This past Wednesday, I had the chance to go to an FC Barcelona soccer game. A big group of girls and I found tickets through a local bar for only 11 euros. We found out later that this was because none of the big name players would be playing in this game. However, we still had a lot of fun! Barcelona beat Ceuta 5-1, so we saw a lot of goalscoring. Also, Messi did get put in for the last part of the second half for the fans. It was really fun to see such a famous player, and we also got to see him score!!
After the excitement of the game, I had to start getting ready for my weekend in Madrid. Our flight was at 6:30 Friday morning. However, it left from Girona, a town about 80 minutes away that I stayed in on my Costa Brava trip. Thus, we had to catch a bus at around 3:30 in the morning....it was an early morning, but everything went smoothly. We got to our hostel around 9 AM, but check-in wasn't until noon. The man let us leave our bags there and we went and had a croissant and coffee at a cafe nearby. We then walked to the Reina Sofia, an art museum with many Dali and Picasso works, notable Picasso's Guernica. I wasn't able to get a picture of it though, because no pictures were allowed of that particular painting. However, I loved the museum because the class that I am taking focuses heavily on these two artists and I had studied many paintings in the museum.
Next, we made our way over to the Palacio Real, or the Royal Palace. We didn't go in, but took lots of pictures from outside. It was really pretty! We also walked through some gardens located just to the right of the palace.
Next, we headed towards the Plaza Mayor. On our way, we found the famous Mercado de San Miguel. It is a newly renovated market with lots of little booths all selling different types of foods--all very fresh and delicious. There was an exhibit on Galicia, the Northwestern region of Spain that day, and we had just studied this region in my Food Culture class the past week. They are famous for their seafood. So, Daniela and I split two tapas, one with shrimp, and one with pulpo gallego (octopus Galician style). They were both surprisingly very good, and it was fun to try something new!
Next, we found Plaza Mayor, the main square of the city. We then ate lunch at a famous chain in Madrid called the Museo de Jamon, or the ham museum. Here, there are legs of ham EVERYWHERE. It was a really fun experience because our waiter was really funny and we had a great ham sandwich as well. We then found Puerta del Sol, the center of all of the action in the city. There were tons of people here, but it was fun to see everything...even Sponge Bob was there, haha.
Also, in the Puerta del Sol, there is one of the many statues of the bear eating berries out of a tree. This is the symbol of Madrid. We learned on our walking tour that we took on Saturday, that this is because Madrid used to be a barren countryside filled with bears and the berries in these trees would ferment in the trees. Thus, the area that is now Madrid used to be filled with tipsy bears running around all day...at least this is what our tour guide told us, haha.
After this, we found the Sorolla museum. He is Angeles's favorite artist, and she really wanted us to go there and see his work. He uses a lot of light in his paintings and paints a lot of beach and ocean scenes. It was a really beautiful museum, because it was set up in the house where he used to live.
After the Sorolla museum, we headed to the Parque del Buen Retiro to relax for a while because our lack of sleep was starting to catch up with us. I loved the park. Everyone there was so relaxed and layed back. We sat in front of a pond and listened to some musicians play for a while. We walked around for a little bit as well. It was a great last stop before our well deserved siesta for the afternoon.
After seeing the park, we headed back to our hostel to check-in and take a nap. We were happy to find that our 2 bed room that we had booked came with 3 beds, so we had plenty of space to put our things. We also had our own bathroom, a huge improvement from our hostel in Rome. We also discovered that the beds were extremely comfortable and ended up catching up on our sleep until dinner time. We quickly changed and headed to the area of town known as "la Latina" because we heard that this is a very popular tapas bar area for locals. We stopped at one that caught our eye and got a glass of sidra (cider) and a plate of jamon serrano and queso manchego (very nice ham and cheese). We then headed across the street to a Chilean restaurant for an empenada...so delicious! After dinner, we went to the Puerta del Sol to meet up with students from other hostels at a local bar. It was a really fun night!
The next morning, we were awoken by really loud noises coming from the street. When we left our hostel, we were greeted by a huge protest parade traveling through Madrid. The protest signs all said free the Sahara, and had something to do with the relations in between Spain and Morocco...I'm not quite sure on the details, but it was a weird way to start the day.
After dodging the parade, we stopped and had lunch at a local place: sausages with a casserole type dish of eggs and potatoes. We then went back to Plaza Mayor to do a free walking tour suggested by our hostel. The tour was really fun and informative. We went to several places that we had missed the day before. We saw the world's oldest restaurant, Botin, which was very interesting. Also, we saw the remains of the last Roman wall and a famous cathedral in the city named after a Muslim woman...very interesting.
After the walking tour, we went to the Choocloteria de San Gines, famous for its chocolate con churros. I got an order and they were so delicious! After this, we made our way towards to Prado museum, the most famous art museum in Spain. There is no photography allowed in the museum, so I don't have any pictures, but I loved seeing the older Spanish artwork. However, of the three art museums that we saw, I like the Reina Sofia the best.
After the Prado, we went back to our hostel for another quick nap before changing for the night. We had dinner at a place that gave you free tapas with each drink that you ordered. Each drink came with two tapas, so it was a pretty good deal!!
The next morning, we checkout out of our hostel and headed to the airport. I like this trip because it was so different from our others. We had a really relaxing weekend and got to see a lot. Next weekend, I'm looking forward to going to Geneva!
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