madrid

 Things people do for money on this continent...

 Geographical center of Madrid 

 The oldest restaurant in the world

 Where the nuns hand you your cookies

I can’t believe two weeks ago today I was in Madrid. Time seriously flies. I’m glad I wrote all of this in a journal or else who knows what I’d accurately remember. Adventures are as follows…

March 18

We took an early morning train to Madrid from Barcelona. The scenery was beautiful: I saw coastlines, mountains and rivers. This was the nicest train I’ve been on in my life with features such being high-speed, smooth, having comfortable chairs, complimentary headphones…the whole shebang. The moment we arrived in Madrid, I immediately used my Spanish to ask how to get to the Metro. Once we figured it out and got off at the Sol stop, we quickly found our hostel and were pleasantly surprised by now nice it was. Marissa and I immediately dropped our bags and headed out for exploration, starting at Gran Via, Madrid’s big, touristy street. As we were walking between the tall, building-lined street, all we could think about was food.

Marissa and I took a chance and went to a random, small outdoor café. I got Sangria and our waiter brought us complimentary meat on bread slices and green olives. An update on my taste bud maturity: I officially like green olives! I’ve been waiting years for this. Next came the meal: French fries topped with one-two broken eggs (sunny side up), and topped with Iberian ham. It was so, so good. For dessert we chose fresh Mango sorbet with actual mango chunks in it. This meal was probably one of the best I’ve had in Europe and I don’t know if it’s because I was in beautiful Madrid, because I was basking in the warm sun, because I was starving or because it was actually very delicious. Probably some cross in between. After our nearly two-hour lunch, we did a little grocery shopping for small things like eggs, salmon and salad to make in the hostel. A hot shower and bed completed the day perfectly.

March 19

This day we woke up slowly. The beds were pretty uncomfortable in this hostel and I was freezing the night before, but you can’t get much better than what we had for 8 Euro a night. Around 2 pm, Marissa and I went to find Plaza Mayor for a free walking tour of Madrid. We managed to get there without a problem and then the tour was broken into subgroups of Spanish and English. We went with English obviously and were the only Americans in our group. Europe has shows and events like “American Idol” but not American, and when I would ask what these things were specifically, the whole group would look at me funny. They understood my confusion once they realized I was American and were very friendly in explaining things. I never realized how isolated the United States is from basically everything else in the world until I moved here. The next thing he showed us was meat and candy shops throughout the city that had been in existence for over 100 years. Any shop with a plaque at the foot of the door means that it has been existence for more than that amount of time, which I found impressive and interesting! One of these candy shops was a Royal Bakery—the only Royal business still around. We got to see the oldest restaurant in the entire world where Spanish artist Goya used to do dishes and Hemmingway would “get smashed” as our tour guide explained. After, we saw a monastery where nuns bake you cookies! It’s kind of like the secret bakery in Florence in the sense that it’s totally underground, but those treats are the best kind. We tried to get cookies from the monastery, but it happened to be closed that day and couldn’t. I got a picture and know where it’s at for next time! We saw the geographical center of the city, Palace Real and the statue that Galileo helped engineer to make hollow and stand. It was a great tour, and even in the cold, pouring rain that we experienced most of the day, I was so happy to be there. Madrid is beautiful.

After the tour, Marissa and I went to La Mayor Cerveceria, a bar pointed out on the tour. It had over 80 kinds of craft beer, but we just got some tapas. I got three: a slice of bread with a cream cheese spread and thick pepperoni slices stuck in it; a slice of bread with a tuna salad topped on it; and a pickle sliced down the middle, stuffed with an anchovy and sweet pepper. The man who owned the place didn’t speak a lick of English, which was ditto with most of Madrid. Florence and Barcelona are very touristy, and thus, have a lot of English-speakers working the shops and restaurants. Madrid had almost none of that which forced me to practice my Spanish.

Post tapas round one, we headed home and got ready for more tapas with the hostel group! Friends I made that night include a couple from Mexico that spoke only Spanish, Nicole from Australia, Cyrus from Harlem, NY, and Bill from Boston (but born in Atlanta). We all enjoyed getting to know each other and hearing each other’s stories—most everyone was traveling alone. They were looking for adventure, new people, a break from school, whatever. We had bread, mushroom and garlic tapas, calamari, and potatoes smothered in hot sauce. Between the lot of us it was 7 euro each…not too bad! To finish the night and welcome the next morning, we went to a discoteca for dancing and got churros.

March 20

I woke up surviving off 4 hours of sleep because I figured I could sleep on the plane later that day. Nicole, Marissa and I went to a bakery and then to the big park in Madrid. It’s so fun hanging out with an Austrailian! It’s interesting to hear the differences just in speech itself. They call Mcdonald’s “Mackers”. I cut her off mid-sentence to ask what that was, and she started cracking up because “it sounded weird with my accent”. It’s funny how I think she has an accent, but she thinks I have one. The park was beautiful, but we couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked because the trains were supposedly on strike, which means it could have taken any amount of time to actually get back to the airport. We left at 2 pm for a 6 pm flight. Adios Espana!