Madrid, Spain

Hola!

I landed in Madrid on Wednesday night... But first I guess I should tell you how I got here. I had to take the boat to take the bus to Boston. Then I had to fly from Boston to Newark. Which I'm sorry but eww. There were more pigeons inside that airport than there were people. How the fuck does that even happen?! Anywho.. Then I flew in to Dublin which was probably the most boring hours of my entire life.. I was exhausted so I didn't want to leave the airport even though I had like an 8 hour layover.. I tried to sleep but since I was in sweats and knit boots I just looked like a homeless person... Oh btw.. My punctuation sucks because these Spanish keyboards suck ass and it takes about five minutes to find the @ sign on each one... Anywho... Back to Dublin, it sucked... Then I flew in to Madrid. I walked about three miles from the baggage claim to the Metro to get on to the train. Awesome. Then I get on the Metro which is so crowded I could barely breathe and it takes me about an hour and three transfers to get to my hostel... This all sounds really negative so far. I promise it will get better... Anyway... I finally get off the Metro and I've never been to Europe or Spain so I was so confused because the street signs are on the buildings so, I was lost... So, I found my hostel... I check in and everything seems cool. The keys to the doors and lockers look like watches and are almost impossible to open anything with. I met a nice girl from Japan who was unfortunately leaving the next day but she helped me adjust the first couple of hours. I walked in to the common room and they just play the same music videos over and over again. It's like Bon Jovi and other '80's shit mixed with a few recent hits but yeah, it's suicidal... Still negative, this will get better... So when I finally sat down for a second and realized where I was and what I had gotten myself in to I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and started crying. Blame it on jetlag, the time difference or just the simple fact that I'm dramatic but it happened. I went to bed that night overwhelmed and woke up the next day hoping to start out fresh and this is where it begins.....

My first day in Madrid was interesting. I have a list of all the things I want to do in the city but I was holding off on them because it is free to do most of these things at certain times of the day... So, I started out just by walking around the city... I hit the Botanical Gardens first... It was really nice. Relaxing. Unfortunately it's umm winter so nothing has really bloomed yet but there are lots of cool trees and tons of statues and apparently a whale... Not a real one like the bones of a whale so that was pretty cool. I was a little bleh after that so I returned to the hostel to figure out what my next move would be... I met some guy in the hostel from South Korea. He seemed fine, who knows? Anyway we went for a walk around the city hitting up a lot of sights and Retiro Park which is huge. I would say bigger and way better than Central Park. There is tons to do there, exciting. Oh, I also took a siesta this day too because that's what people do here. Anywho back to the point...So I hung out with this kid from South Korea... So we introduce ourselves and of course he can't say my name because no one can apparently and I ask him his name and he says John... I said... Really? He was like it's Chung but you can't pronounce it and I was like oh, I can't? I may not be a genius but I can pronounce the name Chung, you fuckhead. Anyway we keep walking and he wants to hold my bag yeah, no I don't trust anyone why would I trust Chung/John? I tried not to pay attention to him and just focused on taking lots of pictures of anything and everything... Then he told me to not take pictures the way I do because apparently I squint my left eye when I do this and he claims my right eye is perfect but my left eye looks like an old lady because it is so wrinkley... Chung did not know who he was dealing with... Then he proceeded to tell me in his country he could never marry me because all the other people in the village would be jealous of me because I'm prettier than them...  Righhhht. Plus who even says that kind of stuff umm? BTW it just took me five minutes to find the question mark button and Color Me Badd videos are playing... Yikes. Anyway Chung had to show me where the grocery store was but he also needed to get lost so after we got back to the hostel it was time for Chung to take a hike and start out fresh the next day...

