Madrid pt 2

Photos: Sol Plaza and a Picasso piece from the Reina Sofia

The next day it took me a bit longer to get my shit together, but I ate breakfast, got out the door, and found my way to the Reina Sofia again. AMAZING! Different than the Prado, but possibly even cooler. The Reina Sofia is much more modern, and had a wider variety of subjects and ideas I could sympathize with, and less religious stuff than the Prado. I also got to spend a lot more time at the Reina Sofia. I put a whole bunch of pictures on facebook from my visit, so check em out, I even snuck a shot of Guernica!

So this was supposed to be my last real day in Madrid, with a flight to Paris planned for the next day (Thursday) at noon. However, traveling once again can be a pain in the ass, and I got back to the hostel to find an email from vueling saying my flight was cancelled due to airline workers on strike in Paris. I believe I mentioned that in an earlier post. Well I freaked out for a bit realizing I really couldn’t afford a train/bus ticket if this strike went on too long. But the strike wasn’t for sure happening yet, so I figured I shouldn’t worry till the morning.

I went to Puerta del Sol to meet up with a girl named Suzy. My friend Kat from U of I lived in Madrid for high school, so she introduced me (thru facebook) to a friend of hers who was back in Madrid for the holidays and we got together to chill. Suzy’s a blast! We went for tapas (sooo good!) and wandered around a bit. We were trying to meet up with a couple of her friends, but they were being shady, so we went back to my hostel to get my money and see what the Irish girls were up to.

The girls I’d hung out with the night before weren’t around, but we found another cool group playing a card game in the common room. We had a seat and it became a pretty interesting little get-together. Me (American), Suzy (born American/ raised Spanish/ lives in Italy now), an Australian girl, an American guy from Wisconsin, an Irish girl who’d lived in France when she was younger, a Brazilian guy with good English, and an Argentinian guy with little English. The conversation was half English half Spanish; really cool!

Suzy had to go catch the last train out to her part of town at some point, and the rest of us decided to go out to a bar down the block. Somehow I met some more Irish, a couple Italian Australians, and an American guy from Indiana and got to chilling with them (They were mostly at another hostel a block away). The Australians had rented a swanky apartment down the block for a month to take a vacation, so after a while some of us went to their place to chill.

I knew I might have a plane to catch in the morning, so I had to figure out at this point whether or not to go back and catch some sleep down the block at the hostel, and risk sleeping thru, or just stay up, make the plane, and sleep after. A couple people said they were down to stay up and wait for the hostel breakfast, so we did! It was really fun.

I went to the airport in the morning only to find that the strike did indeed go down, but I got a new ticket for the next day (Friday), hoping that it’d be over quickly. I went back to the hostel, changed rooms, slept for quite a while, and got up to wander a bit more. I went to the Reina Sofia (free for students) for a couple hours, and then figured I should see some more of the city. I went to Retiro park, which is really nice! It’s huge, and well designed. There was a great hill with this spiral sidewalk going up, flanked with those roman-looking pine trees. I felt like I was on Mount Olympus by the top. I could also see a bit of a soccer game in another part of the park.

I went back to the hostel when it got dark, and met the girls in my new room. They were from LA, and one girl was named Lena! I considered going out with them, but I knew 3 nights in a row just wasn’t happening, so I took a shower and went back to bed. The next morning I went back to the airport and successfully flew back to Paris, woo hoo!

Ya know, I wrote about how I liked traveling with someone, and I really did. Especially in the beginning, since I’d just moved out of a town where friends were around 24/7 for 3.5 years. New can be scary, so someone around is nice. And Margaret was definitely awesome to travel with, but I really got to like traveling alone as well. I was free to move in and out of groups of people or activities. The 6 Irish girls I’d hung out with were part of a group of like 60 from their college at the hostel, and they weren’t exactly reliant on the group, but they had to kinda let people know where they were, and couldn’t go out to the bar until everyone else did, etc. Within that smaller group of 6 there’s more constraints too, you’ve gotta wait until everyone’s up and showered and ready before you can head out for the day. Me? I could get up and out in minutes if I wanted. I was also one of the only people I talked to who had been to any museums around town. I told the Irish girls I was heading out for the Reina Sofia and they were like “oo how cultured of you!” I would hate to be stuck traveling with someone who doesn’t wanna see the city! Being independent definitely has its benefits.