or here: http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k146/maxine08/Madrid/
So we had to leave early Friday morning (our train was at 7:28am!), so I slept over at Stacie’s house so we could walk together over to the train station in the morning. It was a great group of us that travelled together too, it was me, Stacie, Kacey, Amy, and Bailey (yes all of their names rhyme except for mine haha)…. So the train experience was quite hilarious, because all of us were on the train in the morning except for Amy, yes we lost Amy at the beginning of the trip, and the hostel was booked in her name, so you can see how nervous we were hahaha…. And the worst thing was that Amy did not have an Italian phone, so we had no idea how to contact her, so finally when we got to the airport I called Hayley so she could bbm her, and then finally amy called!
Apparently she was looking all around for us at the train station and then missed it because she was looking for us, but don’t worry, she caught the next train and made it to the airport.
10:50am take off!! And tour hours later we landed in Madrid! Wooo! All of us had tiny bags because of stupid ryan air haha (I took my grocery bag hahaha)… the minute we landed we took the metro to our hostel, which was right on Gran Via in the heart of the city, and super nice! We had two rooms, one with Stacie, amy, and i… and bailey and kailey slept in the other, and we had our own bathrooms and everything! I swear it was a hotel!
So as soon as we arrived, it was like around 3:30 or so, we asked the hotel manager a good place to go for lunch (we wanted paella J ) and of course we end up at a total local spot, called museo de jamon (aka, a ham museum)… uhhh hahah but no it ended up being tonnssss of food! We all got paella, and then I got this big tuna omelette, and then dessert! It was quite funny though because Stacie asked for the chocolate and vanilla ice cream dessert, and they brought out like a plain old chocolate ice cream bar bahahha…
After lunch, we walked all around the city, and to retiro park and just took tons and tons of pictures!
Then we met Sophie for dinner!!! (I hadn’t seen Sophie for like 3 years so it was sooo cool seeing her!)
All of my friends and I were so impressed by Sophie and her fluent Spanish J and she knew such good Italian too! (but we will get there hahah)… Sophie took us to the coolest tapas place ever! But it was a 2 hour wait L apparently it is allwaysss crowded, so we went to another local spot and she ordered tons of tapas for us! We had a cheese and meat platter, and grilled vegetables, and croquettes (always my fav), and all these toast things J so Spanish! Hahah.
After that we went to a bar that her friend worked for and go free mojitos and met all her Spanish friends (who are absolutely gorgeous may I add!), we were all soooo tired so we decided not to stay out too late (the usual time for Madrid is like 6 hahah) so we went home and slept!
Madrid day two:
So we got up early in the morning and headed to this fabulous juice place that became our favorite haha… I got a huge spinach, mushroom and cheese wrap, plus a freshly squeezed orange, strawberry, banana juice, so yum!
Then we headed towards the “old Madrid” area where first we just haddd to stop by the giant haribo store and all spend like 4 euros on bin candy! Totally brought back my childhood days in Holland J
In Old Madrid we saw the palace, plaza de oriente, the cathedral, and San Francisco Basilica… then we went over to this department store, bought chips, salsa, snackies, and each bought a boxed liter of sangria for 75 euro cents, and yes that it true bahaha.
Rowing in the Retiro Park:
Retiro park totally reminds me of central park, which is why I think it is my favorite part of Madrid J So just like central park, you can rent row boats and row in the water, so we took all of our snacks and boxed sangria and rented two boats for us, and lets just say that my urge to row recently was fulfilled haha, Kailee and Stacie were amazed, but hello rowing for four years, I should be able to row a row boat haha, so we rowed to the middle and then opened our sangria and chips! We stuffed our faces with so many chips, wanting saltiness after we all felt sick from eating so much candy haha, and of course drank our sangria J… after the hour on the water, we just sat in the grass on the side of the lake with all the other locals and drank the rest of our sangria, I finished first J hahaha and we ate all of our food, so after that it was pretty funny.
Feeling a little tipsy, we went over to the Reina Sofia, which is an amazing museum, but I think I would have appreciated it a little bit more, had I not drank an entire liter of boxed sangria and ate so many chips and candy hahah, but it was still cool to see the most famous Picasso there, the Guernica (http://www.museoreinasofia.es/coleccion/coleccion-1/sala-206-1_en.html)… which is HUGE!
