Madrid Part 2: Spain is owning it

Most of our time in Madrid was spent searching for the next place to eat.  That is barely a joke.

Wednesday
We decided to get a fair amount of sleep last night in order to heal some, but it doesn't seem to have worked.  Not letting that get us down, we had some free hostel breakfast and started our day.  Most of the day was spent walking around and taking in the sights.  We went back to Palacio Real, hoping there was no "official business" today.  There wasn't, but it was replaced by an infinitely long line, so we said fuck that.  Then we went to San Gines for some chocolate and churros.  Omnomnom.

Sarah really enjoys sepia mode

Sangria and beer in Retiro park was relaxing.  We followed that up by walking to Palacio de Cibeles.  I shouldn't say "walk," because it was more like a race to the bathroom after those drinks.  We went to the top for a cool view of the city.  Madrid is really flat, so there weren't so many "views," but it was still cool.

Ok that's enough

After more kebab (we're addicted), it was time for a few free museums.  Museo Nacional del Prado is free 6-8, and then the Reina Sofia museum was free 7-9.  We tried to focus on the Spanish artists, including Picasso's "Guerneca."  It was really interesting to see a famous painting, one that I've heard a lot about in school.  While I tend to become angered by most modern "art," I really like this one.
At night we finished the evening with a bit of a tapas crawl.  Well... in spirit.  We went to one bar with the intention of tapas crawling.  But this bar was really awesome and very Spanish.  We had a drink called Caiparina (don't even try to look it up, because my spelling is horrific).  It is a sugar cane based drink, so it is obviously delicious.  We also had some shot they call the "house shot" (or what I think is a "house shot," because I'm not fully sure my translation was correct).  I'm not entirely sure what it was because listening to Spanish is a bit like trying to catch a firefly: I can follow it for a little bit if I pay close attention, but then if I slip up a little then I'm done.  It gets difficult after a while.  But I'm actually impressed with how well I've been doing and how much high school Spanish I remember.  After that bar, we watched Madrid lose to Munich in soccer PKs from outside a bar.  I didn't care too much.  We then decided that ending the night "early" is a better idea for our health, so we went back to the hostel for the night.  "Early" was in quotes because in Spain, "early" is 11:30pm.

Thursday
I woke up feeling a bit better this morning, so that's good!  We packed everything up to check out of the hostel, then went for a quick stroll to Plaza Mayor to get some chocolate and churros.  We're currently on the high-speed train now to Sevilla.  However, my last Madrid experience will be running back to the hostel with only 45 minutes before our train left, because we forgot one of our souvenirs there.  No luck finding it though.  Oh well.
Shit, the train through the countryside to Sevilla is absolutely gorgeous.  Nothing but farmlands and mountains.  And a really cool castle on top of a hill just outside Cordova.  I'll have to look that up when I get back.  Almodovar Castle.