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Madrid
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I landed in Madrid about 11:00 am, having done no preparation for Europe. I had no guide book and no idea where I was going to stay that night. I asked at one of the tourist counters in the airport did they have a list of backpackers or hostels. All the girl could offer me was a big book with hotel listings. I declined the offer. I remembered that I had a International Hosteling book in my bag. There were 3 Hostels in Madrid. I grabbed a taxi and asked the driver to choose the most central hostel from the list. He drooped me off at a hostel about 1 km from the city center which was not too far to walk. The Taxi cost 30 Euros(AUS$50). The days of cheap Taxis were over. I managed to get a bed in the Hostel without a reservation. That night they put the FULL sign up.
The first thing I did when I got to the hostel was throw out my Backup shoes. They stank to high heaven. My main boots were not much better. They got drenched at Iguassu Falls and never dried properly. The combination of both shoes in may bag was making all my clothes stink. I thought my boots had a least 2 weeks life left in them but the weather in Madrid seemed to mirror the weather in Rio. My main boots had sprung a leak and started to smell even worse. So my first quest in Madrid was to buy new shoes. All the good boots cost over a 100 Euros. That was too painful to bear right now so I ended up buying a pair of cheap boots for 25 Euros. They might not last too long but for now I had boots that did not smell or leak.
While in Madrid I recharged my culture batteries. I visited the Prado Art gallery and the Queen Sofia Gallery. The Prado had lots of old master that I recognized, the Sofia had lots of Picasso's and a couple of Salvador Dali's and a lot of modern art supplied hopefully for free by a school for kids with special needs. I also visited the Royal palace which goes against my republican nature because it was free for people with EU passports on Wednesdays. The royals don't live there any more so it is technically it is just a museum. The best part of the Palace is the royal Armory. It has a huge collection of decorative Armour worn by the royals. I say "Decorative" because there is not a scratch on any of them. They were never used in battle.
On my last night in in Madrid, I was lying in bed when I suddenly realized I had not seen my camera bag in my backpack when I packed my old boots(It is hard to let go) into the bottom compartment. I jumped up and searched through my backpack and sure enough it was no where to be found. Some little Git had stolen it. I had not noticed because the bottom compartment was half empty and saggy because I had thrown away my backup shoes. I would have noticed the empty space otherwise. I did not suspect anybody who was in the room of taking it. The hostel had this stupid system where there were 4 people in a room with only one key. This meant that the room remained unlocked most of the time. Anybody who knew the system only had to go around checking the doors to see which ones where open. The stupid thing is that the camera bag only contained stuff useful to me. It contained 1 Camera battery charger, 1 mp3 player battery charger and a USB key that is password protected. Absolutely worthless to anybody else. I don't know how long my camera will last. I will have to get a replacement battery charger or a new camera. In six months this is the first thing that has been stolen from me.
Welcome to Europe.
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