Cat's Hostel Madrid

ahh Madrid. . . lovely to be in Spain again! Madrid wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped, perhaps we just didn't know where the kids hang out. the Reina Sofia museum was fantastic though. and Cat's Hostel was fun/funny. Our daily schedule consisted of tourist stuff in the mornings, followed by finding a spot to watch World Cup futbol, followed by walking around exploring, followed by tapas and sangria. . . that's the life.

Well! Travel from Costa Rica to Miami for 3 hours later another 4 hours waiting untill my next place! Four hours later Madrid!

So, last night I got the closest I've been in a LONG (as in years) time of losing my temper and blowing a gasket. It was just a bad night written all over it. In fact, I found out today that one of my friends in the program was mugged last night! Crazyness! It started innocent enough in that I had met an austrialian girl in my stay at Cat's Hostel. Her name is Cherie and for about a good 6 hours I hated her guts. Now that I've calmed down (largely in part due to my sister) im not ****** anymo...

Last night I had the first of what I'm sure will be many transportation disasters. In the morning I went to the Atoche station in Mardid and booked a train to Barcelona for 10pm. I was with Tracy, who had a ticket on the same train, and we didn't expect any hassles. What they failed to mention was that even though all the day trains leave from Atoche, the night trains leave from Chamartin station across town. Since I showed up at Atoche at 9:55pm, there was no chance for a quick save. Atoche ...

A couple of nights in Madrid at a fun little hostel called Cats, it was voted the top hostel on Hostelworld last year. It was a refurbished palace. We would love to have seen more of Madrid, we saw the shops the palace and gardens etc but that was it really. We went to the bull fighting ring, but it was closed, unfortunately. I would love to see a fight, I am very curious. Ran out of time but will come back! Hopefully.

After sleeping 2h+2h, the day has begun well. Cat's hostel is really good, completely international,

7 countries, 17 cities, 2 people, and 1 elephant (our trip mascot, Del)... we arrived in Madrid on Thursday via Toronto (one of the cooler airports out there). Both flights were pretty good. Our Muslim and Hindu-non-vegetarian meals turned out to be the same thing (a spinach dish with rice and mango chutney, I think). Our flight attendant arrived to our seats, and looked around a little confused until he finally checked our seat numbers and served us our meals. Haha. (See first blog for more ...

We´ve arrived safe and sound in Madrid, although we did a bit more walking than we expected last night after the Metro stopped running 3/4 of the way through our trip from the airport to the hostel. Granted, it was 2 in the morning. Our first priority this morning will be to buy supplies for lunch(es). Fritz and Jenny

Our first 24 hours were spent travelling - literally. Our plane left Portland around 4:30 PM local time and arrived in Amsterdam 10 hours later, where it was 11:30 AM the next day (2:30 AM portland). Dinner on the plane was actually pretty good, AND included a small bottle of wine PER PERSON, which was totally sweet! I passed the time watching 3 movies and chatting with the woman sitting next to me (I believe her name was Monica) and she happens to be good friends with my OT School mentor, Kr...

When last we left you, we had just had dinner (goat cheese on toast, gaspacho, bread and calamari) at La Trucha. This was meant to hold us over until ten that night when there was supposed to be a paella party in the basement of the hostel. Free paella with a glass of beer! The paella had whole shrimps in it, which is grose to Jenny, but it was pretty good considering the price. As we ate paella we watched other people around us and eventaully struck up a conversation (in Spanish) with two It...