Friday was my favorite day so far. Even though I didn’t get home until 3am and was still running on very little sleep, I got up at 8:30 to head to Salamanca with some friends. I took the metro for a half hour to get to the bus. When we were all at the bus station we went to buy our tickets. As it turns out, the closer you get to departure, the more expensive the ticket. 10 minutes of checking prices apart raised the price by 5 euro. Our once cheap, spur the moment trip turned into quite the expense. That being said, we opted out of going to Salamanca for the day, and decided that we would plan it further in advance so we could get round trip tickets for much less money.
Since we were already awake and out, we decided to go on a little adventure. We have these excellent passes called abonos, and they get you unlimited public transportation each month (and this is the best public transit I've ever witnessed). My idea, which was only half successful on Friday will be fully executed in the coming weeks, is to take the metro to random areas of the city and explore. On Friday we picked an area of town, took the metro there, and walked the city and had adventures from about 11am-6pm. It was a blast. We also designated it as a tourist day where we broke out our cameras and tried to capture some of the beauty to share with you. A few of my 200+ pictures are below.
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Revisiting the Palacio Real for the second day in a row. |
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| Cute little streets by the Plaza Mayor. Apparently this woman really liked being in my picture. |
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| On Gran Vía |
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| Prado Museum |
Ever since I got here I’ve been having these flash backs to my last trip to Madrid in 2008. That was a much different experience, and much more sheltered. Last time I was on a bus with 100 Americans and we were shuttled on and off and to different parts of town, not having any sense for how places were connected and their locations or meanings. All day yesterday especially I kept finding places were I had been and just kind of got lost in the moment. It’s been about three years since my last trip here and so much as changed since then. But the one thing that has stayed the same is my absolute adoration for Madrid (and Spain in general). I’m in a complete love bubble with this place and I have no regrets for coming to Madrid over Buenos Aires. It’s so… enchanting. It’s even better than Disney World. One day this will be my home for more than a few months.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve overcome the jet lag. My exhaustion now strictly stems from the countless miles I walk every day and the extremely different schedule here. In short, I get up early for class, then come home for lunch and maybe rest a little, then meet up with people to hang out, dinner between 9 and 11, then go out until the wee hours of the morning (or later). It’s so different, and so entertaining.
Our second night out we went on a pretty lame bar crawl, but then went to a very popular discoteca (nightclub) called Kapital afterwards. It’s seven floors, each with a different “theme.” It’s a little confusing because the floors aren’t numbered, so you basically just have to count from the top or bottom to figure out where you are. The top floor is open-air and really relaxed, which is a polar opposite of the other six floors. The first floor was completely packed the entire night, and was probably the most fun area. The fourth was all Hispanic music, which was also really cool. I was surprised by the amount of American Top 40 that was played throughout the club. We almost stayed until the Metro started running again, but decided to call it a night around 4:30-5am and a bunch of us from the neighborhood shared a taxi home. I was exhausted and my feet were killing me, but it was worth it. Saturday should be another fun day of exploring (if my feet will allow it)!
Hasta luego.
