Cuando estás en Madrid...

En Madrid, ¡la gente está muy loca!

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I went to Madrid this weekend.  In general, I had a good time, enjoyed visiting the capital, and was extremely happy I went.  But coming back to Oviedo was one of the best feelings.  Madrid was too big, too crowded, WAY too expensive, and too international.  Most people spoke English and if they so much as heard you speak one word of it, they wouldn't speak Spanish to you.  Even if you asked them.  Even if they were struggling so much with English.

That was a summary of the following post.  If you have the endurance of a long-distance runner, you may brave the novel I wrote on my trip to Madrid...I hope you are mentally prepared for an entry of epic proportions...

So we left on Thursday at 5:45pm, even though the bus was supposed to be at 5:30.  Normally I'd just say that this is just how it is in Spain, but the buses run on a very tight schedule.  This bus was delayed due to rush-hour traffic, apparently.  Anyways, the bus ride wasn't too pleasant.  It was already getting dark so we couldn't enjoy the Spanish countryside, and driving through Asturias is the worst thing I could think of doing pretty much ever.  There are so many mountains, the roads just wind around them and over them.  If you're lucky, they go under them in tunnels, but that doesn't happen often enough.  About half way to Madrid we stopped at a rest-station (LITERALLY 5 minutes after I'd worked up the courage to use the bus's bathroom, of course), and we got into Madrid around 11:30pm.  The 15 of us took the metro to the stop closest to our hostel, had to ask directions to get to our street, and walked the 5 minutes from the metro to the hostel.  When we got there there was some confusion over our reservation.  How could they forget about 15 people??  But they sorted it out, and by 1am we were in bed.

One of two of the rooms in which we were the only people.

On Friday we woke up relatively early to get breakfast from the hostel and go on a walking tour that was going to start in Puerta del Sol (Door of the Sun), the main square in Madrid.  Some pictures on our walk to Puerta del Sol, which include Plaza Mayor (which reminded me of Saint Mark's Square in Venice, without the church):

"Learn to paint, idiot!"

The first of many horsemen, this one is in the center of Plaza Mayor

Our walking tour began in Puerta del Sol, but we walked all over the city.  I'm really happy I did it because I wouldn't have gotten such a comprehensive overview of Madrid otherwise, but it was 3 hours long and VERY tiring.  On the plus side, it was free!  I honestly cannot remember all the things we saw, but I took lots of pictures!  One highlight on the tour was the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), where the royalty still live today.  They have opened part of the palace up to the public as a museum, which I went to after the tour with some people from my group.

The prettiest building in Puerta del Sol, it was built by the post office on what they thought was the 0 km mark in Spain.

Madrid's mascot: a bear and his tree (El oso y el Madroño)

Of all the churches in Spain...

The horseman of Puerta del Sol (most of these men were kings, I just don't remember which).

Queen Isabel, her statue is in Plaza Opera because she commissioned many works of art.

Another horseman near the Palacio Real.

Palacio Real (or part of it...)

Our tour group, picture taken by one of the guides.

Photo taken by Gracia on our tour.

Awesome mural...when you see it!

Moldy Voldy not so Moldy

After the walking tour, we went to Starbucks to recuperate and then some of us headed to the Palacio Real, including me (by the way, the stuff we call whipped cream in the States is nothing compared the whipped cream I had on my hot chocolate in that Spanish Starbucks).  The palace was beautiful, it reminded me of Kensington Palace with an Italian-style fresco on every ceiling.  There was no photography allowed, so I have no pictures of the inside to share.  We saw a girl take a picture with her smart phone, get yelled at, made to delete all her photos from the palace, and get kicked out.  It was pretty intense.

We were dead tired after all that walking, and it was about 6pm after we went through the Palacio, so we went back to the hostel to take a siesta.  I didn't actually sleep, but I really needed to get off my feet.  That night we went out with the same company that runs the tours for dinner plus flamenco show plus pub crawl.  It was pretty fun, but I didn't bring my camera because I didn't want to carry it out at night in Madrid.  

The dinner was made up of tapas and they were pretty good.  Afterwards we went to a famous flamenco place that was set up as a restaurant with a stage for the dancers.  It was pretty cool, the dancing was very intense and it was interesting to watch because the singer, guitarist, and dancers all seemed to be following each other.  It wasn't just the dancers following the music.  I definitely enjoyed seeing it, even though they stuck us in the back next to the bar.  

After flamenco, we went on a 4-pub bar crawl.  I only made it to 3 out of 4 of them because a girl in my group was robbed at the 3rd one because she set her bag down for 5 minutes, which gave some of us an excuse to go home.  The bars in Madrid were much bigger, louder, and more crowded.  In a way, that was fun because the dance floors were always full and there were plenty of people to dance with.  But it was also very overwhelming, at least for me. 

