MADRID, SPAIN

“Well, do you speak German maybe? No? French? Not that either? Well that’s probably best, those wouldn’t have been that helpful anyway.”

Now making an appearance on my To Do List: learn Spanish. 

This weekend I flew to Madrid, officially adding Spain to the list of places I’ve visited. It was literally a weekend trip in duration, and since it was so short, my observations will probably end up being slightly superficial. In a nutshell, Spain in wild, but not the wild I’d expected. 

On my way Saturday morning, I felt so incredibly ill for a number of reasons, including a number of beers Friday evening, not enough sleep that night, some sort of bug that I’d caught, and having to stand in a cramped, overly warm train car for almost 2 hours. This is not a good time to feel sick, since in order to get to my hostel from my house here, I had to take 1 car, 3 trains, 1 bus, 1 airplane, 4 subway lines, and then it was “just a short walk to the doorstep of the hostel”, quoted from the hostel’s website. Needless to say, I was exhausted. I fell asleep for an hour before Maria came to pick me up for a delicious meal of tapas and sangria.  I have known Maria and her family for as long as I can remember, and it was so great to be able to meet her in Europe, especially since she can speak Spanish! I fell asleep again for a couple of hours before Meredith and Sami burst into our hostel room. Meredith is my good friend from College of Charleston, and Sami and she are studying abroad in France this year, so it was really lucky it worked out for us to meet in Madrid. Meredith was down for the count for Saturday evening with a case of food poisoning, and after exploring the nightlife and finding nothing that impressed, Sami and I were back at the hostel within an hour. 

Maria and Me and Tapas

Saturday everyone woke up and felt better, so we were off to find this great market of which we’d all heard rumors. It was supposed to have over 500 vendors with everything from clothes, to jewelry, to spanish fans, to who knows what. We approached the spot on our map, but vendor after vendor had only coins. Coins and stamps. Plastic casings for coins and stamps, and more coins, and more stamps. We eventually asked our way to the right place, and the rumors were true. It was overwhelming huge ,and I bought a leather bracelet, a leather wallet, and found my magnet which I buy in every place I visit. Man, I love markets. The rest of the day including wandering through the huge city park, which held a lake with row boats and great modern art sculptures, and then a (free!) trip to Museo del Prado, which is one of the most well-known art museums in the world. Spanish art has never been right up my alley, but it was great to see some Goya and El Greco up close and personal. We ate churros with hot chocolate dipping sauce. We napped. Meredith was food poisoned still. Sami and I went in search of nightlife one more time. Everything was closed. We slept some more. 

Street Art

1/100th of the Market

Colorful Spanish Fans

Buildings with Frescos and Blue Skies

Spaniards enjoy strangely shaped trees.

Monday morning, we made one last trip back to the market area in search of a specific food. The day before we’d seen over 100 people eating a fried calamari sandwich, and knew it was something we had to try. It was exactly as can be expected: fried stuff on bread. I would love to see more of Spain. I’m sure this is going to be an overgeneralization, but Madrid felt so alive. There was so much walking and talking and fighting and kissing, and even though it rained a couple times while I was there, thousands of umbrellas were still bobbing around the pedestrian streets, coming in and out of the subway, and greeting each other whole-heartedly. Also, I love how different their Spanish is from what I’m used to, saying most words with a slight lisp. It’s like they are biting their tongues while saying “Gracias”. (Try it! It’s fun!)

Love how many trees are in the city.

Madrid makes me want to tile everything I own.

A couple exciting things happened on the way back, which ended up lasting 11 hours. I saw the flipping over of an airport luggage cart in tow to fill an airplane. It was within 100 meters of its destination, meaning all of the passengers got to witness their checked luggage flying threw the air. The shuttle bus driver gave me free transportation to the train station, which was great. I looked in correctly at the train timetables and had a minor panic attack when I thought I’d be arriving home at 6:30AM, but I didn’t, which was great. Some guy tried to explain to me in one train station that he wasn’t bad and asked for money very forcefully, and a total stranger walking by yelled at him to stop and leave me alone, which was also great. If you happen to read this, Random Hero, thank you for saving me. Great food, great friends, great weekend. 

Very next on the To Do List: not being sick.