The Grass is Greener on the Other Side! Madrid 2011

Ok, bear with me...so during the Madrid trip, I was trying to think about the title I wanted for my blog. Well for my title, I obviously need an explanation. and every clever title I came up with, Attie admitted that it wasn't clever and I was the only one who liked it :)...so here it goes...

**"the grass is greener on the other side". Madrid may not be better than Sevilla, but is the grass greener there? Yes...literally. lol haha O gosh that one took me awhile.**Now down to story telling business. Maybe by the end of the blog you'll understand my title better...maybe.

Friday: Friday morning, Attie and I took the 6 hour bus ride to Madrid. I was really ready to go on this trip. I didn't have too much success in Barcelona, I was miserably sick two weeks ago, and this past week has been killer with exams, presentations, and papers. Well, luckily for me, Madrid was perfect! The forcast showed it raining every day, but it didn't rain on us once (ok maybe once but that story is later). It was the perfect temperature all weekend too (not too hot, not too cold, all you needed was a light jacket: name that movie!).

We got settle in Madrid and headed off to the Parque del Buen Retiro. This was the prettiest park I have ever seen. Maybe is was just because Sevilla has zero green grass and no big oak trees like in the midwest (Sevilla has dirt/sand and palm trees), but it was so amazingly refreshing seeing so much green all around. I was obsessed! Also, they had the prettiest pond and crystal palace. I was just enamored by the beauty of the park.

me at one of the pretty ponds. the trees just grew out of the water

crystal palace

the main pond. so pretty!

The rest of the night until dinner, we just walked around the city. Madrid is the perfect city. It's a big city, but everything is so close to each other. We didn't have to take the metro to any of the main sights. I also LOVE how it may be a big city, but it still has that Spanish charm. Not quite like Sevilla, but so much more than Barcelona. Barcelona just felt like a random city whereas Madrid felt a lot like Sevilla and even more like a college town with big oak trees lining the streets and pretty brick buidlings. Anyways, we walked to/saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a huge plaza that has lots of street performers, shops, restaurants, etc. We also strolled through Puerta del Sol, which is the main hubub/shopping area. The main shopping street had so many people on it that we literally could not walk down the street!. My favorite favorite thing that we did was go to the San Miguel Market. I am absolutely obsessed with this place! It was like the food market that I described earlier in Sevilla, but was fancier and more like the Taste of Cincinnati except indoors. Its hard to describe but every food area had a bar where people were just standing and eating tapas from each place. They had lots of fish tapas, which is the first time I've seen fish in Spain. They also had a pastry area that had frozen yogurt just like Red Mango! I got yogurt with strawberries and chocolate each day that we were there. I just had to go back!

mercado de san miguel

day 3 with the yogur

obession

Plaza Mayor

For dinner we met up with Attie's intercambio (person she speaks Spanish to). He just moved to Madrid and was so nice! We had dinner at a "cave" bar, which is skinny but goes really far back like a cave would. After dinner, Attie and I really acted like Spanairds. We found a random bar to watch the Spain vs Czech Republic soccer game, which lasted until about midnight (Spain won by the way!).  Well, up at school, you usually go out and are drinking by at least 10. We didn't get to the club that we went to until 1am and even then it wasn't crowded until 2:30-3am. It was so crazy! I usually don't blog about nightlife, but this club needs attention! The club or discoteca that we went to was called Kapital. it cost 18 euro to get in, but you got a free drink (drinks cost 12euro). This place had 7 (yes SEVEN) floors of party, and every floor had its own theme, such as karyoke, mohitos, R&B music, salsa, pop, etc. Well, in the beginning, Attie and I just checked out every floor. The dancing floor wasn't hopping yet so we settled for the mohito floor where we had the best (and strongest!) mohitos and met the best guys EVER! They seriously made our night! They were from England (point for the hot accent), they were pilots (point for the job and having money to buy us 12 euro drinks) and were so nice and super cute (2 points :)). I'm going to London in about a month and am going to meet up with them and they're going to take us to the beach for a day. We didn't leave until 3:45 , when the party was just getting started, but we had a busy day ahead of us so decided to leave and find a Churros con Chocolate place. We didn't realize that it was raining, so we ended up ditching the churros idea and running home. Maybe it was because I had some drinks in more, but I just thought it was so fun running 15 minutes home in the pouring rain without an umbrella. We got to the hostel with our hair soaken and feet aching, but I have to say Friday night was one of the best nights I've had in a long time :)