El Tigre:
So with the idea to go big tonight haha, we decided we definitely all needed a siesta, except that it was like 9pm, instead of the afternoon haha, so after the museum we all fell right asleep (it was funny because Stacie, Amy, and I were all talking about how we missed Italian food haha…. Its really crazy how much you get addicted, for example, asking for oil and vinegar and drenching our bread with it before every meal J ) Around 11:30pm, we just had to wake up or else we would never go out haha, so we quickly got ready and then headed over to this famous tapas bar called El Tigre… this place is PACKED always!!! Because you can buy a HUGE 6 euro mojito and then you get like 4 plates of free tapas! It reminded me of a frat party because there was trash like all on the ground and so many people haha but it is sooo fun! We tried so hard to find a little part of the bar to stuff our faces with the tapas and drink our drinks haha, all the Spaniards kept trying to flirt with us too, but it was such an experience.
this guy was totally not part of our picture hah
Aeria Bar:
After El Tigre, we went to the coolest bar called Aeria… it had the most posh and kind of hipster interior, with really cool couches and lights etc… Amy met up with her best friend from home who is studying abroad in Barcelona which was really fun, while we stayed for awhile, Stacie and I worked out way to getting two margaritas for the price of one haha! We stayed until it closed at 3am and then to the discotecha!
Joy:
Joy is a disco in the Plaza de Sol (a central area), and we headed over there after the bar. It is amazing how lively Madrid is!! There are SO many people out at like allll hours of the day! We felt so safe seeing so many people out. At Joy there was an 18 euro cover charge, eww! So we bargained it down to 15 euros (luckily not many places in Florence have cover charges), but Stacie and I were the only ones that really wanted to go, we were so energized! Hahah, and that 15 euros included a drink, so we went!
Joy was super cool! It had a huge dance floor with three floor stage and also three floors around that look down upon the ground floor.
Churros overload:
After Joy, it is custom to go get Churros con chocolate, aka amazing!! This churro place was PACKED! With tons of people and they were just brining out plates of hot fresh Spanish churros and melted chocolate to dip in, at such a fast pace! So Stacie and I ordered two plates of churros and one chocolate, and ended up getting like ten HUGE churros each! Bahahah we were sooo full afterwards, but it was totally worth it! (most peope got like two churros each, but yes we each at 5 huge ones haha), but they were bomb!
Then we got home at 7am, yes 7am, so Madrid J
Madrid Day 3!
So after going out until 7am, we decided to sleep until 10am at least J but we tried to get our day started by around 11am. We made our way over to La Latina to go to the famous markets there, I bought a few scarfs and a little wallet and also a bracelet (I am trying to collect bracelets from every where I go, in addition to shot glasses J because I have kept my bracelets from Australia on every since I was there!). The bracelets that are “in” right now (of course Sophie was showing me hers ) are these delicate string rosary bracelets, they are adorable! So I bought black ones for myself and flo and sien J. Then we went to have lunch in the Plaza Mayor, I had a plate full of mushroom croquettes…. And its funny because I was totally putting them on bread, so dutch!
The shopping in Madrid is ridiculous! I could have literally bought SO much hahah, even after the markets, we walked over to shop around Sol and Gran Via, where I absolutely died in their H&M, Zara, and Mango (especially Mango because I am obsessed with Nautical and that is allll they have hahah) oh I wish I could have bought so much more!!
After shopping we went to the Prado Museum and saw some amazing Spanish artists and also were hoping to see the Renoir exhibit, but you had to pay! And by the time we figured that out, it was sold out L!! I was soooo mad!! But I got to peak a little inside still hahah….
Then we got some yummy dinner at a spanish restaurant (I had some filo dough wrapped brie salad and they brought us some meatball things to start), as much as I love paella and croquettes, I don’t think I will really miss Spanish food not gonna lie haha
Madrid day 4!
So our flight was at 1:35pm, so we had to be on the metro around 11am. We were sad because most museums are closed on Mondays, so we started our day early and went to the yummy juice place again for breakfast. Then we walked around the Egyptian Temples that are there, saw amazing views, and then walked over to the cathedral again… when we made our way to the airport, my intake of chocolate started J duh it was valentines day!!! I got this hugeee bag of peanut m&ms (except that around the peanut was a layer of peanut brittle to make them extra crunchie, fantastic!!!!) bailey also bought us all chocolates too!!
1:35pm take off!
4pm land and train around 5pm and back to Florence around 6pm!!
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