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Published: July 20th 2010
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Plaza Mayor
In the centre of Madrid. In the following weeks after Leed's promotion, there was little to dim my grin as London started to heat up and I had several more trips planned as I farewelled London in frenetic style. First up was a long weekend away to Madrid for Jono's 30th. As always there were complications, and this time (no surprise), it was Hannah, as her Visa was delayed and she only ended up getting her passport back 24 hours before our flight left. But she made it in the end and I am sure she would agree that she had a FABulous time away (inside joke).
We got into Madrid around midnight local time and made our way to our hotel before we had a bit of a walk around to re-familiarise ourself with the city as we had been here about 3 years previous. As soon as I got there, I had a feeling of returning home as I realised how much I had missed the Spanish culture and language from travelling in South America and I could definitely see myself living in Madrid in the future. The only thing it is missing is a beach. I was also pleasantly surprised how much
of my Spanish I remembered as well.
In the morning, we met up with Jono and Kate and the rest of the group, so there were 16 of us in total - all Kiwi's! So a huge invasion. We spent the morning in smaller groups wandering around and doing our own thing before meeting up in Parque del Retiro, where we started the drinking for the day. After a few hours here, we split up again and all met up for dinner, which was nice, but rather expensive as the bill of just over 1,060 Euros amongst 16 of us showed. Though to be fair, over 60% of that was wine and other drinks.
For the rest of the night we travelled around a few bars and enjoyed ourselves before heading back to the hotel, and just beating the sun as it crept over the horizon.
Funnily enough, we didn't do a whole lot the following day, but I made the point of heading our to the Santiago Bernabeu, the stadium of Real Madrid, one of the biggest football clubs in the world. I did the tour, but wasn't as impressed as the tour of Elland Road, though
Parque del Retiro #2
Wandering through the park I could be biased.
That night, we decided to get deep into the local culture and we headed along to the local bullring to watch the bullfights. I was curious to see them as I missed out previously in Pamplona, but after seeing them I have no inclination to see them again. Several of the girls in our group were brought to tears by the brutality. There was definitely an art to what was happening, but if the picador was not as good, then it was definitely very disturbing to watch.
So rather than leave that as our last memory of Madrid, we had a few drinks that night and spent the next day wandering around in beautiful sunshine, as it had been the whole weekend, before we caught our flights back to London. Again a big thanks to Jono and Kate for organising the weekend. I certainly had a great time and met some fantastic people and pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves as well.
But there was no rest for the wicked as several days later I was back on the plane, this time to Amsterdam as I met up with Cam and Arevik on their
Crystal House #1
Where Hannah and Leah plan on getting married. Probably not to each other. 5 week European holiday. It was so great to see them again as we spent a couple of days exploring the city.
We did a lot of the touristy stuff like Vondelpark, the canals, the sex museum, and of course we wandered the streets of the red light district. We also tried the local delicacies like the chips, which were fantastic. We also wandered down to one of the museums for a bit of culture and checks out some of Van Gogh's paintings, but we were too cheap and the entry fee was far too much, so we just took photos with the copies in the gift shop. It is pretty much the same thing....
Then as soon as it had begun, the weekend was over as Cam and Arevik continued their journey to Berlin and I returned back to London. It was great to see them again and can't wait to catch up with them again in a few months when I get back to New Zealand.
So back in London, there was no stop to the action as what I had dubbed as the Week of Rock kicked off. It started with me catching the
Crystal House #2
Where Hannah and Leah plan on getting married. Probably not to each other. Eurostar over to Paris, where I spent the day looking around the sights, much nicer than when I was here last in winter time, before heading to Stade de France in the evening to see AC/DC. I then lucked in as Slash's band opened for them and played several Guns N' Roses songs, including my favourite, Civil War.
The following day, I was back on the train to London where I dropped my stuff at home before heading back north to Wembley to see Green Day, who again lived up to their billing as my favourite live act. Then I had several days rest before Pearl Jam were up next and I worked out that when they played Better Man, I had now heard every one of my top 10 favourite songs of all time live! Not a bad effort considering songs range from artists like Rolling Stones, Gun's N' Roses, AC/DC to Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam.
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