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Published: December 6th 2009
All these titles lead up to one thing...
Holiday seasons are meant for families/friends to come closure together in the WARMTH and happiness of Love and marriment.
So much so, that when an entire country celebrates it's independence there's only one thing to do.....celebrate......and only one place to do it "Madrid". It started early enough, leaving our lovely honeymoon hotel for the unknown world of Portugal or so we thought....
We arrived at the Malaga City train station with no problems at all, ready to try our hand at our first use of our Eurail passes. We had planned to catch an early train to Madrid, then connecting to an overnight train to Lisbin (Portugal). Little did we know all the trains were booked up going to Madrid (or so the man at ticket sales said, but I'm not so sure I belive him). So we got tickets for a later train. Meaning we hung around in Malaga for about 7 hours or so, mainly just hanging out at the train station.
We figured if we couldn't make our connecting train we'd just grab a bed at a hostel or even a hotel room if we needed for the night and spend a day in Madrid. Oh and the train we needed to connect to isn't at the station we arrived at, it was way on the other side of the city, a lot farther than we ever realized.
Missing the connecting train wasn't really that big a deal. What kicked our butts was the fact that every single hostel and hotel in the entire city was completely booked up. Turns out they have a holiday 4 day weekend, as well there was a football match that day and everyone came into the city. So here we are in Madrid, late at night wandering around looking for anywhere we could rest our heads.
Our next idea was to just take the next train out of the city and sleep on it. Nope, the ticket offices were closed so we weren't aloud on any of the leaving trains. We weren't the only ones feeling a little scared in the city of Madrid, arguing in the ticket office was another traveler who stranded like ourselves-- Jay. He was in a bit worse straights, his wallet was stolen that night and all the places to get money wired were already closed.
Three amigos....Feeling like Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve. Except there are no barns in Madrid No Inn keepers who feel sorry for us... After getting the doors slammed in our faces several times in Spanish, we grew tired and Cold. It was misting and the wind was blowing seemingly from every direction. Our next bright idea was finding an all night Dinner. Jay the Indonesian exchange student from Chicago in love with a girl in Paris, thought he could ask the whereabouts of an all night cafe. Except his Spanish isn't good, and his Idea of translating didn't even make sense to me and i knew what he was talking about! He asked for a Dos-(two) Quatros-(Four) Coffee.
The only place we could find was a cafe open till 2, but when the sign said two there really meant ONE! Some people travel the world getting a lot of Pictures that look like postcards. Then theres people who order pitchers of Sangria to keep warm. The thing about sleeping on Benches, the wind factor.....the wind finds its was through every space....there's no way to shield yourself from the ice cold wind because it's changing. And since Winter in Spain is wet.....the wind is full of moisture. The mist in Spain as you sleep on said bench...You have to be pretty tired to sleep through such conditions. After a while you go Numb enough to mange some "sleeping" doubt there is an rem Cycle to it.
Long story short. All night....we walked....from one end of Madrid to the other. In between the walking were times where we sat, or slept even just took of our bags. One train station to the other the complete opposite end of time. We did find a hotel in the end though....300 Euro's a night. That's like 450$ needless to say, four in the morning on a bench half asleep half numb just waiting for the doors to open to the Warm Train station....That 450$ WAS STILL TOO MUCH MONEY. We waited for the trains to start going, We decided the only way to get back from Portugal is to go through Madrid. Right then the last thing we wanted was to spend any more time in Madrid.
Cutting Portugal from our plan, and heading for some place warm seemed like the best thing to do....
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Wendy
non-member comment
Yikes!
I have a friend in Madrid. So much for that helping you out now. Oh, I remember well trying to get places during holiday in Spain. Either things were booked up or some transportation system was on strike. Good luck!!!! Happy travels to you.