Keepin´ it Real, Madrid

So this is my attempt in writing a blogpost in a language that is understandable to not only the few lovely readers I have in Estonia, but also my just-as-lovely fellow erasmus people and oh, my dearest, who as well lacks the skills to read Estonian :) The topic today - our trip to the ever so rivalric neighbours of my current hometown Espana and city of Madrid. The beginning of the voyage was supposed to start at 16,21 when the train to Porto embarks from the station, but somehow in midst of the non-existing excitement and completely relaxed feeling that Portugal has taught us, I had paid no attention to the fact and was still sitting in class 15 minutes before the take-off. For some odd reason I was wearing my nike´s, and I stormed from ESE to the residence to grab my still unpacked bag and on to catch the train. I even made it with 3 minutes to spare. 

Once we arrived in our destination, after some hours of airplaning and metroing, we stepped out into the streets to see a big welcoming party for us- music, dancers, a magician, confetti- the whole shabang. Ok, actually, by the looks of it, it was a celebration for the international day of happinnes (which I hadn´t heard of before). Our hostel was in the heart of the city, great location, but the wifi sucked harder than my vacuum cleaner at home, so we had to visit burger king or mcdonalds to get and give some updates on life around and occasionally treat ourselves with some pieces of heaven in the form of brownies.

I was so lucky to have such smart travel-companions, who knew exactly how to make the most of a city vacation, and also how to READ A MAP! Something I am terrible at, by the end of day 4, I was still unable to understand which way is what. So a standing ovation for Lisa and Christina, please. We took a "free tour" which is actually a concept where you decide yourself how much the tour was worth and how much you´re able to pay. Visited the Reina Sofia and the Prado museum, which of in the latter we took audio guides.. I feel like a butterfly breaking out of the coccoon :D:D:D Tours, audio guides - they´re sooo interesting, god damned it, where have I been living my whole life :D 

Since it was at the time of the bigbig total solar eclipse, we tried to find a pair or mutiple pairs of glasses to watch it with, but Madrid had none to offer. Nobody even cared about it, we were walking around the city, looking up to see the sun get covered, being the only ones with our heads faced upwards.. But the city was very classy with its amazing architecture - simple, yet elegant, but at the same time also grand. I fell in love with the balconies, there was an awesome one with dragon figures but stupit me didnt take a picture. The weather was rainy the whole trip, so Madrid didn´t get the proper chance to shine in our eyes. Nevertheless I was baffled by the view. And the H&M here was just royal.. big chandelliers hanging from the mirrorplated ceilings, big balconies, stained glass windows - coool!

Instead of the toothfairy, spanish have the tooth mouse

Needless to say, we had some amazing dishes in Spain! We were in search of a tripadvisor advised paella place, but ended up in a reastaurant where the prices where too damn high and the service was too damn bad. But my first ever seaside paella was still gooood. In Spain we actually didn´t come across any impressive servicing, only superslow and really indifferent, but its probably due to the fact that Madrid is a big city. Then again Lisbon had also (like in Viana) the nicest people in the cafés and restaurants! So Portugal 1 - Spain 0. OK, I can give a point to Spain for the architecture and 2 for the food, but Portugal gets all the rest of the points :) But coming back to the food.. it was amazing almost everywhere!! Burrito with guacamole, my new love, ox- goat cheese burger.. my mouth is watering and surprisingly not for sweets. buut when I look at the picture of the HUGE gummycandy, then i´m just drooling all over myself :D Unfortunately we left the tapas experience for the last night, when we wanted to join it with a football match, so of course all the tapas bars were full of fervent fans. Once we found a place to sit our bums down, it was just terrible. Slow service, not so magnificent food, one fan jumping up and down, unknowingly pushing our table.. but still an experience :D Oh but the sangria.. my other new found love!!

Churros dipped in chocolate

One of the things we wanted to do was a pub crawl. The pampflit in the hostel gave instructions where and when to meet for the crawl. Our masterplan was to first lurk around, check out the crowd we would spend our evening with, and if approved by the 3 bosses, join the movement. But we weren´t sure if we had the right group, so we started following them, and after some confusion, lost them. The evening wasnt looking so bright anymore, since we had no idea where to go. So we checked out some places and ended up in front of an Irish pub, where there was another pubcrawlguy inviting us to join them. Mõeldud-tehtud! (thought-done would be the direct translation :D) So we got to dance some self-made salsa at a salsaclub. Christina is really the best dancing partner one could have, cuz it dont matter how silly we look, it´s just fuunnnn. Being the only ones on the dance floor with a cocktail as a partner, mixing salsa with sweet hiphop- we were just killing it! The last stop was a big club, Palace, and it was really big. And it was also very much filled with horny little spaniards, grinding in their almost nonexisting outfits like there´s no tomorrow xdd. That was a funny sight. But the music was also too bad to stay there, so that was the end of our crawl.