I went to Madrid. I drank copious amounts of sangria. Life is good.
This past weekend, I visited the capitol of nearby neighbor Spain to see if Madrid could even hold a candle to my favorite city of BCN. I am here to tell you that it can. There must be something in the water or the like, but Spain has been the location of my two favorite cities on earth. And, of course, my trips there have always provided me with endless entertainment and this time was certainly no different.
Our trip began at 3:45 on Friday morning. Having woken up 15 minutes early, I decided to take a quick shower and freshen up before departure. At around 4:15 AM, I had just finished my makeup and was ready to grab my bag and begin our morning stroll to the airport. I turn around to leave the bathroom only to be greeted by Connor (a Chicago-an who goes to IU) returning home from the bars. “AMY,” he shouted, “I AM SUPPOSED TO WAKE YOU UP.” While I was still catching my breath from being startled, he yells “WAKE UP” and proceeds to douse me with a cup of water. Talk about a wake up call.
With that, Thomas, Kevin, Zach and I headed off to the airport. Our flight left on time and we arrived in Madrid at around 8 AM and proceeded to hop on the metro to find our hotel. After a few minutes of walking around the city, we realized that our directions had been a little off. As the sole short-legged, estrogen-toting member of our travel group this weekend, I worked my hardest to keep up with the group. Despite this, Kevin was told by a city worker who was kind enough to give us directions that the walk to our hotel may be “too much for a woman to handle.” Oh those Spanish…
We (finally) arrived at our hotel only to be told that our reservation had not been received! This was particularly alarming due to the fact that we had had enough trouble trying to make a reservation in the first place as Madrid was nearly completely booked for an international travel fair (more on that later). Luckily, the concierge pointed us in the direction of another hotel which (thankfully) had a private room with 4 beds, a sink and a shower for only 60 euros a night. Following check-in, we stopped for our first meal which wasn’t entirely authentic and toasted our coffee & Bailey’s to a weekend of Spanish-style fun. I was the perpetual optimist this weekend and probably drove my travel buddies crazy with catch-phrases “The fun starts now!” and “This is just going to be the best weekend EVER!” Too bad for them.
The remainder of Friday was spent wandering around the city, happening upon interesting things like street performers, children’s jungle gyms and a dancing horse show in the Plaza Mayor. We also visited the Prado museum which, like every other European art museum, was not without excessive amounts of religious artwork and all of it beautiful, of course. Following Prado and our first authentic Spanish meal (and sangria), we ensured that we adopted the Spanish tradition of “siesta” and treated ourselves to a good nap before heading out to meet a friend of Zach’s. That evening, we saw the Royal Palace and some of the major plazas at night. Then we headed out for tapas and another delicious pitcher of sangria. Despite being in Chueca (the gay district and center of lively nightlife), we failed to find a good discotheque to dance at and ended up returning to the room about 2 AM (pitiful by Spanish standards!)
We all slept late on Saturday and then decided that we should check out the tourism fair that had caused such a fuss among the hotels and everyone in the city. After a lengthy metro ride and 7 euro entry fee, we arrived only to find that there wasn’t anything great about this event at all. Rather than have substantial amounts of free food (as our hotel owner had told us), food was basically non-existent unless you knew someone or (as in our case), convinced someone to invite you into their private party. We each ended up eating a hot dog, glass of beer, and half a sandwich stolen from the Hungarian booth. Not what I would consider excessive amounts of food by any means but what can you do. I think everyone is entitled to one stupid tourist mistake per trip—this just happened to be ours.
After the fair, we met up with one of Thomas’ friends who is studying in Madrid with the IES program. She showed us around town and we all headed out for another delicious round of Spanish food. After that, we spent a few hours shopping by our hostel. Spanish fashion is definitely way more eclectic than Switzerland and I was unable to pull the trigger on anything too crazy knowing that, upon my return, I would look ridiculous walking around in downtown Geneva wearing anything other than a cardigan and loafers.
Another siesta, and then it was out for one last meal of Spanish food. I had some kind of potatoes with spicey sauce on them and (yet again) more sangria. We ended up in about 3 AM after stopping for churros and chocolate (a Spanish specialty) and got up at 6 to catch our flight back to GVA. After an afternoon/evening recovery, about 10 of us headed down to Pickwick’s to watch THE game of the century. But, after the third quarter, not even the 22 CHF pitchers could cheer us up and the walk home at 5AM in the freezing cold wasn’t much help for the mood either.
This week will be filled with first presentations/quizzes in a lot of my classes so we’ll see how all of that goes. This weekend, I’m planning on hanging around here or going up to the mountains to do some skiing. I feel like I should give Switzerland a chance since I’ll be back in Spain next weekend to see Megan and experience BCN with another group of friends. Hope everyone is keeping warm (I hear it is horribly cold there!) and taking good care of themselves.
