I arrived in Madrid, Spain Thursday morning with Tilden, Anne Byrd and Dave, all of us slightly jet-lagged but definitely psyched to have finally reached our destination. After gathering our luggage, we took the metro from the airport to a stop a few blocks from our first hostel, Equity Hostel Madrid. We checked in, changed and met up with Lindsey and Megan, two girls from our class who had arrived in Madrid the day before. We ate lunch, mixed meats on croissants from el Museo del Jamon, then walked to el Museo Nacional del Prado. If you go to the museum between certain hours, you can get in for free, so we stood in line with a crowd of people waiting to enter the art museum. When we finally made it inside we wandered around for about an hour, checking out paintings by artists such as El Greco, Velasquez, Rafael, Rubens and Goya.
By the time we left we were in desperate need of an energy boost, so we stopped at Starbucks on the way back to the hostel. The Spanish Starbucks menu is kind of different and they have a wider variety of pastries and cakes, but the coffee tastes pretty much the same. We have found that the people working in Starbucks in Spain usually speak english as well.
We returned to our hostel to rest and hang out until it was time to change and go out once again. It was pouring rain when we left to meet Lindsey and Megan and walk to the tapas restaurant for dinner. Dinner was incredible, consisting of a variety of tapas whose names and ingredients I still am not sure of, but which tasted delicious. We enjoyed our first sangria after the meal, and hung out in the restaurant until after midnight when we once again braved the rain and made our way to a nearby discotec. When we arrived at the club shortly before 1 a.m., the place was pretty dead, and didn't really pick up for at least another hour. We spent the night hanging out, dancing, and evading unbelievably persistent Spanish men on the dance floor until 4:30 in the morning, which was crazy considering we hadn't slept the night before. We made it back to our hostel around five a.m., when the four of us crashed and slept solidly for 12 straight hours.
We woke at 5 (p.m.!!!) and after showering (finally), the four of us left in search of lunch. Lindsey and Megan had left for Sevilla earlier in the day, so Tilden, Anne Byrd, Dave and I walked around Madrid, where it was still raining off and on, and made our way to Buen Retiro Park. The park is filled with picturesque scenery and landscaping, interesting sculptures and beautiful buildings, and we leisurely walked around and explored the park's attractions.
By the time we left the park it was dusk and almost time for dinner, so we found a restaurant where we ordered two pizzas to share. We attempted to order a four cheese pizza, but somehow ended up with a tuna, ham and mushroom pizza, which was weird and kind of fishy tasting but overall not too bad. After dinner we headed to a club that Lindsey and Megan had told us about, called el Kapital. This discotec has seven floors, each with different music and types of drinks. There were dancers on stage and on balconies, and at one point one of them was hoisted above the dance floor on a hoop from which she performed all sorts of acrobatics (without a harness!). After another full night we walked back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep before we had to drag ourselves to the train station to catch our 10:00 train to Sevilla. Overall, an exciting, fun and successful first two days in Spain!
