I guess I should further explain and describe Madrid because as crazy as the weekend was, I did actually have a lot of fun and enjoyed Madrid.
I'll start off with Thursday morning. Kate and I both weren't feeling well all day. On Wednesday I knew a cold was coming on but I wasn't able to prevent it, so I spent Thursday suffering through a bad cold and not being able to breathe out of my nose. I volunteered after class on Thursday afternoon and had a lot of fun decorating the room. The only bad part was I got back to QM later than I planned and therefore had a lot of stuff do to before we left for the airport at 5:30. For some reason my boarding pass wasn't printing out and so we decided we would just handle it at the airport.
When I got to the airport, Ryanair told me I'd have to pay 40 pounds to get my boarding pass because I didn't come to the airport with it because I couldn't get it printed. After paying the 40 pounds for the boarding pass and standing in line to three really stupid, ignorant, annoying American girls (they're the kind of people that give us a bad name), we got on the plane and had the most awful flight ever. I'm never flying Ryanair again. Not only was I angry at them for making me pay more, but the flight was uncomfortable and annoying and their bright yellow color scheme is horrendous.
I should mention that I went to Madrid Thursday Nov 18-Sat Nov 20 with Kate, Erin, Colin, Daphne, Sammie and Peter.
We got to Madrid around midnight and Sammie and I talked to some cab drivers in Spanish and got us a cab to our hostel for 30 euro. We got to our hostel and all picked beds in the freezing cold room. We had an eight person room and since there were seven of us we had the room to ourselves, including our own bathroom. We decided we wanted to check out the night life in the city since Spain is supposed to do things much later than other cities.
We got ready and went out around 1am. We walked a few blocks to Puerta del Sol where there were a lot of club promoters trying to get people to come to their clubs. We ended up going into an Irish pub that had hip/hop music, it was quite strange. Also there were a lot of people smoking inside, which is something much different than at home and even than in London. After about 20 minutes we left because we weren't having much fun and continued to walk around.
As we walked toward Gran Via, the main street in Madrid, we walked up this street that had a lot of shops but also had loads of hookers lining the street. It was a pedestrian street that only had stores and restaurants that apparently turned into hooker central at night. I've never really seen a hooker before that I definitely knew was a hooker until that (I live under a rock and in a bubble, remember?). Anyway, Erin and I were pretty amazed by all the hookers.
We walked to Gran Via and stayed on that street for a while. As we were walking we saw the cleaning people washing off the sidewalks and mopping up the garbage. That was a little odd, but I guess it's a good way to clean up all of the trash. We continued to wander down Gran Via and some other streets but we were all really tired and went back to the hostel and to bed.
Friday morning we woke up around 11:30 and took turns getting showers before we went sight seeing. Vijay had made us a list of things to see because he studied in Madrid one summer or something and knew the city pretty well. We started off at Puerta del Sol where we got delicious churros. Mine was filled with chocolate and it was sooo gooooood. I do have to say that the churro I had from the Brazilian stand in Camden was better though. In any case chocolate for breakfast is always a good idea.
After we ate our breakfast went to Plaza de Espana. Plaza de Espana was pretty awesome because there was a market there with a lot of jewelery and stuff to buy and there were also Spanish dancers on stage. We watched the dancers and ate yummy chicken and beef tacos from the nearby stand.
Fountain in Plaza de Espana
Spanish dancers
Templo de Debod
We wandered toward Jardines de Sabatini and found some tiny palm trees that were only five feet tall. There were like four fountains in Jardines de Sabatini and a lot of really weird plants. We saw the cutest dogs running around and playing with each other.
We walked through the gardens for a little while and took a bunch of pictures, some of them quite strange (like the girls hiding underneath a plant?), and then walked to the front of Palacio Real. Palacio Real is the official residence of the King of Spain, although he doesn't live there. Generally it's open to the public unless there is a state ceremony there. Palacio Real was gigantic! It was so much bigger than Buckingham Palace and I liked the architecture more. There wasn't really any greenery, so that made it less pretty and it was also wasn't guarded as much. There weren't any gates to get in, only guards standing by the doors.
