Las Cuidades de Madrid y Barcelona

I am writing this entry with the help of some notes about my trip that I jotted down on the late plane ride back to London, with the help of Pat and Sarah. Spending almost a week in Spain with an upper respiratory infection, I realized that all I really needed was Sudafed Nasal Spray (works like a miracle,) a few packs of tissues, hazelnut gelato, siestas, and friends that rub your back when you feel like you're on the verge of passing out. The week prior to the trip every single one of my flatmates, yes all 5 of them, were sick. I tried to stay away as much as possible, disinfected every common area, and downed cartons of orange juice. While all of that worked for the week everyone was sick, I ended up getting sick right before I left for Spain. Greaaaaaat. The doctor put me on antibiotics, and while they made my stomach rather upset for the first few days, I guess they prevented me from getting worse, which I probably would have because I was traveling. Anyway, I'll stop complaining and start talking about the awesome things that I was able to do while I was away despite feeling sort of like death for the first half of the trip.

Day 1--Madrid: We left at 3:00am in London rain, but arrived in beautiful Spanish sunshine and palm trees. It took 3 transfers on the Metro to get to our hostel, which was in the center of the city, and right next door to a Starbucks...always a plus. We saved some money by staying in a 6 person room (there were only 3 of us,) which meant that we shared this tiny tiny tiny room with 3 strangers. One was from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Turkey. While it was a little frightening staying with people we didn’t know, and sleeping with our wallets, ipods, cameras, and passports under our pillows, it was pretty cool talking to them about the trips they were on and their own countries. After settling in the hostel, we then went to the Prado Museum. I don’t have much to say about it because I pretty much sat down in a chair every chance I got because I just simply couldn’t stand from being so tired and sick. After that we went back to the hostel and took a nice long siesta (nap.) It was great. We also learned that from about 2:00pm to 6:00pm many of the shops and restaurants close for siesta, so we thought we would join in, and it was very well deserved. We ate dinner that night at a place called VIPS, which was sort of like a Spanish version of TGIFridays.

Day 2 – Madrid: The second day we went on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. This tour let us hop on the bus at any bus stop, and hop off at any bus stop, to hop back on at any bus stop, etc. Pretty convenient. It was a nice was to see the city, and there was even a recording that we listened to through headphones that explained what we were passing. I also enjoyed sitting. We hopped off for lunch at restaurant that was not so much in the center of the city, so none of the employees spoke English. Pat, Sarah, and I all ordered the same thing because we heard a few familiar words thrown in. It was a special of chicken, eggs, and spaghetti. Not so Spanish, but still very good. That night when we got back to our hostel we were surprised to see an Australian couple in our room. They were John and Lucy from Australia. They both were 22 and taking a few months to travel Europe together. They were also both fluent in Spanish, and that night we all went out to a Tapas bar. It really was awesome, we even exchanged numbers and invited them to come hang out with us when they travel to London. We spent the rest of the night talking about the differences between The US and Australia, the US and Europe, and Australia and Europe.

Day 3 – Madrid y Barcelona: The morning before we left for Barcelona we took a walk that took about 3 minutes to the massive palace called Palacio Real de Madrid. It was huge! We took a tour of the inside, which also included entry to the Armory and The Royal Pharmacy Museum. Pretty neat. We took a lot of pictures, and even got an amazing view of the entire city from the back of the building. Walking back into the center of city we were graced with the wonderful music of an old Spanish man on an accordion playing Havah Nagilah, which I found to be very funny. In the center of the city we came across an overweight man dressed as Spidarman, smoking a cigarette, looking for people to take pictures with so he could make a few Euro. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take pictures with this guy because it was just too hilarious. He was actually very nice, and very hilarious, and Pat only paid him about 1 Euro for the handful of pictures that we took. That night we flew to Barcelona.

Day 4 – Barcelona: We had met up with 7 other friends in Barcelona and we all stayed together in the “Ideal Youth Hostel.” That was its name. I guess it was ideal because it was right in the center of the action, but the filth was not too ideal. Anyway, we dealt with it for 3 nights, and at least we were sleeping next to our friends and not strangers. That morning we went on a boat tour on the Mediterranean. Talk about turquoise water! It was beautiful. That night we had paella and tapas for dinner, and we ate outside on the most famous street in the city, Las Ramblas. It was a lot of fun.

Day 5 – Barcelona: Since I was still kind of sick I stayed behind while the rest of the group went on a bike tour. I walked around for the day with another girl from our group who also wasn’t feeling too well. We went to a market that was just incredible. There were immense amounts of fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, meat, chocolate, and candy. Everything looked so amazing, and we took so many pictures of all the vendors. We also went searching for one of the Gaudi houses. Antoni Gaudi was a famous modernist architect from Barcelona, and he built a handful of houses around the city that are just unbelievable. After roaming around for a while, and asking people on the street “derecha o izquierda?” (right or left,) we finally found La Casa be Batilla. It was so beautiful I can’t even begin to describe it. We took a tour of the house, and took tons of pictures. We then ventured to find El Palacio de Musica, which is a giant concert hall. That building was just as beautiful as Gaudi’s. Halloween in Barcelona was crazy. Instead of dressing up in cute or funny costumes people dress up in scary costumes. Everyone was all about blood and gore, but the night life was really fun. We attempted to stay up until 6 in the morning like the locals do, but us Americans just couldn’t keep up, and we ended up crashing around 4.

Day 6 – Barcelona à London: We started the day off with some Dunkin Coffee, which is actually an exact replica of Dunkin Donuts, which we found very amusing. We did some quick site seeing at the Olympic Park, another Gaudi house called La Sagrada Familia, and then even another Gaudi house called La Casa Mila, and then slowed it all down for some McDonalds at the end of the day. We hoped on a plane, and arrived in London around midnight.

It was a great trip, and despite being rather ill for most of it, I was able to experience Spanish culture in 2 different cities and I even got to practice speaking Spanish. It was very rewarding, and I’m so glad I went, and I am grateful for that nice lady that translated the pharmacist for me when I went in the middle of the night.