Day 33: Friday, February 18, 2011

All of us ecstatic to have Starbucks!

Today was an awesome day.  We left the hostel around 9am and walked outside to a beautiful day.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was the warmest I have felt since I've been here.  I was able to walk around the entire day in just a light leather jacket; it was fabulous!  Upon leaving, we immediately fled to the Starbucks that was conveniently located right next to our hostel.  They don't have Starbucks in Italy, and because we flock to anything American, everyone was willing to spend 6E on a cup of not that awesome coffee.

Plaza Mayor

Afterwards, we went on a tour.  A FREE TOUR; so that makes it even better.  A company called SANDEMANs New Europe offers free tours in a bunch of cities around Europe.  The tour guides are all really young and energetic, and they advertise in hostels, so all of the people in the tours are also really young.  There was about 20 people in our group, and they were all students studying abroad, visiting Madrid for the weekend just like us.  The tour was about 3 and a 1/2 hours.  Madrid is a beautiful city.  There are awesomely cool houses, the Royal Palace is unbelievable, and the city is SO clean.  And it really shocked me; being such a big city, one would think there would be litter and pollution, but there's not.  From the streets to the public transportation, everything was pretty much spotless.

Chasing bubbles in Plaza Mayor :)

Our tour started in Plaza Mayor, an old square that is now considered the center of Madrid.  It is lined with both new and traditional shops and completely overpriced restaurants.  The square used to be used for many things, like bullfights, soccer games, markets, and even executions.  Now it's mostly just a pretty plaza to visit and people watch.  From there, we walked to Botin, the worlds oldest restaurant.  It was established in 1725 by James Botin and his wife.  Hemingway was a frequent visitor of Botin, and now it's both a touristy spot but also a favorite restaurant of many locals.

Guinness Book of Worlds Record certificate
for the world's oldest eatery

Botin, the world's oldest restaurant.  

Santa Maria la Real de La Almudena

From there we walked down the streets of Madrid and our tour guide told us cool stories about a million different spots.  We stopped at the Santa María la Real de La Almudena.  The capital of Spain was switched from Toledo to Madrid in the 1500s, however, when Madrid became capital, it had no cathedral.  The Spanish began construction of this cathedral in the late 1800s, and didn't finish until the 1990s!  It was beautiful though; grandiose and intricate, so i guess the 100 plus years of work paid off.  After the cathedral, we walked to the Royal Palace.  It was absolutely humongous; our tour guide told us it has 2,800 rooms (more on that later, we did the inside tour on Saturday!)  It is considered to be the official residence of the King of Spain, but he doesn't actually live there.  He lives in another palace on the outskirts of Madrid, and visits the Royal Palace on the select dates.    

Emily and I outside the Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Afterwards, we took a stroll down a few streets that reminded me of Las Rambles in Barcelona.  There were people dressed up in costume but standing frozen like statues, people playing instruments, others dancing, and tourists everywhere!  The weather was still beautiful so it was so awesome to just walk around the whole city. 

Headless man

The most adorable old man I have ever seen

Trying to crack them :)

Embracing the beautiful weather

We literally could not tell which one was real

After the tour, we walked around Parque de Madrid.  There was a lot of neat architecture around it and cool looking plants and trees.  We acted like little kids for a bit, climbing in the trees and playing in the park :)

:)

Emily and I in Parque de Madrid

The girls at the entrance of Parque de Madrid

The girls in Plaza Mayor before the Pub Crawl

Afterwards, we grabbed some food at a terrible restaurant (per usual).  It blows my mind how hard it is to find good food on this continent.  I don't know how people live here their whole lives.  GO TO AMERICA people...the food is SO much better.  After dinner, we headed back to the hostel.  The same company that offers the free tours also sponsor a pub crawl every night Wednesday - Sunday.  We all showered then met back in Plaza Mayor at 11:00pm.  There was about 30 people in our group, and we all left the plaza around 11:30.  The pub crawl was 12E and consisted of 5 different bars and 1 club.  The first bar was all-you-can drink beer and sangria for an hour, then each bar after that came with a free shot, and the last club was free entrance and one free drink.  It was definitely a cool way to meet people, however, the execution of it was terribly inefficient.  But that's usual for Europe.  We always feel like things are ran so inefficiently!  But it was still really fun; we were with a really cool group of people, so it was fun to meet some new people and see some new bars!

Getting the most out of my all-you-can-drink deal :)

Amanda, Emily, and I during the Pub Crawl

One of the bars we went to was a salsa dancing club!  It was packed with both locals and tourists, and one of the locals tried to teach me some moves!  I think I caught on pretty well :)

 We ended up at a 7 floor club around 2am.  It was absolutely huge!  I couldn't even count the amount bars they had!  And there were also so many little rooms that looked like VIP rooms, with huge colorful couches and chairs, neon tables, light up floors, etc.  It was so much fun!  We danced until about 5am, then headed back.  Oh what a night <3