Because we didn't get to bed until ~3am, two other girls and I decided to have a slow start Saturday morning.  Some people in our group who hadn't been to the palace went in the morning, and some others went to the Fútbol stadium, which had a museum and a tour I think.  Nora, Storie, and I left the hostel around 1pm and went to Plaza Mayor for some lunch.  We ate outside, and because it was kinda cold out, the restaurant had provided fleece blankets for the outdoor tables.  So I wore my eatin' blanket and lunched in Plaza Mayor.  

A sun dial on the side of a building on our walk to Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor

After lunch we walked to the Museum of Reina Sofia, a contemporary art museum that houses a lot of Spanish artists' work, such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.  Some areas were photography friendly, whereas others weren't.  I was surprised to see Picasso's huge painting called "Guernica" that took up an entire wall and necessitated 3 security guards.  It was definitely an interesting museum.  Unfortunately, we did not have the time or energy to go to El Prado, a famous museum in Madrid of older art.  Even if we had gone, people say it takes about 3 days to do El Prado in its entirety, so I don't feel so bad.  Plus, Sofia Reina was free.  Some photos from the museum:

Elevator at Reina Sofia, if you look closely it says Reina, there was another that said Sofia.

Salvador Dalí

Also Dalí

Dalí, again.

We went to Starbucks again after Sofia Reina, though it was a different Starbucks.  Madrid was as Starbucks'd as any US city.  Anyways, I said something to Storie in English and a guy at the table next to me asked, in English, if I was from the US or the UK, and I said US, and since he said it in an American accent, I asked where he was from.  He said Rhode Island, so I was like, "Oh that's cool, we go to school in Massachusetts!" And he asked where, and I said, "Umass Amherst," and he said, "Oh I graduated from there ~5 years ago."  So we met someone in Madrid who went to Umass!!  It was pretty cool.  He sat down with us and we talked to him about Spain and everything.  He was a math major at school and is apparently teaching English to engineers here in Spain.  What a coincidence!

Once we got back to the hostel, we took it easy.  Our plan was to go out again that night to a really popular, and disgustingly expensive, club, but since it's Spain, no one goes out before midnight.  We played cards and hung out before finally leaving.  The club, Kapital, was pretty intense.  It was huge - it's famous for its seven floors of bars and dance floors.  We didn't go to every floor, but it was still pretty cool.  The main dance floor was huge and there were lights and every once in a while they dumped a ton of really cold air on us - at first I thought it was for the effects, but it really helped keep us cool.  They even had a male and female dancer on either side of the DJ dancing with very little clothing on.  It was pretty entertaining.  Drinks in that place were ridiculously expensive.  I didn't buy anything once I got there, it was too horrific to even think about.  For example, a shot was, I'm pretty sure, 5€.  And it went up from there.  I couldn't believe it.  I'm glad we saw it, but I am so happy that I am not living in Madrid this semester.  Going to Madrid this weekend made me realize how good of a decision it was to study in Oviedo, at least out of the cities in Spain.  We'll see if I feel the same when I go to Barcelona...

We didn't get back until the wee hours of the morning, and we were in NO way the last to leave that club.  I am very curious to see how late (aka early) it stays open.  7am?  8am?  Those Spaniards showed no signs of stopping.  I slept for 3 hours (a very good 3 hours, but still only 3 hours) before I had to get up and get ready to check out of the hostel.  After we checked out, I went with Nora, Storie, Grace, and Mary to Plaza Mayor for some food and souvenir shopping.  I thought it was hilarious that they sold Barcelona soccer paraphernalia, as well as Madrid.  So tourists could pretend they went to Barcelona as well?  Yo no sé.  

After some people had lunch, we went to a Churros place that's open 24/7 near Puerta del Sol and I had my first authentic, Spanish Churros con Chocolate.  They were amazing.  And when they say "Chocolate", they do not mean "Hot Chocolate", they mean melted chocolate in a cup that you dip the Churros into.  

We walked to the metro stop "Opera" where there is a mini "museum" of the old aqueduct they found while digging for the metro.  It was literally 1 room with a video projected on a wall and 3 pieces of aqueduct, but it was pretty cool.  Then we took the metro the bus station and caught the 2pm bus back to Oviedo.  

The bus ride to Oviedo was a lot better than the one to Madrid, it went faster, I slept marginally more (aka more than none), and we got to see the countryside go by.  Spain's countryside is really interesting because in Madrid it's very dry, but there are hills and some mountains in the distance.  It's very beautiful.  And then, somewhere between Madrid and Asturias, there are just plains and grass and treefarms forever.  The rest stop that we stopped at on both sides of the journey is in what looks like the Midwest of the US.  And then you hit Asturias and there is NO flat ground.  The mountains we saw were so beautiful, but I couldn't really get any pictures because I was in a bus.  Had we stopped, I could have won a photo contest.  

We got in around 7:30 and it was very clear that everyone was happy to be back.  Most people said the same thing, that they were reallly happy they got to go to Madrid, but they are much happier studying in Oviedo. 

Anyways, if you made it this far into this post, kudos to you.  I'm impressed.  I apologize for talking (typing?) your ear (eyes?) off, but I probably won't have another post for a while since I plan on laying low in Oviedo for a little while.  ¡Hasta Luego!

*Besos*