Saturday : Saturday morning after 4.5 hours of sleep, we woke up and hit Madrid with a vengeance! Before anything though, we hit these watch stores that were all over Madrid. For those of you who don't know, Charming Charlie's got me hooked on watches. I just love love love them! Well these stores literally were lined floor to ceiling with watches! I got a black, grey and purple watch all for 13 euro. It was a great start to my day :).

I love traveling with Attie because we both like to do a lot of walking around the city. I feel like this give you more of a feel for the city rather than just taking the metro to the big museums and not seeing anything. We walked through La Latina and went to go see the Royal palace which looked a lot like Versailles. We didn't go in because the line was crazy long. We then saw 2 churches that were near the palace then hit up a Chinese restaurant for lunch.You can be disappointed that I wasn't tasting the great expensive tapas of Madrid or you can be really excited that this was the second time I've eaten Chinese since January! I know this sounds weird that I can't just call up Happy China or Panda express like in West Lala, but Sevilla isn't an international city like every place in America. Like I have said quite a lot, everyone here has dark hair, olive skin, and a short build. My American friends and I are constantly expressing how out of place and awkward you feel. It's so refreshing going to a city where you can't tell if they're Spanish or not because everyone looks different. Its nice not to stick out and be stared down for a couple of days. that is the one thing I will not miss when I leave: literally feeling self conscious of what I look like and how I stick out. Something I have never felt in my life.

Anyways, after lunch, we headed to the Reina Sofia and Prado Museums, which we got to go into for free. This was good because they were pretty boring. I mean when you go to these famous European cities, you have to go to the big museums, but I'm just not an artsy person at all. half the pictures I saw I didn't have the slighted clue as to why they are famous. It's ridiculous! Take this video for example. This was a video similar to the bajillion ones in the Barcelona museum. Please tell me what is famous about this :)

 I did however get more fill of my green grass and big trees on Saturday. Right by the Prado are Botanical Gardens. They had flowers, trees and different plants from all over the world, which was really neat.

Madrid really reminded me of a big college town. Especially on the street where the Prado was at. I loved seeing the trees lining the streets. It reminded me of good old Purdue :) After the Botanical Gardens, we were on the struggle bus. We had only had 4.5 horus of sleep and had been walking and on our feet for 9 hours. We made it to Plaza de Cibeles  which has a really pretty building, called the Palacio de Comunicaciones. Well some interesting stuff went down while we were there. There was some kind of demonstration going on and these people literally blocked the entire street so cars couldn't pass. People were freaking out and getting so pissed. I took a video! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. It was pretty crazy.

Sunday: Sunday morning we woke up a lot more refreshed. This is probably because we went to sleep at 11pm. :) Anyways, our day was really relaxed. We only had one thing on our schedule and that was to see the Rastro Market,  which is Europes largest open market and literally takes up a whole neighborhood of streets. This wasn't like the flea market that I talked about in Sevilla where they just had tarps on the ground with random useless things. This market consisted of literally probably around 800 tents spread out in the "La Latina" neighborhood. They sold everything under sun from sunglasses, jewelry, pots and pans, electronics, clothes, sports gear, etc. It was so neat!...

The ride back was eventless, except for the disgusting couple sitting in front of me who made out the whole time. ew! The PDA in Europe drives me crazy! lol
Madrid was an absolutely amazing experience. We had the best luck with the weather, considering it was supposed to rain every day and it only rained once! I loved the Spanish feel in such a big city and was obsessed with the green parks and San Miguel Market which we went to all 3 days. There is a lot to love about the city and I would definitely come back :)

Hasta Luego,

Lauren