Checked into our hostel in Madrid, "La Posada de Huertas Hostel", which was a nice place physically but had very little atmosphere and completely useless wifi, which while it sounds like a very minor gripe is kind of necessary for Lewis to work and for us to book our next steps and also isn´t a hard thing to implement reasonably. Hung around for a little while in the reception area (the only area with decent chairs) and befriended a cool geek girl from Melbourne called Ruby on her way to study in Salamanca.
At 7, with Ruby joining us, we went on the Tapas Tour, which is run by a group of hostels and is $10 for drinks and tapas from 3 different places, one for each North/South/Central style of tapas. First place wasn´t great, a little sangria and a couple of small dishes but second place had fantastic, large amounts of food and beer and 3rd place some amazingly strong Portugese cider. After the tour ended most people left to join a pub crawl but a group of us stayed at the 3rd place as it did sangria jugs for $7.
The next morning we went to find lunch but came to the unfortunate realisation that none of us had any cash on us so we went on an ATM hunt. Found 3 that didn´t work before we finally found one (they are scarce in Europe for some reason) and then grabbed burgers on the way back to the hostel.
Lewis spent the afternoon working while Macky and I bummed around and then at 5:30 with Ruby as well we all went to Reina Sofia museum, which we were told was free from 6pm. Rocked up and found that free entry starts at 7pm so we wandered up to a park where we spent an hour chilling out in the shade, surrounded by a rather intimate lesbian couple and another couple dry humping against a tree. Possibly we found the wrong park.
At 7 we went back down to the museum and spent a couple of hours checking out all the amazing pieces, the highlights being Dali, Picasso (including the original Guernica, which is enormous and takes up an entire wall) and some very cool modern art pieces. On the way back we finally found ourselves some Paella, which was pretty awesome, before meeting up with Ruby´s roommates Sarah (from France) and Margarida and Roderigo (from Portugal) and went to find a pub. Walked around up to an area meant to have good pubs but they were all either expensive or awful so we ended up back at the same sangria place as the previous night. Spent the walk alternating between deep, political and philosophical conversations with Ruby and messing with the vast amount of spruikkers that constant harassed us. Nothing like going from discussing legalisation of marijuana or Australia´s lack of decent leadership options to suddenly everyone clicking in unison or telling someone "I can´t, my cat is on fire".
Had pizza slices from outside the hostel for brunch before Lewis went back to work and Macky and I went for a wander and bought us our train tickets to Lisbon, which ended up requiring an overnight train as it has to go via Valencia, which is in the almost perfectly opposite direction. Also ended up extending our stay by a night as a result as we wouldn´t have time to fit in Porto. Made ourselves carbonara for dinner, which wasn´t bad but had too much egg in it.
The hostel was running drinking games in the evening and Macky and I distinguished ourselves by beating the defending champions at sangria pong before losing to a couple of American frat boys. Afterwards Macky, Ruby, Margarida, Roderigo and I, joined by some crazy American girl who works as a cinematographer on "Jerseylicious" (ew!), went to the sangria place again until 2, when we all headed to a club. The club looked really awful so Macky and I headed back. According to Margarida the next morning we made the right decision.
For the first morning in Madrid we woke up in time for the free hostel breakfast and then while Lewis worked Macky, Ruby and I went on a free walking tour lead by a super enthusiastic and very funny English girl called Harriot.
The tour started off at the official Madrid statue, which is a bear eating the berries off a special sort of tree who´s berries ferment and go alcoholic for a couple of weeks a year. From here we moved on to the Madrid theatre, founded by a queen who´s husband was gay and so dedicated herself to the arts. The theatre was the first funded one in Spain as the church refused to fund them at the time.
Next up was the Palace, which was massive and magnificent, and right next to it the cathedral, which they designed to be very plain so as not to outdo the palace, but the side facing away from the palace makes up for it by being amazingly ornate. From here Harriot took us to a little hidden garden where we got a lesson in the history of Spain and Madrid, from the Moorish times through freedom of religion and then onto the Catholic takeover and Inquisition.
We then moved on to the old central marketplace, which was built of wood and then burnt down accidentally 5 winters in a row before they rebuilt it one final time out of stone, and then up the new strip of Madrid, with big ornate buildings, each built to the style of the fashionable city of the time, which ends at the statue of Cybele, the unofficial symbol of the city and center of all Real Madrid celebrations. Next to the statue we chilled out in a park while Harriot gave us an overview of the various museums before she took those of us who wanted to a cheap little restaurant for lunch, where for $12.50 we got a huge 4 course meal, beer, paella, steak and chips, cake and finally coffee.
Headed back to the hostel where we said our farewells to our new friends, collected Lewis and then jumped on the metro to the train station for our train to Lisbon. Wrong station. Quickly caught a cab to the right station, which took us past the Bernabeu stadium which was cool. Got on our overnight train and discovered we were sharing our 8 seat section with a group of 5 from the Northern Suburbs. Small world.
At midnight, unable to sleep, we went and had a beer from the train´s bar and a chat with a couple of English girls and a New Zealand bloke.
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