Madrid Day 3/4

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Hola!

Yesterday was a long day. We went to the gym first up as a run was out of the question due to pouring rain. At one stage we couldn't see the airport which was clearly visable from our room. Breakfast was the usual buffet and then an our so later off to airport for the next leg. We took off around 1.45pm and saw that our 10hr flight was 12 & 1/2. It seemed to take forever half a day infact :p and we were so looking fwd to being out of a plane and into fresh air instead of aircon. Collected our bags and found the shuttle that was organised and the driver said something to us when he collected us and showed us to the transit van. Don't know what he said as it was all in Spanish and his English is about as good as our Spanish. WE got the msg tho and off we went. What a contrast from Seoul airport that looked like it was straight out of a high tech 2050 space age to something that looked like it would have been fantastic in the 60's.

Checked into our hotel and the name really should have given us some clue to what our room would be like. This too was quite a contrast from Seoul and the name...Petit Palace. Resembles nothing like a palace of course but petit it is! Feels like we are back at school sharing a dom as it has bunk beds! I have read quite a bit about how small the rooms are in Europe, however, nothing could prepare me I guess when I saw it in the flesh. The hotel is in a great location, very central and to get our bearings this morning we caught the tourist double decker topless bus and did the two loops of Madrid. The city is beautiful full of character and the buildings are mostly 17th & 18th century. We noticed that most of the other passengers had earphones and looked like there was somesort of commentary going on. We found out the second time we were on the bus if you hand the order form into the conductor they give you 24hr ticket and earphones!

The Gran Via area where we are staying seems to be a part of the red light and gay district so there are some really interesting characters. The big american chains are everywhere here too unfortunately Maccas, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks etc. Kind of spoils the landscape really for my taste amongst the beautiful architecture.
Tomorrow we are planning to visit the Prado museum one of the best in Europe, we saw it today from the outside and I wonder if a few hrs will do it justice...probably not.

Till next time
Chao from Madre

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