Monday, June 28, 2010

Madrid

Whoops! We kinda overslept the next morning and had to book it to the train station. I know, shocker. You can blame it on Jay's phone, which met it's demise when he knocked it off the top bunk. Usually, wooden floors, 6 foot drops, and electronics don't really mesh well together. Alas. Anyway, this is what caused us to set the alarm to the wrong time as we could no longer see the screen on his phone. Luckily, we got there in plenty o' time and hopped on the train. I was kinda afraid there wasn't gonna be a movie but the TV's were flickering so it gave me some hope. They spent the first couple hours being movie teases before finally putting one on. YES! I was super excited! Alright...here it comes...IT IS...Flash of Genius. Womp womp. Damn. That same stupid movie that they played on the last train. Geez, I mean, at LEAST give me some Zac. Whatevs, it wasn't even in English this time.
The ride was uneventful but we got there in the pouring rain and trekked through the downpour to MAD hostel. It's got a great common room but the dorms are TINY. We took advantage of more free internet and hung out for awhile. Jay and I got invited to an Irish pub to watch the World Cup (England vs USA) so we started getting ready. As I was coming down the stairs, I ran into....Mille! The same girl from the great couple we hung out with in Granada! Small world. I invited her and Craig to the pub. After getting accosted by an insane old man staying at the hostel (who seemed to have a vendetta with Bill Bradely and Rhodes scholars), we headed to the pub. Unfortunately, it was really crowded, beer was getting spilled, the music was too loud, and old English men were "accidentally" grabbing my ass when they tried to squeeze past me. We quickly left and went to find dinner. Craig and Mille are really funny and nice to hang out with. The other girl that we went with, Meg, was nice as well, but sort of a wet blanket. We went to a bar called "Museo de Jamon" to watch the rest of the football match and had a great time. More of Madrid tomorrow!
I'm pretty sure Australians come in a close second with the Dutch to being the nicest nationality. Every Aussie we've met on this trip has been so friendly. We woke up this morning to check out of our stupidly strict hostel (we were escorted into the luggage room and watched to make sure we didn't steal anybody else's stuff) and headed out into Madrid with Mille and Craig. We had a great time hanging out and ended up going to the Prado museum. We said our goodbyes and started off exploring the enormous museum. Lots of Spanish and Flemish paintings. We saw some great masterpieces and overall, it was probably one of my favorite museums. I was scolded for the THIRD time by a museum security guard who thought I was touching a painting. In reality, I was only pointing out a painting to Jay that featured an old king with a boner. I mean, COME ON. Who's not going to point that out?
Madrid is definitely the most expensive city in Spain but we found a really good place with reasonable prices all on our own! Success!
After going to the King's palace, we went back to the hostel to grab our stuff and go to the station to wait for our night train to Paris. On the way, I saw a man drop his wallet without noticing, so, being the wonderful Samaritan that I am, I rushed after him and returned it. He was extremely grateful and surprised that I would return it. I guess he was pretty lucky that an American girl saw him lose it. We got to the station and sat around before they finally ended up assigning us a platform. There was a huge, obnoxious school group from some podunk American town but luckily they ended up sitting far away from us. Unfortunately, Jay and I got assigned to separate seating areas and I was placed between 3 guys. I pouted about this and glared out the window for a good hour, but it actually turns out that they were really nice and we ended up playing a card game that lasted for about 4 hours. Not surprisingly, I lost, but it was still awesome. Jay and I both decided we were going to keep on playing it when we got back home. The train ride was looonngg and I didn't sleep very well but we got to Paris the next morning with no problems.

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