Madrid is also one of those cities that most people have heard of, and can even what country it is in. Because the second language in the U.S. is Spanish, I expected Madrid to feel a bit more comfortable, as I had taken Spanish for several years, and because of our proximity to Mexico, I feel like I can understand the Spanish/Hispanic accent better than most other accents.
Be warned, my Madrid entries will contain a lot of pictures. I took somewhere in the neighbhoorhood of 200 pictures plus 20 videos in 4 days, because everywhere was worth remembering to me.
Unlike Barcelona, Madrid is the center of true Spanish culture. I enjoyed my time in Barca, but from the beginning I think I was looking more forward to Madrid. Jake and I left early Thursday morning and arrived in Madrid ready to hit the sites, see some sporting events, and more.
Right away at the airport, things were different. For one, Spanish was the main language on all signs, and English was second. Catalan was nowhere to be seen (this is obvious, but still worth mentioning). I didn't have to struggle as much to read the directions, which was important from our perspective.
For the first two nights, Jake and I were going to stay with our friend Alex, who I had seen in Amsterdam and am living with next year. Alex is in a homestay for the semester in Madrid, which means that he is living with a Spanish family who wanted to house a foreign exchange student. Many homestays are pretty small living quarters, so we were extremely lucky that he could have us over for a couple nights.
He gave us great directions from el aeropuerto and we hopped on the metro towards the center city. This airport was great, because the metro came right to it. We killed some time at a cafe near his metro stop, Moncloa, which was right around the corner from the largest and best university in Spain (and also home to 100,000 students! Enormous by American standards). Then, he came and met us and took us to his family's apartment down the street.
We were really fortunate that we could get a glimpse of a real Spanish home. It was siesta time, so the madre of the family was home, and we got to meet her. His family doesn't speak any English, so we could only really exchange hellos, but hopefully my nonverbal skills communicated how grateful I was for letting us stay there. Plus, when you haven't been home or with family for so long, time spent with ANY family still feels nice.
After dropping our bags, Alex took us walking towards the city center, down his streets and Gran Via. We walked by several theaters and cool shops, a massive department store, and more. The architecture was cool, very European in appearance, and it was finally warm!
Puerto del Sol, and it was very sunny indeed.
Ham is very big in Spain, and Museo de Jamon ("Ham Museum") restaurants were everywhere.
We arrived in the beautiful Puerto del Sol, Door of the Sun, which was named appropriately based on the weather. There was a lot going on in the oddly shaped plaza, from street performers to extremely good bakeries with one of the best chocolate things I've ever had, and more. We took some pictures, and continued our overview of the city with a trip to Plaza Mayor.
It was really beautiful, and even though it was later in the day, there was still a ton of people strolling and touring and buying this and that. These two places are the heart of Madrid, and you could really tell just by standing there.
Puerto del Sol; Jake and I are officially in the warmth of spring break!
The BEAUTIFUL Plaza Mayor, with me, Jake, and Alex.
Continuing on, we meandered over to Palacio Real, the Royal Palace. Alex said he had never been in before because the lines were usually so long, but on this occasion we must have timed it perfectly because with a two minute wait we were in. This palace was magnificent, truly, in every single way. The views of the countryside outlining Madrid were great. Inside the palace, we walked through the various banquet halls, living quarters, and, yes, throne room. It was a legit throne room, with a big chair surrounded by plush carpets and statues of lions and everything. I was able to sneak a couple pictures, even though Jake almost got thrown out by a cranky Spanish woman who was guarding the throne room from the mischievous people wanting to take pictures. The armory was so impressive as well.
El Palacio Real; the Royal Armory; the Hall of Statues, where Spain signed the treaty of accession, joining the EU
By this point, we were pretty wiped from our travel day and walking around, so we headed back to Alex's on the metro to take a late siesta of our own. A couple hours later, we grabbed some food at a good little place near the apartment (good food and delicious sangria, which they drink a lot of in Spain), and met up with some other people in Alex's program.
We all went to a bar near the Moncloa area that had a weird, yet strangely tasty, drink called Leche Pantura (Panther's Pink). It was a few different liquors mixed with milk that came out of a slaglamite-like structure built into the top of the bar. You would think that it would be weird, but it was actually pretty good. We got one of the smaller sizes to share, as they had size ranges of 1 Liter to 8 or 16 Liters of this drink! My first day in Madrid was a success.
Friday, Jake and I decided we should do a museum day. After a lazy start, we hopped on the metro and got off near El Prado Museo, the famous Prado Museum. El Paseo Del Prado, the avenue near the museums, was really pretty to walk down on the way to the museum. The Prado Museum was great, and I'm not a big museum guy. Some of the masterpieces were huge and beautiful; my favorite was the 'Garden of Earthly Delights' which had three panels representing heaven, earth, and hell. The details were striking. We also checked out the modern art museum, Reina Sofia. I'm usually a fan of modern art, and wasn't disappointed here. They had a great collection of Dali especially, though I like modern sculptures and 3D art the best.
El Paseo del Prado; the outside of the museum; and me doing my thing at the Reina Sofia (thanks Dad for giving me this outlook on how to admire statues)
We met back up with Alex after the museums and went to a bar/cafe around the corner for dinner. The food was fair, but the meal was entertaining due to an extremely intoxicated Spanish woman, a little older than us, who was making a scene at the restaurant. She was resisting attempts to be calmed down, and wanted to go somewhere even though she was took drunk to walk. Eventually, she shattered a glass all over the floor, slapped one of the guys she was hanging out with, and was promptly thrown out of the place. Drunk idiots are drunk idiots no matter where you go in the world.
Friday night turned out to be really fun. We went to one of the famous clubs in Madrid, Kapital, which had 7 stories and a massive dance floor. There were not very many English-speakers there, which gave the club a really authentic vibe that night, which is what I usually like to see when I travel somewhere. Although, I must say, the Spanish people we saw had a weird way of dancing, which is mostly head-nodding and not moving a whole lot. I have a feeling that is not typical everywhere though, where salsa and other dancing has to be more common.
That pretty much wrapped up the first part of our Madrid experience. The next morning/early afternoon, Jake and I got up and moved out of Alex's family's house (sad face) and met up with another girl from Prague who was in Madrid, Kate, who we would be traveling with the next couple days. We brought our stuff to our hostel for the night and then got to experience lunch in Plaza Mayor (yes, it was an experience). Jake and Kate wanted to nap, so Alex and I went to Parque de Retiro, the major park in Madrid.
Such a hard life, having a lazy lunch in Plaza Mayor, ahhhh.
Though it was no Forest Park (for you St. Louis readers), it was huge and in full bloom of spring and beautiful. There were people in small row boats all through this small little lake, and street performers, and ice cream stands left and right. And yes, it definitely had a European feel because of the liberal approach people were taking to tanning and laying in the sun, PDA (public displays of affection) in a random grassy patch, and general behavior. Actually, because in Spain many kids don't move out of their family's house until later in life (Alex's family had a 32-year old son living with them, which was perfectly normal), many couples escape to the park or other public places to have a bit of privacy. Strange to think about by our standards, but hey, it's not America.
Alex and I couldn't have asked for better weather at Parque de Retiro.
But, this is where I must end part one of my Madrid tales. It's just too long to put into one post, sorry! Tune in tomorrow or the next day at the latest for the second installment, which features two of the coolest and most unforgettable things I will ever do. Seriously, come back, you won't want to miss it. Tell your friends.
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