Day 46 - Madrid

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Today after a lazy start curing my hangover I went to the oldest chocolate shop in Madrid. The Choclateria San Gines. A Spanish delicacy is Chocolate con Churros. This is thick hot chocolate served with pastry tubes that you dip into the hot chocolate. It was very nice indeed.

After eating it as I was queuing up to pay I saw the people who I had been on the tour with yesterday. We chatted for a bit before all heading out to a park on the other side of town. However before we went there we stopped off at a bar and tried the drink of Madrid. This is a strawberry liqueur that is served in true Mediterranean style in a chocolate shot glass. This is a shot glass made out of chocolate and covered in pastry. After drinking the shot you eat the glass. I can confirm that this is indeed a really nice way to sample the drink. When we got to the park we lay in the sun for a while before heading off to what we thought was the crystal palace but turned out to be a really formal entrance with a massive drive and monkey puzzle trees. We then went and found the crystal palace On the way we walked around a massive lake which was beautiful. The crystal palace is a large building constructed of glass, it was interesting.

After this as our group had split up me and David, the only 2 left went to the Reina Sofia art Gallery. This is a huge gallery full of modernist art that is free from 7-9. This is where Picasso´s Guernica is held. I´m not the biggest fan in the world of cubism art and Picasso, but really enjoyed the impressionist work by Salvador Dali.

After this we went our own ways and I headed back to the hostel because I knew there were free drinking games with unlimited Sangria at the hostel from 9. I drank sangria and played random drinking games until half 11. Me and some Aussies and Kiwis were then given 3 cartons of Sangria to drink. We drank this and then went out with some Germans for a drink in a local bar. This turned out to be a few drinks in the local bar until we got kicked out at 3 in the morning. Whilst in the street randomly chatting to a couple of the Germans I bumped into David and Julia (the other American I was on the free tour with and was with earlier). I chatted to them for a bit before they left. I finally got back to the hostel at about half 3. I was catching the half 10 coach to Granada in 7 hours. I needed some sleep desperately. It was great fun though

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