Madrid!

I´m in Madrid! This is crazy. I almost have to smack myself to remember where I am it´s all so surreal. The hostel we´re staying at has been great. They provide you with lots of group activities to keep you busy and meeting people. Laura and I flew in from Paris two days ago and have been occupied ever since. We met up with my friend Neil who I met on a Contiki tour two years ago and who also happened to be in Madrid for a few of the same days as us. It´s crazy how two years can go by and randomy you can meet up with people again. It´s awesome.

It rained the first night we were here but Neil managed to find our hostel, dripping wet the poor guy. We walked about 20 metres and ended up grabbing tapas and drinks at a restaurant next door. We ordered the drinks that we could make out from the menu and got our server to pick what she thought we´d like from the tapas menu. There was no translation and our Spanish is limited to simple words that keep us polite but entirely unaware. We ended up eating a cold soup that tasted vaguley of tomatoes, some sort of potato salad, fried cheese sticks....was that all? I cant quite recall but it was delicious. So were those mojitos....

After tapas we joined in on some drinking games at our hostel and called it an early night as we were all bagged from travel. The next morning Neil joined us for a walking tour with people from a few hostels in the neighborhood. The tour lasted just over 3 hours and we saw everything we wanted to see. It was amazing. I feel like I know so much about Madrid now but sadly I am crippled by my inability to pronounce, understand and reiterated any of the names of the sites I saw. I can tell you in dull English that I saw the palace where the royal family stays, the cathedral next door, an opera house, the gigantic post office among many other sites. I won´t expand on that too much but it was great. Neil, Laura and I grabbe ice cream after and went our separate ways so we could shower for the evenings activities.

Two nights of the week our hostel holds a tapas tour around the area where you get to sample food and beverages form Madrid, northern Spain and southern Spain. While tapas still leave you starving, it was great to get a taste of the culture and I´ve come to absolutely love Sangria. Am I spelling that right? Sure! After the tapas tour we ate fries at Burger King (starving!) with Neil and a couple new freinds from Brazil and the UK and met up with the pub crawl. It was a great night and the night life here in Madrid is crazy! Its amazing how many people are out on the street at 3am...Ive never seen anything like it. Rush hour in the wee hours....madness.

I´m outta time for now but will post pictures some time....eventually. Just goole Madrid and you´ll get the idea! It´s amazing here and I´ll do my best to write again soon. No time to spell check so....fingers crossed!