Madrid a couple of hours ago and I am very exhausted! The weekend was awesome but went by too quickly. I really enjoyed Madrid, besides the weather. It snowed for about twenty minutes....which was pretty depressing considering I was hoping I wouldn't see snow the entire semester! Madrid definitely reminded me more of a city that we would find in the US, it was huge, a lot of traffic and very busy. There was so much happened and despite only being there for two days, I still had the opportunity to do a lot.
Vale, so first I'm going to start from the beginning...
On Thursday I found out that my friend Nick was going to be on the same flight as me. Neither of us really knew where our hostel was located, so we had planned to meet up and get dinner one night. We took the RENFE to the airport, which was nice because it was free with my metro pass. It only took about 20 minutes to get there and it was surprisingly easy. It's definitely great to know for future trips. So our flight was delayed about an hour or so, and we finally boarded. It turned out that one of Nick's friends from home, who is also studying in Barcelona was sitting next to me on the plane. Nick switched with the woman in the middle of us, and all three of us were in the same row! The flight took about an hour, and seemed even less because we were all talking the entire time. After we got to the airport in Madrid we bout metro passes and tried to figure out where the hostel was located. We met a German man named Nils who spoke English. He currently studies in Barcelona but was visiting a friend in Madrid. We were going to all meet up with him and go to the Real Madrid futbol game Saturday night, but it ended up not happening. So we all split up our separate ways to find the hostel.
After I got to my hostel I called Nick to see where they were staying. It turns out that him and all of his friends ended up being in the same hostel!! It was absolutely insane to find that out, and I actually ended up staying in their room because they had an extra bed and the people at the front desk let me switch. The hostel seemed a little bit shady at first, but ended up not being too bad. It was just a small room with four beds, a table, a bathroom, and a shower. The bathroom had an enormous heater in it and literally burned you if you touched it. After we all got settled in we went out to a local bar and met up with some of the girls that arrived earlier. The bar was awesome and was filled with locals who were really cool. We got back to the hostel late and then went to bed and wanted to get up early to eat the "breakfast" the hostel includes in the morning and also walk around and see some of the city.
Picture of the outside of our hostel, which had an excellent location off of Gran Via..
The next morning we got up and ate breakfast and some Italians joined us at our table. They were from Sardinia, and were literally there with 15 people or so. I love how Italians travel with a huge group of people. I was able to speak Italian with them which was fun. It was pretty basic talking, but they spoke Spanish so it was easy to communicate with them since the two languages are so similar. I talked to them about Italy and studying in Europe and they were just great people!
This is a picture looking outside of our room:
The first thing we did was go to the Museo del Prado, which contains the world's greatest assembly of Spanish painting--especially the works by Velazquez and Goya. As I've mentioned before, art really isn't my thing but this museum truly was amazing. It was definitely a bit overwhelming and after three hours there I felt like my head was spinning. The exhibits are arranged in schools, and the oldest works are displayed on the lowest floors. I was unable to take pictures in the museum and they were very strict on making sure that nobody did. But the following picture is of the outside of the museum and also one of the paintings I got from the internet, just to give a visual of what I saw.
These pictures are outside the museum, and then the statues of Velazquez and Goya which are right outside of the Prado museum as well.
And these next two are just a couple of the paintings inside of the museum..
This next building is where Franco's police force was located..
And this next picture is called Kilometre Xero, the centre of Spain's road network, in Puerta del Sol.
I went to Plaza Mayor after that, which basically forms a rectangular square. This square is very Castilian and many activities used to go on such as bullfights, executions, and pageants.
Since Madrid is the capital it is obviously very passionate about its culture. There are literally flags on every corner, in front of every building...seriously everywhere...
One huge difference that I noticed between Madrid, and Cataluña is how much easier it is to understand Castilians. Catalans have a much stronger accent, and it is often difficult to understand them. The Castilians speak clearly and are very easy to understand. It also was nice that everything is in Castilian, and not Catalan.
