Madrid was wonderful! Sarah and I left Friday afternoon on the 1:30 train to Madrid with only a backpack full of clothes and our homemade sandwiches in hand. Every time we make a trip our host families make a “picnic lunch” for us to take with us. This time it included two sandwiches, a juice box, an apple, a water bottle and of course a chocolate pastry. I don’t think she’s realized that I can’t eat all of that no matter how many times I try to tell her! It’s also pretty impressive that I was able to pack all of my things in a backpack! I’m practicing for the airports here. The airlines won’t let you carry on a bag that’s over 55 centimeters long, which excludes everything except a backpack. It’s more difficult than it seems!
Once we arrived in the Madrid train station we had to figure out how to navigate the metro station! There are a lot of metro rails in Madrid, but thankfully we’d already googled which metro to take. Unfortunately, we forgot to write down which stop was ours, but thankfully we picked the right one. The atmosphere above was crazy! The buildings are incredible and there were so many people! Life in Valladolid is very slow and relaxed, so this was a bit of a culture shock. We immediately found our hotel and prepared to explore. The hotel gave us a map that had four sets of preplanned tours that would take you to see the important sights of Madrid. We tried to do so but failed miserably. The streets in Madrid are very poorly marked and the map doesn’t seem to label all the streets either. Nonetheless we ended up looking for a Monastery for 30 minutes before giving up convinced it didn’t exist. We decided to skip the Monastery and find the palace, which proved to be a lot easier. The tour of the palace was amazing! We were able to see lots of the rooms and the courtyard was beautiful! From there we continued touring until we were ready for dinner. Nights in Madrid are a little scary. There are too many people out and it just didn’t feel safe so we stayed in the hotel both nights watching movies and taking advantage of the free wifi.
All in all, the trip to Madrid was worth it! We managed to see almost all of the tourist sights in the two days we were there. I loved Madrid, but I’m so glad that I’m studying in Valladolid. There may not be much going on in Valladolid, but it’s definitely safer here!
This is what the crowds were like!
More pictures are posted under the Madrid Photos tab!!
This is what the crowds were like!
Awesome pictures, Palacio Real was gorgeous. All the pictures really are. Your right all those people, staying in your room was far safer. So glad you are having such fun. Loved the emails.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't miss much, nuns are boring...
ReplyDeleteCool pictures of the architecture.
Old Pedro there is giving you the stank eye.