Madrid

Our train to Mardrid was a night train which departed at 10:30 pm and arrived the next morning in Madrid around 9 am. Our night train had four bed rooms and we were paired up with two guys from Singapore. Like us, they had just graduated from school (they went to college in Australia) and were traveling all over. For those of you who don’t know, I didn’t, the primary language in Singapore is English so communication was easy. We exchanged our travel stories and we hit the sack as to be rested for our first full day in Madrid.

Once in Madrid the weather was just as wonderful as it had been in Lisbon, sunny and 60’s. We took the metro to our exit for the Hostel and checked in. Our room wasn’t ready so we left our bags and headed out to see the city. We were hungry and tired and Starbucks sounded absolutely delicious so we stopped next door, grabbed a drink, and sat down to plan out our day.
Our first stop was Plaza Mayor which was an 18th century square that was filled with coin and stamp collectors on that particular day. The plaza was filled with tourists but we didn’t stay long as we had set our sights on the Rastro Sunday flea market which sells everything from caged birds, to books, leather goods, and clothes. This was the first market since Asia that we had been cramped and pushed around. It was a slight flashback but we enjoyed the hustle and bustle and all of the colorful vendors.

After the market we were getting hungry quickly so we found the closest restaurant that was of reasonable cost at the time. It was a diner and we sat down upstairs and were served by an older Spanish man who, to say the least, didn’t love his job. We ordered what seemed to be popular items on the menu, ate and quickly continued on with our day.

After lunch we headed down Ronda de Atocha towards the Centro Reina Sofia, the large temporary art museum in Madrid. It was Sunday which was free museum day so we were admitted for free and spent about an hour there. I actually enjoyed this museum more than the Pompidou in Paris so it was a nice contemporary art redemption. Given that it was Sunday we were shuffled out very early because the museum was closing and so we decided to head to the Prado Museum just down the road. When we arrived at the Prado it was around 4:30 and the free admittance didn’t take place until 5:30. Since we didn’t want to wait around we headed back to the hostel to take a shower and clean up. On the way back we strolled through the Puerto del Sol which is considered the heart of the city and which was conveniently close to our hostel.

A quick note on this hostel… We stayed in the RC Miguel Angel which was clean and well located and that’s about it for the positives. We were in a 6 person room and at any given hour one of our 4 other strange roommates would be sleeping. This would ordinarily not be a problem however this particular hostel didn’t have any common room for which to just sit and relax. Wang and I were also the youngest people in the hostel and not to be age discriminatory but if you are 26 or older, it’s time to splurge and put yourself up in hotel for people with fulltime jobs. We were slightly creeped out by all of this so after the second night we weren’t too sad to be leaving. We did have a somewhat normal roommate though. His name was Andy, and he was from Liverpool, taking some time off to come to Madrid for a football (read: soccer) match. It was fun talking to him because he said, “Brilliant!” pretty often, making us think of the old school Guiness commercials.

We took our shower and walked down Grand Via road with all of its shipping and bright lights and ended up at the Palacio de Comunicationes, an extremely beautiful building and a very photo friendly square. After the walked down Grand Via we headed back to Plaza Mayor and had dinner at an outdoor tapas restaurant right in the square. The food was delicious but we were tires so we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel for some needed rest.

Day 2 began with lunch at Museo de Jamon which was another diner very near our hostel. In Spain they have many restaurants with both a standup bar and then a sit down section where you can eat a meal. It is slightly less expensive to stand and eat at the bar so given we had sat the day previous we decided to stand and eat. Our waiter was very short with us and expressed his disinterest in our inability to speak Spanish with his body language. Once we ordered or food was ordered up quickly and our meals didn’t last long as we were very hungry.

The first place on our day two agenda was the Palacio Real museum. It was the Royal Palace in Madrid and the museum allows for the pubic to walk through several of the buildings 2000+ rooms. We spent quite a lot of time here because the structure truly was breathtaking in both its size and beauty. After the museum we headed to Chueca a very ‘colorful’ part of town. There were extremely cool shops and restaurants lining the streets in this popular area among the youths in Madrid. After walking around Chueca and doing a little window shopping we headed down to the Parque del Retiro. It is Madrid’s equivalent to Central park and is quite beautiful. Wang and I sat down and enjoyed the hot sun and some coffee at an outdoor café on the pond. We spent several hours in this park until it was time to head back and get ready for dinner.

We contacted Patrick Dykes, a fraternity brother currently studying in Madrid, to see if he wanted to grab dinner and a drink. He met us up in Puerto del Sol and we headed back to Chueca for a drink before dinner. Dinner doesn’t really start until around 9 pm in Spain so we had a little time to kill before we grabbed some dinner. After a beer way walked around looking for a place to eat and we stumbled on a little restaurant called Vivares 37. They had a menu del dia that was only 9 euro. The menu del dia is a brilliant Spanish idea that includes choice of a starter from a list of about 5 items, choice of an entrée from a list of about 5 other items, and the inclusion of bread, a drink and dessert all for 9 euro. Our meal was great and extremely filling for 9 euro so we were very satisfied. After dinner we wanted to grab a few more drinks so we headed to the Dubliner to drink some Spanish beer. We threw a few back and we called it a night.

Day 3 started at Café y Te for breakfast and then booked a few hostels for our upcoming stays. Our train to Barcelona was early and we headed to the station.