It was almost 7 AM in Madrid, and we were starving. We hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and had just spent the night at a local discoteca with some of Marlee’s local friends. As we were wandering around the city, we stumble upon the ONLY place open in Madrid, a café specializing in churros with chocolate. This store is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and is famous in Madrid for this reason. The place was packed with young people who had just gotten back from the discos, older people who probably had just woken up, and a mixture of tourists and locals. We immediately devoured our churros, and were so slap happy we ended up stealing a few from the people next to us and running out of the restaurant (whoops), while people were yelling about the “Barrachas Americanas” (Drunk Americans). Sorry not sorry, it was so worth it.
Although the chocolate churros only made up a small part of our Saturday night/Sunday morning, the entire weekend was a whirlwind. I traveled with 5 other girls who I had never met before coming to Granada: Jessica, Jessie, Marlee, Taylor, and Emily. Needless to say we got made fun of a lot for having 3 Jessica’s in a group, two of which were blondes. We took a bus at 1:30 AM on Friday out of Granada, to arrive in Madrid around 7. Of course this wasn’t the brightest idea, because nothing opens in Spain before 10 or 11, so we people watched in the train station for several hours before taking a taxi to our hostel, “Fabrizzio’s Guesthouse”. This Guesthouse was not what we expected out of a hostel- we basically lived in someone’s apartment for the weekend, right in the center of the city. Outside in the Plaza right below our hostel, there were people dressed up as Micky Mouse, Spongebob, the Smurfs, Puss in Boots, etc. We later figured out that many of these people are street gypsies, who try to make a living having tourists take pictures with them- and if they catch you taking a picture of them without paying, they follow you around til you do (that’s why all of mine are far away and kinda sneaky, haha).
When we walked in to the hostel, a Spaniard introduced himself and showed us to our room, and we asked “Oh so you’re Fabrizzio?”. He surprised us by saying no, and pointing to a stuffed animal/puppet crocodile and saying “That’s Fabrizzio”. As we explored the apartment, there were pictures EVERYWHERE of this crocodile all around the world. It was very similar to that travelocity commercial where that traveling gnome is seen all over the world. And of course, everyone who has ever stayed at the hostel takes pictures with the crocodile, or takes him out on a night on the town. We later found out Ernesto and Esteban were the owners of the very small hostel, which probably could host aroun 20-25 people at a time. They provided us with towels, hair products, breakfast every morning- we got very spoiled with our first hostel experience (I’m scared how bad the rest will seem in comparison!).
Before going out Friday night, we visited El Museo del Prado, as well as the museum Reino Sofia. Both were amazing and contained famous works by Velazquez, Picasso (Guernica), and Dali. We met some girls from the walking tour earlier that day who were from Puerto Rico, and told them to meet up with us there- and for the rest of the weekend we continued to go out with them or get lunch or whatever. After the museums, we saw a McDonalds and we just couldn’t resist- I don’t think a McChicken will ever taste better than it did after a long day in Madrid!
Because we stayed at such a small hostel, we got to know the people who were staying there really well- we met people from Australia, England, Germany, Texas, and Ohio. After a day tour of the city Friday, Ernesto and Esteban took us and the guys from Texas out to a local bar their cousin owned. They had the BEST tapas and some really good drinks, and the ambiance was so great- we played drinking games all night and became besties with the guys from Texas, who were there for a food convention that was going on in Madrid (they were in grad school and one was a nutritionist or something like that).
The next day, Saturday, our plan was to travel to Toledo for a couple of hours and then come back for the night in Madrid. However, we really didn’t research or think through how we were supposed to travel to Toledo. A bunch of girls from the suburbs don’t really know how to work the Metro system, let alone read the signs in Spanish when we struggle to speak it already. We slept in, and then got lost in the underground subways for a good 10 minutes until someone spoke to us in English saying “You have to get to the other side of the tunnel”, and we look at the clock and we had 1 minute for the train to arrive, which we needed to take to make another train at a different station. We started sprinting towards the stairs, and we were running at full speed toward the train and we all jumped on, and literally after the last girl pushed her way on- the door closes on us. Well, that part of the traveling was done, but we still had to make our next train at another unknown train station, and buy our tickets. Once we arrived at the next station, we figured out where to buy our tickets and the woman behind the counter just says “Corriendo”. We started sprinting again, this time with a larger crowd who were screaming in Spanish at us “Run Run! Chicas!”. We didn’t care, we were so determined to make this damn train to Toledo. The guards barely checked our tickets and bags and we hopped on the train with less than 30 seconds to spare before we are rushed off to Toledo. I have never been so pumped with adrenaline and so excited that we actually figured out what to do in 2 Spanish train stations. I think we learned our lesson though that we should probably google how to do something a little bit ahead of time.
So we finally arrived in Toledo, breathless and exhausted from mutliple sprints, but nonetheless we were there! The city was very small, but the architecture was extremely different than what we had seen already in Granada and Madrid. It was like walking into Medieval Times. Toledo is known for this type of Medieval architecture, as well as it’s swords (many of the swords from Lord of the Rings were created in Toledo). It was a beautiful sunny day, and we spent it mainly exploring the city, walking around, viewing a lot of the architecture, and going into a torture museum that contained all of the gruesome ways they would torture people back in the day for public entertainment.
By 8 that night we were back in Madrid, where we explored a street with bars and tapas, and then met up with some locals from Madrid and went to a discoteca called “Green”. We were the only Americans there, and you could tell it was a place for the local Madrid students and young people to go on the weekends. We had a blast dancing the whole night, and I thought it was really entertaining that when they did play American music, it was Madonna or like that song “I’m blue da bu di da bu di” (Sound familiar? Not sure what it was called haha). Most of the songs were Spanish, and the Spaniards dance so much more chill compared to us. You could tell that we were Americans simply because if a techo song came on, we would fist pump in the air. This same night was when we went to the churros place, so all in all it was very successful.
On Sunday, we explored the street markets in the morning, where hundreds of people come to sell either their own belongings (like a garage sale) or specialty items. We also went inside the Palacio de Madrid, and walked around some of the beautiful parks that Madrid has (similar to Millenium Park in Chicago). Actually, in general Madrid reminded me a lot of Chicago. A lot of it’s architecture, the clean streets, some of the shopping districts, and the beautiful parks all made me feel like I was spending a day in Chicago with the girls. After a long weekend, we decided to go back to the hostel and say goodbye to all of our new friends- and take some corny pictures all together with “Fabrizzio”.
Now I am back safe and sound in Granada! Not too much new going on here, although my senora Mari Lou is determined that I learn how to cook, so during lunches she pulls me aside and shows me a couple of things. Also, I am getting really into the soap opera (that she is convinced is not a soap opera) that she watches. Every night at 10 it comes on, and Mari Lou makes sure she gets me in the living room in time to watch it. Right now, one woman is pregnant with her possible brother, because her mother never disclosed to her that it was her son, or something like that. One girl is in prison and has a lover on the outside, and one couple just got married at a bar. And some bad lady likes some guy who likes some girl. I don’t know. The music and the overexaggerated expressions help a lot with my understanding.
This weekend I am staying in Granada, but the next is our trip to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, and I can’t wait!
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