After the Palace, we walked down the street to Almudena Catedral, a Catholic Cathedral in Madrid. Construction on the Cathedral began in 1879 but it stopped a few times for various reasons, like the Spanish Civil War. It was completed in 1993 and is in Gothic revival style architecture. It's really beautiful from the inside and outside, the architecture is sweet. It was set up in a cross shape and it was extremely colorful and extravagant inside. It was one of the most colorful churches I've been in. On the scale of famous, beautiful churches I've been to it was on the small side. But if I list the churches in that category (St. Paul's in London, St. Peter's in Vatican City, St. Patrick's in Dublin) it would be difficult for every famous church to be that large. Oh and it only cost 1 euro to get in, which was great for everyone.
We left the Church and headed toward Plaza de San Francisco. That's where the next thing in the series of unfortunate events that was the Madrid weekend occurred. Peter was looking through his pictures and accidentally deleted all of them, including our picture with the Spanish dancer man and the perfectly self timed picture of us on the hill near Templo de Debod. Those were pretty epic pictures and it was a sad walk to the next plaza.
We arrived at Plaza de San Francisco and looked at the buildings in the area for less than five minutes before we decided that we were done with architecture and just wanted food. Crossing the street was a little difficult, we ran through the round-a-bout, but Spanish drivers are much friendlier than London drivers and so cars stopped for us.
We walked up Calle de Toledo and saw a lot of cool things like a Spanish grade school, a huge candy shop, a lot of yummy looking restaurants that were closed because it was 5pm (too early for dinner in Spain), and another Museo de Jamon. Eventually we found a place to eat. Sammie and I tried to decipher the menu and Colin and Peter helped out with that too. We ordered a pitcher of Sangria for the table and all basically ordered random things. I ordered a tortilla espana (or something like that) and it turned out to be this pizza shaped thing made out of potatoes, onions and something else. It wasn't bad, but I ended up switching with Daphne because whatever she ordered had sea food in it and she's allergic. I'm not really sure what anyone else ate, except for that Peter, Sammie and Erin ordered fish and they got actual fish on their plate. I had to cut the heads off for Sammie and Erin because they couldn't eat it and look at it. Everyone else ordered the three course meal thing that they had for 9 euro so they all shared with me a little bit. The best part of the meal was the Sangria, it was really good.
After dinner we walked up the street some more to Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor was really big and what I thought of when I thought of a traditional Spanish plaza. There were a lot of souvenir shops, restaurants, and clothing stores. They had a Christmas tree set up in the middle and a lot of Christmas lights up, but none of them were turned on. We walked around, bought souvenirs, stopped in this really unique jewelery store where Kate and I each bought something then got two more things for free, and walked to the hostel. We were all tired, it was a long day with a lot of walking.
When we got back to the hostel it was only about 7pm so we decided we were going to take a nap before going back out for the night. We all froze in our beds and napped for two hours and started getting ready around 9:30pm.
Colin's cousin who is studying in Madrid and her friend came over to our hostel to hang out with us and possibly take us out somewhere. After that didn't really work out eventually we decided to just stick to our original plan and go to El Kapital. Supposedly it's the biggest night club in Western Europe (I've heard that from multiple people), but it's definitely the biggest club that I've ever been to. It wasn't too far from our hostel and it opened at midnight; we got there around 12:30. Next unfortunate event: we all stood in line and showed them our IDs, but for some reason Colin didn't have his and they wouldn't let him in. We all already paid to get in so we didn't really want to leave, but the bouncers wouldn't let any of us stand at the door and talk to him to tell him where the key was for the hostel safe was (which is where our passports were locked up in). So Colin had to go back to the hostel alone, almost got mugged, and he went to sleep.
Kapital was really sweet. There were seven floors with different furniture and music on every floor. The first floor had a huge stage with dancers on it and a giant dance floor. The second and third floors were partially open so you could see the first floor dance floor. The fourth floor was red and had white furniture and there was a karaoke stage. Kate and Peter attempted karaoke and I eventually got up too, but it kind of failed and we went to a different floor. The sixth floor was green and had these cool white couches and pretty good music, but there weren't many people there. The top floor was crazzzzyy. It had a bunch of round tables covered in white table cloths and big huge white curtains draping from the ceiling to the floor. There were large white chairs and couches all along the sides of the walls. That floor would have been nice if you wanted to relax, but we were all running around like the place was a jungle gym so we didn't stay there very long.
me, Erin, Kate, Daphne and Sammie
I have to finish a paper I'll finish updating this later this afternoon and add pictures. Stay tuned. The worst is yet to come, but don't worry we're all safe.
M
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