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.

Madrid Part 1: ok Spain, let's do this

Guess what I just learned?  Eating yogurt with a fork will get you nowhere in life.  Learn from my mistakes kids: yogurt requires a spoon.
Oh also Madrid is neat.

Monday
I took a couple of small comas on the planes, and when we arrived in Madrid at about 5:30, I was both refreshed and relapsed into a deeper allergy-cold thing.  Sarah's bag was lost in London, but we had everything we needed for the night, so no harm done.
The metro was easy enough to figure out and it turns out that our hostel is in the middle of everything, so that's good.  The first moment we stepped out of the subway was one of awe.  Madrid is unbelievably beautiful.  In the kind of quintessential "quaint Europe" kind of way.  Small roads, gorgeous buildings, colors and flowers everywhere.  Every other intersection was an open square with umbrellas and tables and sangria and tapas.  We were both blown away.

Buzz Lightyear is quizzical

Our hostel is a typical "American college student hang-out" place, which is fine.  Except that the beds are children's bunk beds.  Something about a tipsy grown man trying to hurl himself to the top bunk in a room where 6 other people area already sleeping... just a little annoying.
Our first stop was El Tigre, a tapas place recommended by former Madrid resident Katherine "de nada" Rizzolo (and others).  It was great.  I was somehow able to pull enough Spanish together to order some beer and tapas (it came with an ENORMOUS plate of tapas, which are Spanish appetizer-size nom noms), all for 5 euros.  Yeah, Madrid is going to be waaaaaay cheaper than Iceland.
Upon returning to the hostel, we immediately joined a hostel-run "drinking games" event.  It was a chance to have free sangria, meet some people from our hostel, and play Kings.  Funtimes, Inc.  This turned into an all-out pub crawl, where we went to 3 or 4 bars and danced and discussed the future of the U.S. and China, usual stuff.  Madrid is fairly easy to navigate, but I was proud of myself for already understanding the layout of the city and making our way home.  It was only a Monday, but some of the bars started picking up a bit around 2am.  Should be good news for the party cats in us.  Bad news for the replicating virus currently destroying my sinuses.

Tuesday
This morning began with some intense nose blowing.  Toast and nutella, provided by the hostel (shit is getting cheap!  FINALLY) made for a good start as we took the Metro out to see Palacio Real, but it was closed for some kind of "official business."  Likely story.  But we did manage to see the changing of the guard: really cool.  We also went into the Catedral de la Almudena nearby: an immense cathedral.  We derped around some parks after that, visiting Templo de Debod, a donated Egyptian temple.

LET US IN

These are some intense colors

Wait WHEN DID WE GET TO EGYPT?

We then went to the city center, Puerto del Sol, to get some doner kebab.  Yum.  I love cheap delicious food.  From there we walked over to Parque del Retiro, an enormous park with a cool glass house-thing and a huge pond where we rowed a (magical) boat!  Well, after a siesta in the park...
After siesta time we rented one of the row boats on the Retiro pond.  It was a lot of fun: I beat everyone in the pond.  It was like they didn't even know we were racing?  Then we saw some cats curiously feeding on what appeared to be liver.  Were they fed?  If so, did someone put food in an area, which attracted cats, or were the cats already there?  These are questions I need answers to.

I hope the owners don't throw stones in that glass house.  LE CHUCKLE.

Look at these guys!  This is the sorriest excuse for a boat race I've ever seen.

Ok our turn

I want in on some of that rowing action

Kittehs noming on livers (maybe)

After our excursion in Retiro, we started sauntering (yes, sauntering) toward Sol.  We came across a few Madrid attractions: Puerta de Alaca, Palacio de Cibeles, and the Banco de Espana area.  These names mean nothing to you, but trust me, they're cool.  We then migrated to Plaza Mayor.  This place is a really awesome looking open plaza with cafe areas along the sides and open walking area in the middle.  Some more exploring led us to a lot of cool buildings in the area and a market where we tried some octopus and cod.

This is Plaza Mayor.  No joke here.

Muah!

Then we met up with Katie's friend Kate (real original, guys), who tooks us to a cool hole-in-the-wall-ish tapas-ish place called Rey de las Tortillas.  It was pretty cheap for a shitload of sangria, potatos, bread, chorizo, and tortilla (egg/potato awesomeness).  I actually had wine with coke, which is a drink they call... something, and it's not half bad.  But then my face cold started destroying my life, so we're back at the hostel for tea and another regroup.  It's 11pm, but people aren't even starting to get ready to go out yet.