Let's Siesta

I was so excited all week and looking forward to the week-long break, that I could hardly focus on the final for Marketing Research. I think I did pretty well though, so no worries there. Most of the Montarina emptied out Thursday night as people caught their trains for the week. There were only a few of us left behind, mostly the ones who were waiting for friends and family from the States to arrive.

Amanda and I spent Thursday and Friday relaxing and getting a few things organized while we had the free time in Lugano. We went to the grocery store and made fajitas with Christian for dinner, we have all been craving some good Mexican food. I used the time to catch up on few weeks of blogging, clean my room, and pack.

I left Saturday morning to catch my flight to Madrid, where I spent the first night alone so I could meet Rachel early the next morning. I got to the hostel from the airport without a problem, I had been warned that Spanish trains were riddled with pick-pockets. I checked in and found my bed in my hostel but realized an hour later that I couldn't find the credit card I had paid with. I searched everything and finally decided to send an email to my bank to cancel the card. Literally two seconds after I sent the message, I realized I had not flipped through the pages of my passport, where it was hiding...but it was too late. The bank canceled my card and am still waiting for a new one to arrive. Luckily I had a back up plan, so the rest of the week went smoothly.

I walked around the town a bit and ate dinner at a local cafe. I decided to call it an early evening so I could make it to the airport in time to meet Rachel early the next morning. I left 30 mins behind schedule because, although I woke up every hour throughout the night, my worst nightmare had come true and I slept through my alarm. I quickly packed my things and ran out the door to meet her. Luckily, we had made a multi-tiered meeting plan and she was waiting right where we had agreed. I was sooo excited to see her!

We hugged and grabbed a cup of coffee and a pastry at the airport and starting catching up on all the things we had missed for the past two months. My mom sent a small package, and she brought some sour patch kids and Cheez-Its from home. Amazing! I was craving American junk food!

We took the metro to the International Hostal de las Huertas, which was located in a quaint part of town. We stored our baggage in the luggage room, washed up and hit the ground running with the sightseeing. I was proud of Rachel to get enough sleep on the plane to at least give us a decent day of sightseeing, and she adjusted to the time change very well. We had a very busy first day ahead of us!

We started off without any real plan for what we wanted to accomplish and ended up running into a lot of Madrid's most famous sights on accident. Rachel had a really nice guidebook, so we used it and the information inside to guide our visit. We went directly to the Plaza Mayor for lunch, where we ate tapas at one of the outdoor cafes. She had “Albondigas” meatballs, and I ate a Spanish tortilla, which is more like hash browns than a burrito.

We planned to walk toward the Palacio Real, and we stopped to read about the various plazas and statues we passed on our way. We went inside and guided ourselves through the extravagant rooms of the Spanish Royalty, each room getting more regal than the last. We looked at the collection of guns and armor that were housed in the Palicio and look pictures of the huge cathedral next door.

We spent some time trying to find the royal gardens, and decided to take a nap, as we had observed all of the locals doing on the grass and the park benches. We found a spot that looked like it hadn't been frequented by any of the many unleashed dogs and layed down for a 45 minute siesta.

We both felt refreshed when we woke up, and continued on our walking tour of the capital city by making our way through the Jardines Sabitini to a park that overlooked the city outskirts and the Palacio, where the Templo de Debod (a gift from the Egyptian government) was standing. We decided to make our way back toward the Hostel, which we had ventured very far from by that point, and walked down the Gran Via. We stopped at a cafe for a quick snack, and even conjured up enough energy to walk through the Plaza de Sol on the Calle de Preciados and do some window shopping.

We showered up and Rachel took a quick nap before we got dressed for dinner. We ventured the streets near the hostel, which was located in a pretty central and lively part of town and ran in the Hawaaiian themed bar that Katie had recommended to us. We ordered a “smoking” volcano, which came with an array of snacks. The live birds that were perching behind us made quite a raquet, so we decided to finish our drink and go to the “Vinoteca” across the street where we had Sangria and some small tapas. We went back to the hostel and discovered that we were the only ones in our 4 bed room for the night, so we got a nice sleep.

We woke up early the next morning and found out that the Madrid walking tour had been canceled, so we set out for another day of seeing the sights on our own. We started at the Museo de Reina Sofia, the modern art gallery which houses the Guernica, one of Piccasso's most famous paintings. We were astounded at the size and intensity of the work, and enjoyed seeing the exhibit of the sketches and paintings of Picasso that led up to the final piece. We walked through the rest of the museum and decided to get lunch at a cafe in the same plaza where I tried some churizo.

We made our way back through the city and went back to the shopping district, where we actually went in some of the stores. I bought a nice pair of flat black boots for 15euro (a steal!) We eventually worked our way back to the hostel, showered and changed for dinner. Unfortunately, the hostel informed us that the Flamenco show we had been so excited to see was also canceled, so we made our way into the town for dinner. We stopped at a traditional looking restaurant where I got Paella with shrimp that I had to peel myself. We had some issues with the bill, and the waiter tried to rip us off, but I think I handled it well enough, and at least got him to give me some of my money back.

We went back to the hostel where they had organized some people to go to a few local places and a salsa club. We met a really nice Aussie and hung out with some of the people from the hostel the whole night.

The next morning, Alana (the Aussie), Rachel and I met up in the lobby where we checked out, and decided to spend our last half day in Madrid together. We walked all the way to the Parque de Retiro, where we saw some beautiful fountains and statues, and a nice little pond with some people row boating. We noticed it was one of the only cities that didn't manicure their trees to the point of creating knobs on the end of every branch, and enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful weather.

We ate “jamon y huevos” on toast for lunch, said “adios” and made our way to the train station, where we caught the high velocity train to Barcelona. It was one of the nicest trains I have been on in Europe, so Rachel got a skewed perception of my traveling habits thus far. We caught up on sleep and journaling as we made the 3 hour journey to Barcelona!