Olé! Olé, olé, olé.

Written 7/26

July 23

I got to the hostel around 3pm. I spent most of the afternoon putting stars all over my map of Madrid. Had to make sure I saw all the sights (and ate at all the places) Elissa and Elana and Lonely Planet suggested. I eventually went out for a walk in the monster Parque del Retino. London take note. This is a park. It may be tied with Bois de Bolongne for my favorite park this trip (they are very different so I can't decide). As morning turned into late afternoon I thought I might faint from heat exhaustion and hunger (I forgot what heat felt like after the cold UK) so I started to head back to the hostel. I was going on the hostel sponsored tapas tour so I decided to make dinner to save a couple euros and ensure that I wouldn't expect small plates to fill me up. I bought groceries on the way home and got busy cooking in the kitchen. My meal was an uber disappointed. I refuse to believe that two months sans cooking has dulled my skills. I prefer to blame it on cooking in a ill equipped kitchen. But I ate my meal and I'm glad I did because those plates were extremely small. Some other ladies on the tour hadn't had the prescience to eat before hand so after the tour we went to 100 Montaditos and they got platters of sandwiches. It was on my list of places to eat but I decided to save it for a lunch on a later day. After eating and chatting, we returned to the hostel.

July 24

Time for another free tour. The regular routine of breakfast and internet time and then the tour at 11:30. It was a three hour tour...without a lunch break. A bunch of us were starving so we went to the restaurant that the tour guide suggested. It turned out to be one of the tapas places from the night before. I didn't want to double up on restaurants so I got sangria and a snack of tortilla espanola, which is like a thick omelet with potatoes. It's pretty yummy. I planned to go to another one of the tapas restaurants on my list but that snack was surprisingly filling. We sat around for a very European amount of time and then parted ways.

*Alex* No tour guide has measured up to Alex and I am starting to wonder if the issue isn't just my impossible bias for Paris. I feel like that is the probably it. Alex was great though. *The Mack*

I decided to go to the Reina Sofia, the contemporary art museum, especially since it was free Saturday afternoon. I took the long way back to the hostel and stopped by a very "local" bar. E Shap filled me in on customs. When you order a beer, you should get a tapas. I wanted to try it out so I ordered a beer and voila (or it's Spanish equivalent). I came back to the hostel and had a salad and ended up chatting to some of my hostel mates. One of the girls from the tapas tour (that I liked in real life) came into the kitchen and we decided to go get some tapas for a late dinner.

We went to Lateral in Santa Ana. I haven't been that happy since the pizza in Rome or the steak in Florence. SCRUMPTIOUS! We chatted up for hours and didn't end up back at the hostel until midnight.

July 25

I had a list of things that I still hadn't done in Madrid and the museums were free since it was Sunday. Needless to say, I had a busy day ahead of me. After breakfast I went to El Rasto, the huge street market held on Sundays. I spent the whole morning looking through piles of 3 euro dresses and pushing my way through the crowd. I made a couple good finds though. I dropped off my goods at the hostel and made my way to the Prado Museum. I stopped for lunch at Canas Y Tapas. I got this huge pan of fries topped with eggs topped with peppers topped with sausage. The only thing that wasn't pleasing about this meal is that the my desire for the half portion was lost in translation (or simply neglected in order stick me for my paper). The pan was huge but since I was paying for it I stuffed myself.

I ended up getting to Prado by 4ish. Turns out it is only free after 5. Well, when in...Spain...I found a nice grassy patch under a tree and napped for an hour. When I woke up around quarter of five, the line was queuing so I joined in the fun. I spent a few hours looking at the classics. Next on my list was to visit a couple churches that were on the opposite side of the city. I crossed town and found out that at this time of day, I would not be visiting anyone's church. I wanted to go to La Latina that evening on E Shaps suggestion so I went back to the hostel hoping to find a party partner. It was a failure. At 11pm I was gchatting with E Shap, lamenting not getting to see another party scene in another city. E Shap suggested I just take a taxi over there and check it out for a while. I was hungry (I hadn't eaten since the big pan) and I could at least see if Elissa's sister was right that "all the cute Spanish boys are at La Latina on Sunday." Yep, she was right. And so was Elissa. I popped in and out of several packed bars. I ended up grabbing a bite in a smaller one. While there, I met this guy who was buddies with the wait staff and the owner. Turns out it was the owner's birthday. Long story short, I ended up celebrating his birthday with the entire crew until 7 am.

July 26

Given the fact that I got in at 7am and had spent the night celebrating (i.e. drinking), I hope you were not expecting to read much about this day. I had to check out so I went to bed at 7:15 and woke up at 9:30. I ended up checking out kinda late and spent the morning, sitting around, hydrating and web surfing. I finally left to get some lunch (at 100 Mondintos) and tried to visit the churches again. Another fail but I wasn't too disappointed. I just moved on to my next stop, Plaza Espana, the place I planned to take my siesta. Two hours of light sleep later, I took a walk down Grand Via, made a stop by Chueva (the gaybourhood) and picked up some groceries for dinner. I returned to the hostel, made a spanish inspired sandwich with some Spanish salami and cheese, grilled onion, spinach and roasted red peppers. I made watermelon my dessert and whiled away the time before my bus facebooking and whatnot.