This past weekend, I visited the capitol of nearby neighbor Spain to see if Madrid could even hold a candle to my favorite city of BCN. I am here to tell you that it can. There must be something in the water or the like, but Spain has been the location of my two favorite cities on earth. And, of course, my trips there have always provided me with endless entertainment and this time was certainly no different.
Our trip began at 3:45 on Friday morning. Having woken up 15 minutes early, I decided to take a quick shower and freshen up before departure. At around 4:15 AM, I had just finished my makeup and was ready to grab my bag and begin our morning stroll to the airport. I turn around to leave the bathroom only to be greeted by Connor (a Chicago-an who goes to IU) returning home from the bars. “AMY,” he shouted, “I AM SUPPOSED TO WAKE YOU UP.” While I was still catching my breath from being startled, he yells “WAKE UP” and proceeds to douse me with a cup of water. Talk about a wake up call.
With that, Thomas, Kevin, Zach and I headed off to the airport. Our flight left on time and we arrived in Madrid at around 8 AM and proceeded to hop on the metro to find our hotel. After a few minutes of walking around the city, we realized that our directions had been a little off. As the sole short-legged, estrogen-toting member of our travel group this weekend, I worked my hardest to keep up with the group. Despite this, Kevin was told by a city worker who was kind enough to give us directions that the walk to our hotel may be “too much for a woman to handle.” Oh those Spanish…
We (finally) arrived at our hotel only to be told that our reservation had not been received! This was particularly alarming due to the fact that we had had enough trouble trying to make a reservation in the first place as Madrid was nearly completely booked for an international travel fair (more on that later). Luckily, the concierge pointed us in the direction of another hotel which (thankfully) had a private room with 4 beds, a sink and a shower for only 60 euros a night. Following check-in, we stopped for our first meal which wasn’t entirely authentic and toasted our coffee & Bailey’s to a weekend of Spanish-style fun. I was the perpetual optimist this weekend and probably drove my travel buddies crazy with catch-phrases “The fun starts now!” and “This is just going to be the best weekend EVER!” Too bad for them.
The remainder of Friday was spent wandering around the city, happening upon interesting things like street performers, children’s jungle gyms and a dancing horse show in the Plaza Mayor. We also visited the Prado museum which, like every other European art museum, was not without excessive amounts of religious artwork and all of it beautiful, of course. Following Prado and our first authentic Spanish meal (and sangria), we ensured that we adopted the Spanish tradition of “siesta” and treated ourselves to a good nap before heading out to meet a friend of Zach’s. That evening, we saw the Royal Palace and some of the major plazas at night. Then we headed out for tapas and another delicious pitcher of sangria. Despite being in Chueca (the gay district and center of lively nightlife), we failed to find a good discotheque to dance at and ended up returning to the room about 2 AM (pitiful by Spanish standards!)
We all slept late on Saturday and then decided that we should check out the tourism fair that had caused such a fuss among the hotels and everyone in the city. After a lengthy metro ride and 7 euro entry fee, we arrived only to find that there wasn’t anything great about this event at all. Rather than have substantial amounts of free food (as our hotel owner had told us), food was basically non-existent unless you knew someone or (as in our case), convinced someone to invite you into their private party. We each ended up eating a hot dog, glass of beer, and half a sandwich stolen from the Hungarian booth. Not what I would consider excessive amounts of food by any means but what can you do. I think everyone is entitled to one stupid tourist mistake per trip—this just happened to be ours.
After the fair, we met up with one of Thomas’ friends who is studying in Madrid with the IES program. She showed us around town and we all headed out for another delicious round of Spanish food. After that, we spent a few hours shopping by our hostel. Spanish fashion is definitely way more eclectic than Switzerland and I was unable to pull the trigger on anything too crazy knowing that, upon my return, I would look ridiculous walking around in downtown Geneva wearing anything other than a cardigan and loafers.
Another siesta, and then it was out for one last meal of Spanish food. I had some kind of potatoes with spicey sauce on them and (yet again) more sangria. We ended up in about 3 AM after stopping for churros and chocolate (a Spanish specialty) and got up at 6 to catch our flight back to GVA. After an afternoon/evening recovery, about 10 of us headed down to Pickwick’s to watch THE game of the century. But, after the third quarter, not even the 22 CHF pitchers could cheer us up and the walk home at 5AM in the freezing cold wasn’t much help for the mood either.
This week will be filled with first presentations/quizzes in a lot of my classes so we’ll see how all of that goes. This weekend, I’m planning on hanging around here or going up to the mountains to do some skiing. I feel like I should give Switzerland a chance since I’ll be back in Spain next weekend to see Megan and experience BCN with another group of friends. Hope everyone is keeping warm (I hear it is horribly cold there!) and taking good care of themselves.
Listening to... I'll be your lover, too by Van Morrison
Miss you all!
Love,
aim
Miss you all!
Love,
aim
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