Last night was a relatively good night sleep in our 12 person dorms – all the roommates seemed to get the coming in quietly without a light thing, which always helps. We had my latest sleep in of the trip yet, until 9.30am!
After successfully managing to manoeuvre my way around the mini push button showers with no clothes racks we grabbed a quick breakfast downstairs and then headed back to Plaza Mayor to start yet another Sandeman’s walking tour. These walks are really great but don’t make the most exciting of blogs. We walked past a lot of buildings (the opera house, the royal palace…) and were given lots of historical info about civil war and the Spanish Inquisition as well as lots of facts about playwrights and political upheaval. We also stopped at a really nice place for lunch, with a random assortment of little bread rolls and beer. Our Irish guide was pretty good, although he was hard to understand at times. We really enjoyed the walk – they are quickly becoming the staple thing to do in a big city.
After the tour we headed to the church dome entrance that the guide had pointed out to us, which was attached to a little museum. Clearly not many tourists know about this because it was completely empty and tourist free, which we loved. It was nice and peaceful up the top with a good view of Madrid… it is funny how quickly it tapers off into dry countryside.
After some more relaxing on the grass we did a little bit more shopping- more shoes for Andy and another dress for me! Then back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to our new hotel – this involved about 20 minutes of walking and metro, nothing too hard. The new hotel is a bit out of the way of anything so we enjoyed just relaxing in our room for an hour before our group meeting (after sorting out an initial hiccup where they’d put me in a room with another girl and not Andy).
Our group – there are only 9 of us and those three people less make this group seem rather small! There are three Americans and the rest of us are Aussies, nothing like diversity! I am quite possibility the youngest in the group, although there are two other younger females. We had a good chat to the group leader Jaime who sorted out our room situation… he is from Madrid himself and initially we thought him to be quite sombre, although turns out he is actually very knowledge and hilarious.
After all the obligatory rule reading we headed around the corner for dinner. This included eight big plates of tapas, including chorizo sausages, green capsicums, vegies, octopus, mini squid, hake, croquettes, potatoes. One of my favourites was actually the mini squid which is very unlike me… this is why I made sure I tried everything. The group already seems to gel really well – there was a lot of chatting and laughing and I look forward to spending the next two weeks with these people.
When dinner was over three people headed into town to check out the big gay parade that was happening, others went to bed. Andy and I walked down to where we thought the river was and instead walked into this big art area with bars and exhibition halls and a giant… roller skate derby? I think that’s what it was, there were people with roller skates everywhere. Andy and I had a good time sidling up to crowds and pretending we were locals. We were also glad that when they locked the entrance we had come in by we knew what the signs saying ‘Salida’ meant.
After escaping from the art exhibition I grabbed a mango popsicle from a mini supermarket and we strolled along the river, looking at all the people with their dogs and the arty bridges. Then back to the hotel to sleep. Tomorrow we leave Madrid – I really have enjoyed my time here. We haven’t done anything very touristy, mostly just relaxed in parks and shopped – but at this point in my holiday that was just perfect. I still like Barcelona better (much to Andy’s disappointment) but I could happily come back here one day to relax some more!
(N.B. If people want to read Andy’s blog, which will now be covering exactly the same as me, they can go to trimaway.blogspot.com – a different perspective perhaps, plus some extra photos … although a lot of my photos now will be copied from his camera!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment