MADRID! plus some side trips

Helllo,
yup, just got back from a looong weekend in Madrid! We had Monday and Tuesday off from school for Carneval, so Sam and I got some cheap plane tickets and headed over to check out the city. We left Thursday night, and got into Madrid around 11pm or so. The metro ran from the airport, very convenient, so we go in to our hostel at about midnight. It was a nice hostel, cheap but clean; we were in a girl's dorm with ten total people (and only one bathroom...the one downside), but as I say it was a nice place and we got some sweet Frosted Flakes-ish cereal included for morning breakfast :). As it was late Sam and I just went to bed, having grabbed some food at the airport. Friday, we woke up pretty early for a day trip to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. By the way, we picked these side trips based off the sweet Spain book Uncle Alex/Aunt Sandy found for me, thanks guys, those books are serving me very well :). In any case, we walked over to the train station not too far from our hostel, seeing some of the backroads of Madrid on the way. It was funny, right in the heart of the train station there was this little garden/forest thing set up, with turtles and stuff hanging out in a fake little pond, in the building! Very bizarre. But anyways, we acquired our tickets for the trip after a bit of confusion, and ended up sprinting to the train station as the ticket vender yelded to us to "hurry up" and that we were going to miss our train (in Spanish of course). It was pretty silly, we got there and stood for like ten more minutes waiting for the train, my theory is the train station workers take perverse pleasure in watching stupid tourists running around frantically, but we made it. The train ride was only about a half hour, and we arrived in El Escorial. On our way to the Royal Monastary, we came across one of the gypsies Mar (our program director) warned us about. What they do us approach tourists/stupid looking people with a little sprig of Jasmine (or something) and try to hand it to you. They then proceed to take your hand and read it for your future. That will cost you about 50$, or just all the money you have on you, and they apparently have men that run the whole thing and enforce said payment. In any case, Mar pretty much terrfied us, so as soon as we saw her approaching sam and I stuffed our hands in our pockets and hurried on our way; phew, haha. Anyways, we made our way over to the Royal Monastery, where there are a whole bunch of paintings and tapestries, and were the Spanish kings are buried. It was really amazing, such a cool experience; it belonged to Philip II. After that, we were ready to go on our little excursion to "El Valle de los Caidos" (The Valley of the Fallen), so we grabbed a couple of sandwiches to go and hopped on a bus. After a 20 minute or so long bus ride, we arrived. It was absolutely amazing; so gorgeous, up in the mountains, with a stellar view. The memorial consists mainly of a gigantic cross rising up from the mountain, with an impressive cathedral and such below it. Unfortunately, we couldn't go up to the base of the cross as the transportation thing was closed, but we had a good time walking around by the cathedral in the woods a bit (Although it was freezing up there, and we had to jog around a bit just to warm up). After a long time there, we caught the bus back to El Escorial, and shortly after the bus back to Madrid. We had seen in our "Guido de Ocio" for Madrid that there was supposed to be some sort of celebration for Carneval, so upon arrival we hurried over to see if it was still going on. (Carneval is basically a week-long party or so, the last chance to sin before lent according to my professor, basically like Mardi Gras except everyone dresses up in costumes). Unfortunately, the little celebration was pretty much over when we got there, but we were able to see some amusing costumes, including someone dressed as a toilet. By this time Sam and I were really hungry, so we headed off to grab some dinner, and stumbled into a Mexican restaurant. Sam was really excited, she has been really missing Mexican food, so we went in and split some Quesadillas, yum yum, and I tasted a bit of her Rice Water, which she loves (not bad). After dinner, we decided to walk around the city, and check out some of the major areas at night. It was really nice, I like the city a lot, and the Plaza Mayor was beautiful. We stopped in for some tapas and to rest our feet for a bit, and then headed home, tired and ready for bed. Saturday we had another excursion planned, this time to Segovia, so we got up and headed out, catching the train from another station. Unfortunately, a bit flustered, we got on the wrong train to Segovia. We had bought the direct ride, but accidently got on the train that winds around, picking up people in various cities. Sadly, this added an extra two hours to our ride, whoops, but on the bright side we got to see a lot of the countryside, and the train itself was nice so I really didn't mind it. When we arrived, we caught a bus into town, and started to explore. First we headed to the cathedral, the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain; such a gorgeous cathedral, inside and out. After that Sam and I headed over to the Alcazar, a little castle, complete with a cool little tower that gave a great view of Segovia. After grabbing a quick lunch (Calamari Bocadillos) we walked down through town a ways, and checked out the Roman Aqueduct, built nearly 2,000 years ago! Pretty cool. After that we went and caught the bus to La Granja for a little side trip. It's this beautiful Royal Palace, with a really nice big garden in back littered with little fountains/sculptures. After spending a long time there it was time to catch the bus back. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people were waiting to catch our bus back to Segovia as well, and after lots of pushing and overall chaos, several of us were left behind (sam and I included). The next bus wasn't supposed to come for another hour and a half, so it was not looking good. However, there was an American girl that looked about our age with her father who had missed the bus as well, so I went over and asked them if they wanted to split a taxi with us back to Segovia. They were very nice, and said yes, so we headed off together to try and find a taxi. Turns out the girl is studying abroad in Malaga, Spain; her dad was visiting for a few days so they headed to Madrid for the weekend. We all went back to the train station together, and then went our separate ways. After waiting around for our train for a while (we got there too late to catch the earlier one), it was back to Madrid. Unfortunately we got back later than we had hoped, so we missed a Carneval parade we had been hoping to go to. Instead, we went and got some dinner and tapas, trying some 6euro paella that ended up being pretty awful. Guess that's what you get for six euro paella, it's unfortunately very expensive here, but one day i will have to suck it up and try some of the better kind. Again, we had seen in our "Guido de Ocio" that there was something going on for carneval late that night, some kind of party with lots of costumes and such. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out where exactly the place was based on the address, so after some searching for a bit we gave up and decided to just walk around for a bit. After some wandering through one of the richer parts of the city, we noticed a bunch of people standing around some kind of concert hall. We had found it! Turns out the party was very exclusive and fancy, invite-only, but there were a fair amount of people standing outside and just watching the people arrive, so Sam and I joined them for a bit. It was fun, we saw some really great costumes, people really went all out, and it was funny to see all these wealthy adults dressed up and acting silly. After awhile we decided it was time to make the trek back to the hostel; by this time we were also pretty cold, so we quickly made our way back and headed to bed. The next morning, Sunday, we slept in a bit. We spent the day in Madrid, heading over to this huge market in the morning, and walking around that for a while. I found this great shirt with a picture of the Little Prince on it, with a quote from the book in Spanish, and left happy. After that we found a metro to take us to the outskirts of Madrid to visit a little church, whose ceiling was painted by Goya (kind of his Sistine Chapel); it was really beautiful, very cool to see. Then it was over to the Cathedral by the Royal palace. On the way over we went thorough the royal gardens, a really pretty walk; we even saw a peacock wandering around, and spent a while coaxing it out so it would let us get some pictures. The cathedral was beautiful, and afterwards we started out back arcoss the city to visit the Prado. Really hungry at this point, we stopped at a Chinese place and got some food, and then continued on our way. Luckily, the Prado is free on Sundays starting at 5 pm, so we found a bench to sit on oustide and rested for a while while we waited a bit for to get in free. Unfortunately, about a billion other people decided had the same plan, and the line to get in got bigger and bigger. Eventually, after waiting past 5 in the hopes that it would die down, Sam and I gave in and joined the line. Not too long after we got in, free!, and then began to explore the Prado. Such an amazing museum, and so big! It was a bit overwelming, but I saw as much as I could, and saw so many great paintings, some of the highlights being those of Bosch, El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. We stayed until they kicked us out at 8, and then it was time to head to the metro. I had bought tickets to see in indie concert, Islands, so we made our way over there to see the show. We were running low on time, so just grabbed some sandwiches and snacks at a grocery store by the place. It was kind of out of the way, a bit hard to find, but ended up being a good concert. The place was called "Moby Dick", a cool little bar with a small stage, that had seen the likes of James Taylor, The Long Winters, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, etc. I really enjoyed the concert, Islands are a pop/rock/indie band from Canada, with Brian Hunt as an opener (who I had never heard of, but was pretty good). After the concert it was time to head back, so we got back on the metro and headed to the hostel. Monday, we headed to Toledo for they day, catching a train for the hour-ish ride. The morning was stressful, especially because the guide book had the wrong train station listed to go to Toledo, although fortunately the right one wasn't too far away. We made it though, and caught a bus from the station into the center. Toledo is such a great city, surrounded by an old wall, and just really well preserved and gorgeous. First, we stopped in at a former hospice as well as a former monastery, both beautiful buildings and interesting museums with artwork and such. We then walked around for a bit, stopping in at little shops on the way. Toledo is famous for its jewelry, made with gold, and another black stone. Really beautiful stuff, incredibly ornate. We spent along time admiring it all, and I got myself a cheap necklace that I really like. After a quick lunch, including a desert of Marzapan (very popular in Toledo) we headed over to the Cathedral of Toledo, which was absolutely AMAZING. Definitely on my list of the top most beautiful things I have ever seen, seriously gorgeous, again on the inside and outside. It even had a little "treasury" with all sorts of incredible pieces, plus a room full of painting by the likes of El Greco and Goya. Sam and I spent a long time wandering around, trying to take it all in, and then we did some more wandering around the town, stopping in at some more shops to admire, and just enjoying exploring such an old city. Our last visit was to a little church, where some of El Greco's work was displayed, and another where his masterpiece "The Burial of the Count of Organ" was on display. Very cool, so many amazing artworks! By this time it was getting late, so we headed back towards the train station and caught our train home. Upon arrival, we decided that we wanted to see some Flamenco, one of the must-dos in Madrid, that I had been dying to do. After calling around, we found a slightly less expensive place, but that the guidbook had described as being less tourist-y and more authentic. We made a reservation, and headed over, hurrying as there wasn't a whole lot of time before the peformance started. We were starving, and desperately needed a quick bite to eat...something cheap; and we chose none other than McDonald's, which according to a sign was actually the first McDonald's in Spain, hahaha. It was very satsifying, good old McDonald's, and we ate while practically joggin to try and find the flamenco place. Of course, it was somewhere on this huge square with major roads running through it, so this proved to be pretty tricky. After some panicked searching, we did find it, and ended up being very early (turns out it started at 10:30, not 10...). We sat back and relaxed, sipping on sangria, and admiring the nice little flamenco club and feeling sophisticated. We were the first people there, so we got the table closest to the stage, SO COOL! The show was sooooo great, and it was great to see real flamenco, not the toursity crap that is advertised everywhere. It consisted of these four older guys, who sat on stools towards the back of the stage, two of them singing, and the other two playing guitar. They were all amazing, the music was absolutely beautiful, and there were two dancers, a man and a woman, who danced solos and together. A really, really great experience. I love watching Flamenco; it was so intense, must be exhausting to do...really great. It lasted pretty late, so afterwards Sam and I caught the metro and headed home to sleep. Tuesday was our last day in Madrid, so we got up and ready as soon as we could, checking out but leaving our stuff in storage so we wouldn't have to carry it around all day. First, we headed over to the Royal Palace, towards the west of the city. Man, I'm running out of adjectives to describe everything, haha, this is getting a bit repetitive, but anyways the palace was simply mahvelous! The rooms are all beautifully decorated, the richness of it all is really unbelievable, and there was a whole bunch of old armor/weaponry that was very cool to see. After the palace, we headed over to the other side of the city to se the Reina Sofia, where "Guernica" is on display. After a loooong walk, we arrived only to find that it is closed all day Tuesday!!! After much cursing, we decided to go to the nearby Art Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, which my guide book rates as being up with the Prado. It really was a great museum, also very big, and with many amazing paintings from many great artists, including Monet, Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe, etc. Wow, I can't believe how many amazing paintings I saw this weekend! Makes me want to study more Art History...Anyways, after a long time at the museum, which I snuck off to Starbucks for part of, Sam and I had to get going. We grabbed a quick snack, and then picked up our stuff from the hostel and made our way to the airport (about an hour on the metro). We arrived with plenty of time, and I went through security with no problems. It was about an hour, after having explored the airport and had some dinner, that I realized I had left my big backpack at security!!! I still can't believe i did that, I was so out of it I guess from all the traveling, but in any case I practically ran back to security, freaking out, and approached the security guards and tried to explain in Spanish what I had done. They looked at me like I was an idiot (fair enough), and tried to get me to describe my bag, but my limited vocabulary only allowed me to say that it was blue, and was a bit bigger than a bag someone else was carrying nearby, haha. In any case, the security guard must of believed me, i mean i was pretty panicked, and he want into a little room and came back with my bag...phew! It was a close call, nothing was missing though, and all the important stuff had been in my purse anyway, but still...In the airport we ran into six other kids from our program heading back to Santiago as well, so we all sat together and caught up, which was nice. We made it back with no further slip-ups, it was nice to be back. The city has some lights up for Carneval, and lots of people were walking around in costumes last night which was very amusing. So yes, phew, that was my trip...man, hard to believe we did all that. Unfortunately, I don't really get time to catch my breath, as tomorrow Sam, Florette, Laura, Sam (a guy on our program), and Biaggio (my former rommate) are heading to Cadiz, where Lloyd will be meeting up with us as well. It should be really fun, Cadiz is known for having one of the best Carneval celebrations, and after a couple days there we are going to head for Granada for a couple days as well. We are then going to meet up with the our program in Ronda (also in Southern Spain), as next week there is a group trip in Andalucia. So basically I've got a week of some amazing travel ahead of me, it's going to be kind of insane, but really really great at the same time. In any case, i have already spent way too much time on this blog and need to get some work done and all my stuff unpacked and repacked, haha. Love you all, and will post when I get back from my travels! I don't know if i will have internet access, so it may be about a week, but don't worry it just means i'm living it up in the beautiful south of Spain. ;)
Much love for all, Brit