Machado: “Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking”

It’s official. America needs to implement a siesta system. Now.

I say this because I just got back from Madrid! The gang (Allie, Ally, Alex, Lauren, Megan) and I had our first weekend adventure, and let me tell you, what an adventure it was. It began before we even left the country when we woke up unbearably early on Friday morning-we got picked up at 4:45am- to head to the airport. After an EXTREMELY thorough pass through security (two people had their entire bags rummaged through) we made it onto the plane. The seats were tiny, the food was expensive, and need I remind you it was about 7 in the morning, but we were all too tired and simultaneously too excited to care.

Our first stop was the hostel, which couldn’t have been in a better location, right on the corner of Montera and Gran Via, in the center of Madrid. Although our digs weren’t exactly luxurious, we didn’t plan on spending much time in the hostel to begin with. We dropped off our bags and headed out on our first Spanish excursion to see some of the major areas.

We felt a little bit like refugees

Our first stop was the Puerta del Sol where we saw dozens of street performers and, my favorite part of the trip, a mariachi band! I may have been a little bit too excited.

Puerta del Sol

I must give my little sister, Tory, credit for the next stop because we headed over to the Plaza Mayor, the major plaza in Madrid, which was beautiful. Again we saw tons of street performers, including a tiny Darth Vader, a very chubby Spiderman and, one of the funniest things: GI Joe, a matador, and Winnie the Pooh being accosted by the police. Things were starting to close for the afternoon, so we decided to suck it up and eat at one of the more expensive restaurants right in the center of the plaza. A few language problems later, we were relaxing in the sun eating paella (…and pizza…) and drinking DELICIOUS sangria, when we were approached by Marco from Gambia, who gave us all African bracelets that I think brought us good luck on the trip.

Plaza Mayor

Next we walked to the Palacio Real de Madrid, which was filled to the brim with ridiculous wallpaper and fancy furniture, and it had a pretty awesome throne room. I think I’ll probably make my throne room look something like that someday.

Palacio Real de Madrid

We also headed to the cathedral next door which had the most amazing ceiling. Each panel was covered in different colors and patterns and was completely different from anything I’d ever seen in a cathedral before.

Finally it was time for us to siesta and we headed back to the hostel. We found our blankets, which we jokingly referred to as “mantas monas” because we thought that they were made out of monkey fur. I know that’s not real Spanish, but it was funny. Our brief nap ended up turning into a 4 hour coma, and at 8pm, it was time for dinner. We’d gotten a recommendation to go to a tapas place called El Tigre, but when we finally found it, after getting pretty lost, we discovered it to be so crowded that we couldn’t even open the door and people were laughing at us from the inside. So we decided to wander around and find somewhere else to eat, and just when we thought we were going to starve, we were saved by an English-speaking, restaurant-promoting waiter at a restaurant that wasn’t too expensive where we could sit down and eat Italian food. You can whine about authenticity all you want, but after a long day of struggling to communicate what we wanted, it was nice to have someone there who understood us.

After dinner we stopped back at the hostel and then made plans to meet up with Megan’s good friends from BU, Allie and Nina. We found them at this trendy bar called Areina and then finally headed back to the hostel. Unfortunately, sleep was nearly impossible because the room was FREEZING. Those mantas monas don’t really provide much warmth. No wonder monkeys live in the tropics.

The next morning we had free breakfast at the hostel and headed to the Reina Sofia, the giant modern art museum in Madrid. Inside we saw the famous Picasso painting, Guernica, which is really incredible, and some mind warping Dali paintings. The museum is really beautiful itself and we got in for free as students.

Reina Sofia

Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel to go on a tapas tour. Tapas are small Spanish plates of food of things like cheese, ham, olives, and blood sausage (which does indeed contain blood- yes I did try it). Our tour was 10 euro for a free drink and free tapas at four different bars, so there’s no way we could pass that up. The sangria was wonderful and one of the bars, Taberna Alhambra, was really interesting. The famous image associated with the bar is that of the daughter of the lead singer of the famous Mexican band, Tequila. The bar was also the location of a famous fight between a Spanish bullfighter and Mexican bullfighter both vying for the love of Ava Gardner. Just to relieve you of the burning question running through your mind, the Spanish bullfighter won. That’s right: those are my people.

The famous image in Alhambra of the daughter of the lead singer of Tequila

The tapas tour was followed by another siesta, which again, was too long, so we decided to just hang out in the hostel for a little while and then got ready to go to dinner. We met up with Allie and Nina and their friend Jess, and they took us to the most delicious restaurant where I had fried eggs, French fries, and sausage. Fun fact: Spaniards will put a fried egg on anything. New trick for home? You betcha.

Our lovely Madrid guides: Nina, Allie, and Jess

As we were leaving, we heard someone promoting free sangria (obviously my new favorite drink, could you tell?) and needless to say, we had to follow him. However, when we arrived at the bar it was COMPLETELY empty. We were out way too early: in Spain, most people don’t even start eating dinner until around 10pm and most clubs will stay open until 6am. Eventually a few more people entered the bar including some very attractive (English-speaking) Spanish guys names Felix and…something else. We hung out with them at our hostel bar and then met up with their friend Joaquin (a bullfighter!) to head over to this huge club called Pacha. However, the line was really long and the it was really expensive so we just headed over to this indie bar called La Idioteque which was really fun. At that point it was 4am, and definitely time for bed because we had to wake up early for our last day in Madrid.

We woke up and headed straight to El Rastro, a huge outdoor market with pretty much everything. We coincidentally ran into my friend Kelsey, which seems nearly impossible if you know anything about El Rastro (it was so crowded as you can see from the picture below-this is just one street).

Next we headed over to the Prado, which is amazing. We had a serious issue at the ticket counter, with some very rude ticket ladies, but we made it inside and saw some amazing works by Goya, Velazquez, and a hoard of other painters. I particularly liked seeing Las Pinturas Negras by Goya and an painting called “The Execution by Firing Squad of Torrijos and his Colleages on the beach at Málaga” by Antonio Gisbert Perez. Of course, we couldn’t end the day without some AMAZING churros con chocolate.

Mmmmmm...

We went back the the hostel and headed to the airport nice and early. We were on our way home when…

OH NO!! Delayed two hours because some idiots at Gatwick had to repack all of the earlier flight's luggage into the cargo hold. We finally made it home, exhausted but completely thrilled, at 4am and were greeted by blankets that weren’t made of monkey fur.

The moral of the story, boys and girls, is best represented by the title quote by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. We headed to Madrid with little to no knowledge of the language, city, or culture and we muddled through and had an amazing time. And with all the walking we did, I’m sure we made a lot of paths.