Madrid

On Friday, Nick Corey Sarah and I left for Madrid at 7 AM to catch the Gatwick Express for our 10 AM flight. It was really easy to get from school to the airport and we got there in plenty of time. Flying on what they call a "low cost" airline was interesting and Air Comet Airlines was a great deal at 60 pounds round trip plane ticket. It was equivalent to Southwest Airlines in the States. We were all nervous about traveling in Europe for the first time: my mother will be happy to know that I did use the passport carrier underneath my shirt, so yes that was a good idea. We got into Madrid around 1 or 2 and took the Metro to where we staying in central Madrid which is called, Puerto de Sol. We found our youth hostel, which turned out to be really nice and it was beneficial to have peace of mind about leaving our backpacks and passports locked up in a safe place. The four of us stayed in a room with two other girls that actually turned out to be studying in London as well and they went to Syracuse. They had been in Madrid a night earlier than us, and thus were able to tell us where to go to a certain degree.

After our arrival at the hostel, we walked around Sol for a while. We saw the Plaza Mayor, which was just a big open quad sort of thing...apparently they have concerts there in the summer. We saw the major spots that Madrid is known for: Royal Palace of Spain, the Almudena Cathedral, as well as a few cathedrals and various other attractions (drawing a blank right now). Spain is apparently known for "tapas" which are basically appetizers and we ended up eating these a few times throughout the day. We walked around Sol a little more and then went back to the hostel and met up with the girls we met from Syracuse. They took us to a Sangria bar near where we were staying. Sangria is an alcoholic drink that is primarily red wine, sliced fruit, a sweetner, and water- caution: these are very good. The group ended up staying at the bar, while I proceeded to get lost. Picture this: Lost in Madrid after only being there for less than five hours, not being able to speak Spanish, not knowing the name of my own hostel, and also not being able to call the people that you are with. Luckily I was able to tap into my 8th grade Spanish to be able to get a "Donde esta Sol" (Where is Sol) and also it is lucky to me that pointing somewhere is a universal language. I turned out to be lost for only twenty minutes and it also turns out that was not really even that far from where we were staying. I stayed in the hostel trying to figure out how I could get in touch with my friends, In the mean time I met one kid who went to CBC high school in Saint Louis. It was hilarious, and I couldn't believe it. After waiting for that long my friends must have realized that I was lost and one of them came back. We went to sleep.

Saturday morning we woke up all very exhausted. We needed a little bit of breakfast and coffee and we found the local Dunkin' Doughnuts and ordered a coffee and doughnuts- the reason I am telling you this is because apparently ordering just "coffee" means a little tiny tea cup sized cup. So when they gave it to me it was literally the smallest cup I had ever seen. Anyway, Our tour guide (Nick) took us to Retiro Park, which according to Nick is the grandissimo parque en Espana. Look that up on Google. It was a really beautiful park and that is where the Monument to Alfonso XII. (picture with water in front of it) as well as many beautiful trails and fields. We continued to walk around Madrid and ended up going to their train station and basically just trying to be outside as much as possible because it was such a nice day. We walked around Sol a little more and had dinner. At around 7 we left with the Syracuse people that we met and took the Metro to The Real Madrid futbol club stadium, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. We got tickets for 22 Euros each and though we were sitting in the top section had a great time at the game. It was such a massive stadium (75,000) and the fans were really into the game with chants etc during the game. Sport here is different in the it is more focused on the game as opposed to all of the other things that you would see at an American baseball game or American football game. Real Madrid ended up winning. We left with the massive amount of people on the Metro. We were all exhausted and knew that in order to make our 8 AM flight that would mean leaving the hostel at 6 AM when the Metro opened and thus leaving us to stay up all night. We basically just played Euchre and hung out in our hostel. We left and made it to our flight all the most exhausted people ever and everyone was either cranky or slap happy. None of just remember taking off because we all had fallen asleep. After what seemed like forever, we finally made it back to London.

Overall, Madrid set a really high standard for all of the rest of the trips because we just had the best time ever. Though I must say it was very very very beneficial to have someone who spoke Spanish (Nick) and he amazed all of us with his ability to translate. Even after being there for two days I felt like I had picked up some Spanish and was by the end of the trip having Nick help me with simple sentences. It was actually kind of wierd coming back from the fact that I was used to saying "Hola" or "Gracias" to everyone in Spain and thus not used to people here speaking English.

Last night Nick and I went to bed at 6PM and woke up at 1030 AM: Yes that is 16 hours of sleep

At some point I will let you guys know the differences between Madrid and London

Cheers,

Paul

p.s. My friend Steve also has a blog about our trip in London if you would like to hear a different perspective sgmlondon.blogspot.com