Lisa went to Madrid

Woke up at 6:15am on Friday, which didn´t really phase me since I was super pumped for the weekend. We showered, last minute packed, ate, made ourselves some bocadillos for the train, and were out the door by ten to eight. We walked in the pouring rain and dark all the way to Plaza de Cuba to catch a cab. It was miserable, to be honest, because not only was it cold and rainy, but my bag weighed a ton. Y´all know me and my problems with overpacking. By the time we got to the Plaza my arm was burning, blah. Grabbed a cab and were off to the train station. P.S., that was the most traffic that I´ve ever seen in Sevilla...no wonder they have the siesta, they all get up so early! We were there a bit early, so we hit up the Café de Indias there for some tea, chocolate caliente, muffins, and cereal. Funny little cultural story: I ordered a small box of All-Bran there. The guy behind the counter asked me, "¿Para llevar?" ("To go?"), to which I responded "Sí," causing the guy to look around all confused not knowing how to give me cereal to go. Then I told him "Lo lleva en la caja" ("I´ll take it in the box") which left him quite perplexed, but he gave it to me anyways. I swear, the Spanish have not yet embraced the lovely American tradition of finger foods. Like I´ve said, they use cutlery for everything, so eating dry cereal just doesn´t register with them. Ohhh Spain. We then went through a bit of security and were rushed onto the train which really caught me by surprise. I mean, they are adament about leaving on time here! I was seriously running to my car. We took a train called the Ave, which is super fast, therefore only a 2.5 hour trip alllllll the way to Madrid. The train was really nice, kind of like a step up from Amtrak on the inside. Watching the scenery as we rode was pretty cool too, as we travelled north it started to get more mountainous, and we drove through many mountains which was very new and very exciting (yes, I am easily entertained). They showed a movie on the train, Are We There Yet? which is one of those stupid kid comedy-esque movies. It´s starring Ice Cube. I gave it about a 15 minute chance, which was generous, and changed the channel on my headphones. Channel 5 was the English music channel which played AWESOME music...a lot of classic rock and folk, it made me quite happy. I started reading my new book about Buddhism which I´m really enjoying so far. Then I got tired and took my own little early morning siesta for about an hour. Woke up, ate my bocadillo and pear that I had packed for myself, listened to music, and watched the rain slowly fade away as we entered the center of Spain. We detrained around 11:30ish and were immediately taken aback by how cold it was in Madrid. I mean, holy crap! We are spoiled in the south, let me tell you. It was definitely in the 30´s. We grabbed a really sweet tour bus and arrived at our hotel, el Príncipe Pío. We were then split into two groups for touring purposes, and Stacey and I were in the second which meant that we went on our first excursion not for an hour or so. We couldn´t get our rooms yet because they were still being cleaned, so we stowed our luggage in Pepe´s room, and went to grab some lunch. We walked up the main, urban street of Madrid (think Times Square or Michigan Ave.) to find some sustenance. Madrid was much more urban than I had expected...I mean, more Starbucks than Chicago, no joke! Lots of theatres, movie and stage, many stores, restaurants, etc. I like it a lot, the city girl in me really enjoys that scene, I love having options. A small group of us hit up a cute bar/eatery called Nebraska (there are a lot of restaurant/bars in Madrid named after U.S. states) which was quite good. I had this traditional Spanish bruschetta-esque thing, it was bread with olive oil, tomatoe and proiscutto-like ham. Oh, I should mention that not only do they have Starbucks on every corner in Madrid, but a restaurant/store called El Museo de Jamón (the Ham Museum) which kind of weirds me out. It has so much ham hanging all over the place, Spain is crazy about dem pigs, I tell ya. After food, we walked back to the hotel, chilled on some couches before Eva fetched us to go on our first excursion: el Prado.
At around 1:30 we got back on the bus and headed for the Prado. I was so excited because, well, I just love art museums, and this is an important one! The Prado was great. We had a guide who´s an art history professor at la Universidad de Madrid, and he was very nice, very clear, and succinct. I saw my first Velázquez and Goya works in person, ever! I loooooove Velázquez now, he´s probably one of my favorite Renaissance artists, for sure. I saw "Las Meninas," his most famous work, which is AWESOME. He´s a fantastic painter, I really do love his work a lot now. Goya was just silly, I liked his stuff a lot, just not as much as Velázquez. There was also a hell of a lot of religious art (hehe, pun kind of intended) which I can appreciate for what it´s worth, but it grows old after awhile. After our tour of the museum, Stacey, Melissa, Katie, and I explored the parts of the museum that we missed on the tour. One of the artists that we missed was Bosch, who did that famous eden-like crazy painting, "The Garden of Earthly Delights." I mean, judging by the name, you know that I´d like it. You gotta look this painting up, it´s crazy, and so awesome. I bought a small print of it. After wandering the museum for awhile, then hitting up the gift shop, we were damn tired. So much walking, so little sleep, we needed a refreshment. We went to el Café museo across the street and got some wine, pastries, and Coca-Cola Light. The café was really nice, relaxing, and cute. It was a really good break from the day. After chilling for about an hour we taxi´d it back to the Príncipe. We finally settled into our room, which we realized was not as nice as the Bécquer´s rooms. Ohhh the Bécquer. We checked out the shower because, admittedly, one of the things that we had looked forward to doing in Madrid was shaving our legs because it´s really not possible in our shanty shower back in Sevilla. Haha, too much info? Lo and behold the shower is gross, moldy, and had the same detachable showerhead as ours from back home (although at least this one stayed attached)! Dag-nammit. Then Sam walked by and we made plans to find a SuperSol (a grocery chain) to buy some liquor because, well, drinking at bars/clubs in Madrid is way expensive compared to Spain and we were not digging the whole idea of large money expenditure. You know, it´s stressful to figure out where things are in a new city when you still don´t understand directions in your home city. Ugh, well, it took us about 25 min. in the freezing cold to find a SuperSol which wasn´t too far from our hotel. We kept walking into other convenience stores which didn´t have a good selection (Sam was set on the Cuervo). SuperSol was silly, all of the liquor has locks on the top that the cashier has to open for you. How delightfully absurd. Stacey and I bought ourselves some Smirnoff (sticking with an old friend), and headed back to the hotel to realize that there was a pretty substantial liquor store located right next door to the hotel which we absent-mindedly passed before. Ohhhh us. For dinner Katie, Stacey, and I decided to get some tapas. FINALLY I was going to have some tapas! It took us forever to find a place, which was kind of silly. Stacey ordered croquetas (her new favorite food), Katie got calamari, and I decided to be daring and ordered something on the menu which I had no idea what it was. I´m ridiculous. So the food came, and basically my dish was a bowl of oil, fat, maybe blood, bones, some chorizo and morcilla. What?? I tried the pieces of fat, which I initially thought was fish, and rejected it right away. I ate the chorizo, morcillas, and some bread, though. Haha. I later found out that what I had ordered were tripes, which is the stomach of various animals. AHHHH. Ok, I´m sorry, I´ve eaten some weird things in my day, and there is very little that I will avoid, and that is DEFINITELY one of them! Well, so much for my first tapas experience, lol. We got back to the Príncipe around 10 and it was time to get ready for our first night out in Madrid (oh yeah)!