Europe Trip 2012, Leg 1: 3 days in Madrid, 3 days in Barcelona :)
Three days in Madrid: After an airport debacle, broken suitcase and a bus and hot walk to the hotel, I spent the afternoon/evening wandering Parque del Buen Retiro with my cousin and his 2 lovely spanish friends, Claudia and Luis. It was nice just for part of a day to have people who could translate for us, help us order food and help us get around. The second day, we slept until 1:30 (oops, jet lag), then hopped on the Madrid City Bus tour to get acclimated to the city, figure out where the high points were and seeing beautiful sights. We visited El Prado museum twice to check out the lovely paintings and sculptures. We wanted to watch the Olympic Men's 100M Track Final, so on our last night we ventured to a sports bar we had found the night before, met some new friends, and the 4 of us were the only ones that cared at all about the Olympics. It was a great race, and we had a good time hanging with our new friends.
Next: Off to Barcelona by train. The high speed train jetted us across the country in only a few hours. Then once we got to Barcelona, the adventure really began. Bye bye luxurious Westin Palace Hotel Madrid, hello living in a hostel, getting lost on the way to hostel, melting in the hot sun dragging suitcases, thanks to the nice man who helped us get to our hostel, hello time warp back to college staying in a room with two complete strangers. One of whom was loudly snoring when we walked in to drop our stuff off (I should have know what would come later). My cousin and I stood awkwardly looking at our new roommate, then hightailed out of there because there wasn't much else to do. We wandered around, found some food and beers, then joined our hostel mates for a "pub crawl" that they host every night, where they take you to a bar right on the water, then to a club that goes underground. Our hostel was part of a chain, and there were 4 other hostels around the city, so we all met at one and a huge group of tourists trekked off together. There were Aussies, Canadians, Americans, kiwis, and they all had such interesting travel plans and stories. 3 months, 6 months, 9 months on the road, traveling until they ran out of money, traveling alone or with friends, finding a place they loved and staying there longer than planned, on holiday from "university", studying abroad. It was super refreshing to be in such a laid back atmosphere. I met some really nice people, lost my cousin in the club, and panicked until he came back to the hostel after walking all the way home (took him almost an hour, he didn't remember the name of the hostel, and I am a bad older cousin for not stamping it on his forehead). The next day we hopped on another city tour which dropped us off at the high points of Barcelona (Camp Nou-Barca futbol stadium, Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, the Gothic district, shopping avenue, and other churches, plazas and squares. We did Park Guell as our last stop on a long, hot day, and I was struggling, emotional, tired, not having a good day at all. But we decided to hike up to the top of the hill (I was wearing a dress and flimsy flip flops), and we were panting and sweating by the time we got to the top, but we had amazing panoramic views of the hills, valleys, ocean and city of Barcelona. Breathtaking!
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