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Published: February 13th 2008
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This past weekend I went with my whole program to Madrid. We left really early on Friday morning and had to take a 5 hour train ride to the city. The ride wasn´t bad at all. We were all in the same cab, so we just hung out together, some people slept, some read, and some listened to music. Some of us also watched this weird movie in Spanish about this girl trying to steal someone else´s life...good ole Spanish films for ya! We arrived in Madrid around 2 pm and checked into our hotel. There are 60 students in my program, so we split up into 2 groups of 30 and stayed in 2 different hotels, but they were very close to each other. After chilling at the hotel for a while, we went on a 2 hour walking tour throughout the city. We saw where the oldest buildings of the city were, and the main plazas and streets and the Palace and the Opera house and all that jazz. You can see all these things in the pictures. After this, which seemed to last way longer than 2 hours because we did a lot of walking and it got
Me, Carli, & Elizabeth
this is Plaza Isabel, where our groups met everyday before going to the museums, tours, and such very cold out, we went back to the hotel to take siestas. (BTW I am absolutely in love with the siesta system they have here...it is much needed because the days here are very go-go and busy and long). After showering and getting ready for the night, me and some of my girl friends walked around for about 30 minutes trying to find somewhere for dinner. You see, our program leaders gave us these money coupon/ticket things for all our meals, so we had to find places that used those, but werent too expensive, but had good food, so it was kinda difficult. We finally found this amazing restaurant called Tuscania. It had the most delicious pasta and really good wine, and the food came so fast, which was great because we were all starving!!! After dinner we went back to the hotel to hang out with some other friends, and then we all parted and went our own ways for the night. I met up with my old friend from high school, John Dougherty, who is studying down in Alicante, but was also in Madrid for the weekend...what a coincidence! I met some of his friends and hung out
Palacio Real
where the king and queen used to live with them for the rest of the night.
On Saturday we woke up around 9ish and had an amazing breakfast at the hotel. They had tons or food which was great because we had museum tours and so forth all day so we knew that we needed to stock up. After this we went to the Museo de Prado, one of the most well-known museums in Madrid. Here we saw soooo much artwork from Velazquez, El Greco, and some others that I cant remember at the moment. After spending a few hours there, we went to this beautiful park that was right up the street. It was huge and in the middle there was this crystal palace (check out the pictures) that looked gorgeous with the suns rays shining off it. It was the perfect day to spend in the park because it was sunny and warm. Then we searched again for somewhere to eat lunch, this time also walking around for at least 20 minutes, but me and my 2 friends finally found this quaint little place. Here during lunch time lots of restaurants have menus of the day, where you get 2 plates, drink, bread, and dessert
for like under 10 Euro. It´s a great deal, you get lots of food for a small price, and it fills you up for hours. At this restaurant we had pasta, meat, potatoes, drinks, bread, and these amazing desserts (arroz con leche, which is rice with milk which sounds gross, but it is actually amazing, and tiramisu, and lemon tarte). They are to die for!!! After lunch we met back up with the group to take a tour of the Palacio Real, which is this huge palace where the kings and queens of Spain used to live. It is absolutely amazing and the inside architecture and design is exquisite. Unfortunately we could not take pictures inside, but I bought some postcards of it because it was amazing! After the palace, we went back to the hotel for siestas (everyday, haha), went back to the restaurant Tuscania for dinner because it was so delicious, and then we went out to this place called Capital. It is one of the biggest clubs in the world. It is 7 stories high, and on each story there is something different, like different music or a lounge or a movie theater or a stage with
dancers. It was ridiculous! It was expensive to get into, 20 Euros, but we stayed there all night, so it was well worth it!
Sunday we got to sleep in until about 10, and after breakfast we all headed to the Madrid Flea Market. It was huge and there were so many vendors set up outside with their tents selling everything you could possibly think of for real cheap. I bought a scarf and some jewelry, all for hardly anything. Then I went to lunch with two friends and we sat outside in the sun and right by some guys playing music...it was fun! We had paella for lunch (which is the most popular dish in Spain, it is rice and seafood...if you come here you definitely have to get it!) After lounging around in a park for an hour, we headed back to the hotel so we could go to the train station and head back to Barcelona. Our train left around 5 and we got back here around 10 pm. I went straight home and to bed after that because I was sooooo exhausted.
Overall the weekend was a blast! I love Madrid! It is beautiful
Towers
the one on the right is the oldest steeple in Madrid and it was fun to see another city that is different from Barcelona. People seemed very nice and laid back there and it kinda reminded me of Austin and Boulder because there were lots of hippies and live music and the people were very chill all the time. !Viva Madrid!
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Emily
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Morgan! It looks like you are having an AMAZING time! I am jealous!