After Plaza Mayor we wandered around towards Plaza de Oriente which was relatively close. This next picture is me outside the state of Felipe IV.
We ate some lunch at a pretty fancy restaurant, but it was menu del dia, so it was pretty cheap for a full course meal. This next picture is arroz con leche, which is a popular dessert that I ordered. It's funny because in my last Spanish class we studied a song called "Arroz con Leche" which is basically a children's song in Mexico. So I had to order it, and it was delicious! I'm not sure what is exactly in it other than milk, rice, sugar, cinnamon but I will definitely eat it again.
After that we went back to the hostel to shower and relax before dinner. We all went to a local restaurant and had some pizza for dinner. It was actually pretty good and we had the entire basement to ourselves, which was pretty cool. Here are a couple pictures of the group that I was with during my trip to Madrid:
After dinner we all kind of split up. All of us guys went to a local bar and just relaxed and the girls went somewhere else. A couple of hours later we took the metro to another part of town because Nick had some friends from back home that were studying in Madrid. We just went to a local bar for a while and then headed back to the hostel.
Saturday morning we all got up and got breakfast at a place close to our hostel. Then we split up because I really wanted to see Palacio Real because I heard that it was amazing. Palacio Real is Madrid's lavish Royal Palace and is located on a high bluff over the Rio Manzares. For centuries the palace was occupied by a royal fortress, and was used by the royal family until 1931. Although the present king lives in a more modest Zarzuela Palace outside Madrid, the Royal Palace is still used for state occasions. These first few pictures are outside the palace, where I was allowed to take some pictures. Of course inside we weren't supposed to take any pictures, but I still managed to sneak a few.
View from the back..
Palacio Real...
These next pictures are a couple from inside the palace. The entire palace was literally covered in gold and was something I have never seen before. It must have been amazing to have the privilege of living inside this palace.
The throne room...
The dining room..
After the palace we went to El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. This was another enormous art museum that had so much to see. I really didn't feel like spending hours at another museum so I just saw the most famous paintings there. The museum is filled with amazing works from Picasso, Miro, and others as well.
The most famous single work of the 20th century was Picasso's Guernica. The painting is a Civil War protest commissioned by the Spanish Republic Government in 1937. Picasso found inspiration in the mass air attack on the Basque town of Gernika Lumo by German pilots. This painting was previously in a New York art gallery until 1981 because Picasso didn't want the painting to return to Spain until democracy was re-established.
For dinner we went to a nice restaurant that was also close to our hostel. It wasn't possible for us to get a large table, so we split up into about 4 tables or so for our group. We split 3 appetizers, and 3 entrees between the three of us, and the food was pretty good. We ate chicken, lamb, and salmon for our entree.
This next picture is two out of the three of my roommates in the hostel. To my left is Nick, and Steve is to the right. Jake didn't come out last night because he had a fever and seemed to be getting the flu.
After dinner we went back to the hostel for a little bit before we went out. This next picture is of the group in the girl’s room, which was next to ours.
We went out to a club, Kapital which had 7 floors. It was extremely expensive and nobody bought anything there. But the place was huge and there were some Real Madrid futbol players who I saw on one of the top floors. After getting back pretty late, I had to get up at 6:30 this morning to be at the airport before my 9 AM flight.
I got up on time, paid for my hostel and took the metro to the airport and got there very early. I slept the whole plane ride which was only an hour, and I had the luck of getting the row to myself. Although I enjoyed Madrid, I wish I could have had more time there. I only got to see a very small part of a huge city. Madrid is much different than Barcelona, and I have to say that I like Barcelona much more...especially the weather! I couldn't wait to get home to shower and have breakfast, and get a home cooked meal tonight. I just realized how spoiled I am with my family here, and how lucky I am that I am living here. It definitely is nice not having to pay for my food in Barcelona!
Now I have to get some studying done, will hopefully post sometime this week!
