Arrival in Madrid

  Madrid, Spain and Canary Islands
Thursday, June 26, 2008

We arrived in Madrid today! Finding our hostel was not hard. The metro here is very good. So we arrived at good ole Los Amigos Sol Backpackers Hostel. We got everything taken care of, left our stuff in the storage room, and left to wander until check in time. We first had to go to a money exchange....and we got ripped off at $1.90 to a euro. Sneaky bastards. We then found a place to eat and got these A La Casa sandwiches with cheese, egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato. We sat there for probably an hour just taking it all in. A gypsy started playing music for us haha...that is always a good sign of being in Europe.

We then walked a bit. The sun was scorching. It was about 110 degrees outside. All of a sudden as we were walking around 20 guys with these little bags started running around the corner. It looked like something out of an old movie where a bunch of bank robbers steal money. It was so odd.

We then went to the Royal Palace. It was gigantic. It was finally check in time so we went to Los Amigos and took a two hour nap. Boo jetlagging. We decided to go wander the city. I really wanted to go see Goya's grave but my guide book only said what metro stop it was off. When we got off the stop, we had no idea where to go. So we didn't find the grave but found this HUGE hill with a park on top. We people watched for a bit. Everyone was just chilling.

On our way home we got some nerdy hats from someone on the street. Hey it kept the sun out of our eyes. Jeff loved them lol.

Those sweet free hats

 At night we went by the Palace and sat on a bench and listened to a man play his guitar and sing. It was so peaceful and romantic.

Palace

Good first night....oh yeah I also got a kebab today. Definitely not as good as the ones they make in Krakow. And the street by the McDonald's is what we call Hooker Ave. We saw about 25 hookers there....day and night. They work hard haha.