The Last Supper

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I'm sure that I'm slowly forgetting all of the funny details of my excursion to Madrid to be with Laura & Erica, but I'm confident that they can fill you in on the details.

We arrived in Madrid after our trip to Segovia a little past 8 pm. We were crunched for time & I was not appreciating our cab driver talking my ear off about how Dave Beckham is gay, how much he likes Pink Floyd & the Beatles, etc. I would have much rather have sat there & worried about how on God's green earth we were going to pick up our luggage from the Consigna at the hotel, haul all of it to the Hostal at Sol, & then meet up with my friend Carlos for dinner by 9:30.

Someone we managed to do it all. We arrived by cab to Laura's Hostal, where she would spend her last evening in Madrid alone. : ( I, unfortunately, had to work on Tuesday & Erica & I had booked the last bus out of Madrid to Valladolid.

Laura's Hostal was on this little side street near Puerta del Sol (center of Madrid, my favorite area of Madrid.) When we arrived we noticed to punk-like girls sitting on the steps of our hostal. They were less than gracious when they realized that they were going to have to move for us.

We got buzzed into the hostal & somehow managed to clumsily haul all of our luggage (just trust me when I say that even for the strong women that we are, we had a lot of luggage & it was kind of a pain in the arse, even for us!) into the entryway of the hostal. The hostal was on the 3rd floor (and in Spain, that means it's really on the 4th floor) & had no elevator. Buena Suerte.

As we were waiting 'safely,' or so we thought, in the entryway of the hostal to figure out our strategy of getting all of our stuff upstairs, I noticed that Erica had ketchup all over her duffel bag. We later discovered it was also all over her coat & hair. Laura also had ketchup on her coat. Hmmm....wondering how it got there?

We still are not 100% sure ourselves, but we're pretty sure it had something to do with the 2 girls who followed us into the building & the man that accompanied them. You see, as we were waiting downstairs, the man had gone upstairs, then came back down with something in his hands. It was weird.

Not to mention the fact that the people who ran the hostel told us that they saw him & when they questioned him as to why he was in the building he said that he was with us!!!

Pretty sure he was going to try & rob us. The ketchup, which I think he threw on us when he went upstairs, was a distraction technique to get us to be less cautious of our bags, etc. so he could rob us. Apparently this is a pretty common 'truco' of the rateros. they either offer to help you clean it up & then steal stuff out of your purse, etc. Or while you are cleaning up, they take what they can get. yikes. I remember that that was what happened to one of our chaperones on the Metro in Madrid my first trip to Spain 12 years ago. someone put water on her shoulder, then pretended to help her clean it up. Meanwhile their accomplice stole her passport & wallet out of her purse. cuidado. mucho cuidado.

Despite the ketchup incident, we managed to get cleaned up & ready in record time. The people at the hostal were wonderful! They spoke english & offered to call a cab for Laura to get to the airport in the a.m. & they offered to help her with her bags in the morning. i felt like they really took care of her, so if anyone wants to stay in madrid & needs a nice place to go, I'll get you the name & #!!!

We met Carlos at the clock tower in Sol & we actually arrived early!

Carlos is this wonderful person that I met 3 days earlier in Valladolid. You see, he works in Madrid during the week as an auditor for a large bank. Then he comes home to Valladolid on the weekends. I met him on Friday, because he came out with his brother, Javier, whom I met on Halloween.

People in Spain are so willing to just hang out with anybody! i mean, >I had only met Carlos 3 days prior & here he is taking us out for Tapas in Madrid! He was very helpful & nice. Fun to hang out with. He took Laura back to the Hostal because Erica & I had to catch our bus!

Thanks Laura for coming to visit!!! I had the best time ever!!!! Miss you already.

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