Weekend in Madrid!

Friday, March 23, 2012
We left at 8:30 am this morning on our 3 day trip to Madrid. We traveled to Toledo first and took a part bus tour, part walking tour through the city of Toledo. It is a gorgeous city, with the city center built on a mountain, with a river surrounding the mountain and bridges connecting the city center to the rest of the city. Unfortunately we only spent about 2 hours there, but I hope to go back before I leave Spain.

We finished our journey to Madrid, checked into our hotel, that's right, I said HOTEL not hostel. It is fantastic to stay in an actual hotel again. After checking in we walked around  the city center of Madrid, saw the Palacio Real (only the outside), and Plaza Mayor (a very famous plaza in Spain). After that was supper at a very interesting Mexican restaurant (there was a car coming out of the roof ;) ) where we shared a jar of sangria (delicious!) and I had a wonderful salad. Once our bellies were full we stopped at a supermarket and grabbed some red wine and lemon Fanta (the makings for Tinto de Verano) and me and my friends (Shannon, Amy, Sara Kelly, myself, Liasor, and Alex) spent the rest of the night playing cards and drinking in our hotel room.


Saturday, March 24
This morning we had a wonderful breakfast at our hotel, then headed to the Palacio Real for our tour of the palace. Unfortunately, the palace forbids picture taking in the palace, so I was unable to take pictures, but I was able to listen to a brisk, short Spanish women who reminded everyone in my group of Edna Mode from The Incredibles tell us about the palace. It has over 2000 rooms and is used now mainly for celebrations (mostly royal weddings), stately meetings (when ambassadors from other countries visit), and for tourism (like what I did today!).

After that our free time started! Yay! Amy, Shannon, and I went back to the hotel quick to drop off coats (it was warm out today, Thank God!) and use the restrooms. Then, we set off to find theHard Rock Cafe, so Amy could buy her dad one of the pins. After walking for about a half hour, a few wrong turns, and a lot of laughs between the three of us we found the Hard Rock and Amy got her pin. Our next goal was to find a cheap cafe or mercado to grab lunch to go and eat it in the park. We ended up finding a nice cafe where I got paella, Amy got something that looked like Rigatoni, and Shannon got some type of pasta salad. We enjoyed our lunches and about an hour and a half in the grass (yes, there actually is grass in Spain! I was doubting that for a bit...) in Parque Retiro.

While still in Parque Retiro, when walked past a beautiful lake and the Palacio de Cristal. I had wanted to go to the Palacio de Cristal because I had seen some pictures of it that showed it to have amazing stained-glass windoows, but in reality the windows were just windows, which disappointed me greatly.

We left the park and wandered through the streets, going into a few stores (I found adorable grey sandals!) and eventually stopping for chocolate con churros before returning to the hotel to rest up a bit before the play this evening.

Like I said, the group went to a play this evening called, "El Manuel de la Buena Esposa" (The Manuel of the Good Wife). It is a comedy about the fundamental woman during the time from 1934-1977 (this is the time of Franco's dictatorship, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, and the recovery from it all). It was a very interesting and funny play, but I found it difficult to follow it because I started off the play not understanding the plot and struggling to understand what they were saying because they spoke very fast. Fortunately I was not the only person in my group who had trouble understanding what the characters in the play were saying, almost every person in my group said they had trouble understanding what they were saying.

After the play, Shannon, Amy, and I went to a wonderful Chinese buffet for dinner. I filled my Chinese cravings for a while. :) After, we went back to the hotel, found Alex and Liasor in their room and played cards and listened to music.


Sunday, March 25, 2012
The clocks sprung forward today, but we were still able to sleep in till 9:30 or so. Breakfast came and went and we checked out of the hotel as well, loaded our bags on the bus and walked to the Museo de Prado (Prado Museum). This museum is basically the Spanish version of the Lourve. The group walked together through the first 3 rooms, then split up. I walked through part of the museum with a group of my friends and we saw paintings by many artists, including Goya and Velazquez.

We only stayed for about 30-45 minutes then left. Today I walked around with Tesla, Sara Ireland, Elizabeth, Gonzo, Breann, Holly, and Hope. Most of them wanted Starbucks, so we stopped at one so they could get their drinks, then we found a Mexican restaurant for lunch. After lunch we headed back to the hotel where our group was going to meet up. Along the way Holly, Breann, and I did some impromptu shopping and I ended up buying a beautiful blue dress for under 11 euros! Great buy!

The group met up at 4:30 this afternoon and we are currently on the way back to Granada. We aren't supposed to be back till close to 11 pm tonight.