Blogs from Madrid, District of Madrid, Spain, Europe - page 106

Thank you all so much for your comments. We feel loved and encouraged to keep writing :) Pippa´s sister showed some disdain towards her via email after seeing the pictures from Paris..I guess while your slaving away on your PhD and your sister is sauntering around Europe it can be pretty annoying..unfortunately, our pictures from Madrid will do little to make Alix feel better. (sorry Al .. I love you!) We got off on less than a promising start on our trek to Madrid after our flight was cancelled and we ended up having to take a train..which took 16 hours and unexpectedly used up 2 of our 10 Eurail passes. But once we finally walked into Los Amigos Hostel (24 hours after we were supposed to) all of our travel woes dissipated. WE LOVE OUR ... read more

Friends http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5435/l6f3a687bad4adad84f45a3nm3.th.jpg A view from outside my window http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/816/img2096hs8.th.jpg... read more

Ay, ay, ay… am I ever tired. It’s hard to keep up with the Spanish on the weekends. I’m back in tranquil Segovia after a long and exhilarating weekend in Madrid. We went as group on Friday and did the tourist thing, catching glimpses of La Puerta del Sol (the shopping hub of Madrid), El Palacio Real, La Plaza Mayor, and El Parque del Retiro (Spain’s Central Park). At first glimpse, Madrid is really big and has lots of traffic like most large cities, but people walk at a much slower pace and everything seems a bit more relaxed. The buildings are all old and beautiful, and the Metro is absolutely spotless! After lunch in the park, we went to El Museo del Prado, one of the world’s greatest art museums with over 7,000 paintings. It ... read more

21st September 2007 - Madrid Got to Madrid after transiting Hong Kong and London - another exciting international flight (yawn). Standing at the luggage carousel in Madrid airport I began to get a very uneasy feeling as all of the passengers on our flight seemed to be slowly disappearing with their luggage in hand. After about one hour of watching the same two bags doing laps on the carousel I approached the lost luggage counter with a degree of trepidation. I handed them my luggage receipts and they checked the barcode numbers to inform me in their best spanglish that all four of our bags were still in London “or we think they are”. So, we left our contact details with the lost luggage girl and set off through customs with our carry on bags. We ... read more

On Saturday we flew to Madrid, the second greenest city in the world, to begin our Contiki tour. We arrived at about 4pm, checked into our hotel, and enjoyed the heat (about 30 degrees) until we met up with the group for the first time at 6pm that evening. The first part of the night involved doing administration things for the tour, but at about 8.30 we headed for our first dinner as a group. We quickly found out that a lot of the Spanish don't speak English, and are quite rude to those who don't speak Spanish! After dinner our guide led us into the city centre to a bar for our first night together. Our next stop was a seven storey nightclub, but after finding out the price of the entrance fee (20 euro's ... read more