Night train night cap and Spanish lesson!
Loading Map
Madrid,
Spain
Saturday, October 1, 2005
I was really looking forward to Lisbon, but first i had to get on another night train which will take 8 hours from Madrid to Lisbon. I was in this dorm with 3 other blokes, one didn't speak a word of English and was constantly babbling to himself and hitting his head... The second was this old bloke which was really nice and seemed to talk quite a bit and the other was this 23 year old bloke from the OC in California. 11:30 hit and everyone was hitting bed and i started to get ready for a snooze, until i was invited by the Californian i wanted to go down to the bar carriage for a night cap of scotch. Being the social guy that i am i couldn't say no :o) The night cap turned into a couple of scotches, a few chips and washed down with a couple of beers, but was good as we got on really well and laughed quite a bit. He was a Spanish student studying in Madrid, but for the extended weekend he wanted to see what Lisbon, was like. So he was teaching me a bit of Spanish, and the language just seems so interesting, i cant wait to start learning... He was ordering all our drinks and food as the bartender didn't know a word of English. We were up till about 2am until we called it a night and thought we better get some sleep before we take on Portugal. We put the money on the counter for our food and drinks and went to head off, but the bar tender that'd been ignoring us all night started going berserk and trying to charge us twice as much as we actually drank. Lucky this guy i met speaks Spanish, so they argued it out (which sounded quite funny actually). So off to bed to get some shut eye and eat some more chips. The beds in this room were so skinny and short. My legs couldn't stretch out as i was hitting the wall, so i had to hang them off the edge. The alley way where you walk along was very skinny so i guess they've done the best with the room they have. Plus at least i have a bed and don't have to sit in a puddle of god knows what like last time from the night train coming out of Budapest to Belgrade. However i didn't sleep much i don't think as the train kept constantly stopping all night and you could hear the train personal hopping off and have alcohol and smoke.
As i look out the carriage window i see the sun rise in the distance, and as i look around, i get a very different feeling, i am in Portugal now! Lets wait and see how i go.
