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last time we spoke blog watchers i said i was headed to madrid tomorrow.
that was a lie, i did get to madrid but that day just blurred into one long exhausting escapade.
that night we were drinking, we left to go to this massive club at 2am on a monday night, the club was packed, thats barcelona for u. danced hung out, went back to the hostel at 4 30, picked up our bags and caught the 6am train to madrid that had us there by 9am for a full funpacked day.
going on trains in spain is like flying, the security is so tight because of the train bombings a few years ago.
where barcelona is very cosmopolitan and alternative, madrid is more artistically mainstream.
it plays host to the golden triangle of art museums. el prado, reina sofia and the thyssen bornemezia.
first day i went to the prado, the mecca for classical spanish art with complete collections of goya and velasquez and masterpieces scattered through the gallery.
second day i went to reina sofia which hosts a large modern collection in a new artistically intriguing building. many picassos including guernica and lots of miro and dali
for those of u who have no idea wat im talking about just take my word for it that these three dudes are famous but really wacko. all this artistry was punctuated with walks down gran via, chilling out in madrids large parks and eating tapas like a true madriliano.
last night in madrid we took the night train to lisbon, craziest train ride ever.
chad and i were in separate rooms because we booked late and i was ready to go to sleep when i meet the 3 other people in my room. a young canadian guy and two older guys, one an afghanistan vet and the other a brazilian lawyer married with a kid. this guy says, come on guys lets hit the bar, first round on me.
next thing i know id had 7 or so beers none of which i had payed for and these two guys literally bought out the bar until they were running out of drinks. the bar then closed at 2 am and so we got to sleep around 3.
lisbon is a really viby city. the hostel we stayed at was awesome and lisbon is a city on the beach full of lit up squares and monuments. sadly i lost my camera on the previously discussed night train so i had to wait to get a new one before i captured this all on film. on the bright side the exchange rate is so high that i got a better camera for cheeper than i had originally paid.
our first day in lisbon we met this group of american students studying in madrid who had come to lisbon for the weekend. we headed up to sintra with them, the summer holiday place of the portugese royal family. we also went out for dinner with them that night to an overpriced supposedly authentic portugese restaurant that served salty fish and cover charged the shit out of us. so after dinner and a lot of sangria we took the rolls of cheese that had been placed on our table and were certainly not complimentary and we rolled them through the streets and down the hills of barrio alto. one of the girls we found out later was actually the niece of george bush. no wonder she was so ditzy and she was from texas.
barrio alto is the club and bar district of lisbon, full of small sort of boutique bars that pump out music. there is one exclusive club in lisbon called lux that is owned by john malcovich but it is apparently really expensive so we didnt go.
next day, it rained so we didnt do much but the final day provided a beautiful sunset over the tower of belem. yet the defining feature of madrid for me was just the total excess of drugs.
in barcelona guys will whisper hashish, in lisbon guys will pull out bags of weed and cocaine right in front of police. very unsubtle and from wat we have heard mostly fake anyway.
and so it was back to barcelona to pick up chads new simcard, met up with our previous group of barcelona friends who were still there but one was leaving that night so we had a nice goodbye party.
tonight is inter milan vs barcelona in barcelona so we might go to a bar to watch that but we have tickets to real madrid vs zurich tomorrow night, ronaldo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
btw i saw vicky christina barcelona today for the first time and that is wat barcelona is like.
peace out peeps, i will be home in three weeks and then u will have to find something else to do with ur lives besides waiting out for and religously reading dylans travel blog.
Dylan

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