Day two in Madrid got a lot better. Right before I went to bed the night before I met two girls Megan from the US and her friend Laura from Germany they are very nice... We met up that morning and went on a walking tour of Madrid. It was cool.. The guide showed us the oldest restaurant in Spain or so she said and things cost on average about 100 euros... RIDIC... The tour was supposed to be about three hours but I am pretty sure the guide had better places to be because it lasted a little over an hour. She brought me a few places I probably wouldn't have gone on my own though so that was really cool. Except halfway through the tour my shoe broke! I had been wearing flip flops because it has been really warm here... I even got a sunburn... So yes I was wearing flip flops and of course they broke...I walked through the rest of the tour and then all the way back to the hostel after that in the streets of Madrid half barefoot. I mean this isn't America the streets are much cleaner but still only me would this happen to... After we got back to the hostel I scrubbed my feet and put some better shoes on and went with Megan, Laura and their hostel roommate Adam who is from Czech Republic to Retiro Park for a nice little picnic. We made chorizo sammies and laid in the warm sun and watched semi hot guys play frisbee it was a blast... Then we moved on to look at the rest of the park... There is a pond area where you can go out on little row boats but yeah, I have no upper body strength and there was probably a piranha in there so we moved on to the rest of the park...We saw this thing which I believe is called the Crystal Castle or something. It's beautiful. It's almost completely glass and they have modern art pieces on display inside. Then we walked through the rest of the park and then all over the city.. We saw some really beautiful buildings and saw lots of shopping areas and just cool little parts of town. There will be tons of pictures to go with all of this when I get back from Europe. Don't worry I know you peeps need to see all this. Anywho... Then we came back to the hostel and chilled out for awhile talked to some cool people especially this kid Santiago from Argentina and  just waited til about 9 to go to dinner. We went to this place called Euromania or something. Anyway you get all these cute little sammies of pretty much anything you want... I got chorizo and a brie one and one with raspberry jam and a chocolate bar. I know it sounds bogus but it was good. Plus I got fries and sangria all for under 8 euros... HOLLA. Then a few people were going out to the clubs last night but I eventually decided against it and just talked to some people in the hostel. I think even though I am in Madrid I am kind of over the whole club scene. Club people think they are so cool. It's like Halloween all the girls dress like sluts and it's like no big deal. You can't just take out your titties for free this isn't Mardi Gras and even then you get beads so, yeah. I bonded with some cool cats back at the hostel and forced myself to go to bed because even though it was 2AM it was still really only 8PM back home.. This time change is fucking rough on me.. So is kilometers and celsius because well, let's face it I can't do math. 

Day three is not completely over yet... I woke up this morning got some brekky and got ready to hit the streets! I went with Adam from Czech Republic to Palacio Real. It's absolutely humongous. Humongous is a weird word it always looks wrong because I think you can spell it more than one way anywho... So big. Inside it was really cool all the ceilings are painted with incredible paintings and have carvings in them and the rooms are just ridiculous. I couldn't ever imagine living somewhere like that I mean I am a princess but still this was crazy. I got yelled at for taking pictures inside but whatevs I will never see those peeps again and I got pics inside!!! It was an accident and I didn't ruin anything in the process, no worries. They said it would take three hours or so to go through the whole place but umm no. We waited in line for a half hour and saw everything in almost 45 minutes so that was bullshit. BUT, this is going to sound rude but people in Spain are SLOWWWWW as hell. It's just a different lifestyle. They take their time with everything and no one is in any rush which in a way I think it's kind of nice. No one seems stressed. Everyone seems very happy and they just go with the flow... Speaking of happy everyone here seems like they are in love. No, I'm serious. Everyone seems as if they are in love. So affectionate and sweet, who knows. Americans just aren't like that but here in Spain they want the whole world to know they are in love and who it is they love which is actually very romantic. Everyone lives in the moment and I think more people should be like that. 

On my way back from Palacio Real I walked through Sol which I guess you could say it's kind of like the center of town, it's a cool place. Lots of street performers. Here I saw Mickey and Minnie first of all I don't know how they were dressed in those costumes it was way too hot and second of all they make balloon animals which is cool, whatever but they only know how to make swords which is odd because they are very small swords so yes, you know where I'm going with this... They look like a penis and a set of balls. Poor Mickey and Minnie.

It stinks of tuna in this hostel... I need to eat lunch soon. All I want is a damn peanut butter sammie and of course you can't get pb in this hood. I have so much more to say but this is it for now... I will write another blog in a few days when my stay in Madrid is coming to a close... I am off to the Prado Museum later today which I think will be excellent!

Adios Amigos! 

p.s. I love getting messages from everyone! I also really liked writing this blog. Both are helping me with any homsickness I may have.