Madrid

Hola familia y amigos!

Here in Madrid it is a beautiful, sunny, 35 degree day (celsius that is.) When we arrived on the 9th, our plane landed in Madrid around 7:15pm and Brooke arrived not too long after us. After we reunited, we took the metro to our hostel. We shared our room with three other girls (a teacher from California and two Pennsylvanians) and met a new friend, Chris, (from Washington D.C.) who told us all of the places to go to in Madrid. That night, we wandered around the area and stopped at a cafe to figure out an itinerary. We kept it pretty low key considering we were all suffering from serious jet lag. The next morning we moved to a different hostel where we´ve spent the past 2 nights. It is in a great location and only a five minute walk from our previous hostel. So after we checked in we finally started exploring!

We began our day of exploration by going to the Palacio Real, which is the royal palace in Madrid. The palace has over 2000 rooms and the royal couple only goes there on official occasions. They had an exhibit on Charles IV who during his reign had collected a variety of impressive art pieces and musical instruments. We then wandered our way over to the Plaza Mayor, which has a huge statue of Felipe III in the middle. It reminded me a lot of the Plaza de San Marcos in Venice. Restaurants and tourist shops line the inside of the plaza charging ridiculous prices for all of the tourists who visit there. We then meandered our way back to our hostel and took a much needed siesta. Four hours later we awoke and decided to go buy from groceries from el cortes ingles and just continue exploring the center of Madrid. We then headed out to dinner around 10pm, had some tapas, paella, sangria, and called it a night.

The next day we headed over to Jardines de Sabitini which is the "everyman´s park" located right next to the Palace. There was a wading pool and a bunch of statues and fountains; the usual European park. We hung out there for awhile and then started wandering again (we love to wander, just in case you didn´t notice) and stumbled upon the Templo de Debod. The Templo de Debod is the only Egyptian temple in Spain. The Egyptian government shipped the temple to Madrid in 1968 as a thank you gift for sending archaeologists to help save the temples during a flood from the Aswam Dam. The 2200 year old temple was built to honor Isis and Ammon, and later more gods were engraved into the walls. Being a HUGE fan of Egypt and the Egyptian culture, I couldn´t have been more excited to see. It was amazing that after all these years you could still see the engravings etched into the walls. After we left there we walked along Gran Via, which reminded me a lot of streets in NYC - there were broadway shows and a variety of American restaurants. We then had doner kebabs for lunch, they were really good but of course not Istanbul quality. We then took another break from the hot Madrid sun and went to our hostel for another afternoon siesta. That night we went out for some more Spanish cuisine and soaked in
the Spanish culture.

Today we went to Jardine del Buen Retiro which is a huge park that has a lake where you can rent boats and showcases gardens with flowers from around the world. We found a cute little cafe for lunch and then made our way to the internet cafe to book our hostel for Barcelona. Tomorrow during the day we are going to visit a few of the museums and then at night we are taking an overnight bus to Barcelona, which I couldn´t be more excited for. Barcelona was one of my favorite cities that we visited on The Scholar Ship, and I´m sure the entire time we´re there, I´ll be in a constant state of nostalgia.

Granted it has only been a few days, I couldn´t be happier to be traveling again. I love being immersed in a different culture and although at times it may be difficult, I love that you hardly ever hear English spoken. How could I forgot how much I love this lifestyle and how much I love Spain? Surprisingly, I also liked Madrid a lot more than I originally thought, especially since I hold Barcelona on such a high pedestal. I will post pictures later when I have more time, but until then adios.