Having Daisy here in Lyon was amazing. Having Sam here in Lyon was amazing. That’s really all I need to say about that.
So, after Sam left for Cologne last Thursday morning, Daisy and I embarked on our trip to Madrid. And speaking of amazing, that’s what it was…
Thursday: walked around town a bit after dropping our things off at our hostel. Sadly, my friend Courtney wasn’t still in Madrid (she studied abroad there first semester), but she did give me a huge list of things to do, places to eat, places to go, etc. One of the restaurants she recommended was this Bocadillos (small sandwiches) place called Cerveceria 100 Mondatidos; Daisy and I decided to check it out. It ended up being our favorite place to eat and we went there every single day we were in Madrid. They have 100 bocadillos to choose from, each for only 1.20 euros, and all the ones I tried were delicious.
After we ate, we tried to find our friend Ari who had told us he was going to be in Madrid. After many failed attempts at calling him, we actually went to the hotel he told us he was at, got ignored by the deskmen, tried to find his room ourselves, couldn’t, after about 25 minutes finally got to ask the man at the desk to help us find him upon which he told us that Ari had LEFT that morning. Awesome, big Ar, if you’re reading this.
To be fair, we were later informed that Ari was staying elsewhere and that he was going to some club called Joy that night, but by that time we were pretty exhausted so we just passed out.
Friday: Got some churros and chocolate. Then we went to the Prado, one of Madrid’s famous art museums. There was a wide variety of art there, mainly 12th-19th century Spanish painting. Velazquez’s Las Meninas, probably the only thing I really remember studying in Art History in high school, was there. The most impressive piece I saw, though, was Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but seeing this painting was borderline life changing. It was truly amazing.
After hitting the Prado we went to Parque Buen Retiro, as it was right next door. Courtney highly recommended spending time in this park, and I remembered reading one of her blog posts about it, and seeing her pictures of it. She’s right: it is an absolutely incredible park. I didn’t think any park could come close to comparing (in terms of how much I love it) to Parque Guell in Barcelona, but I was wrong. This park is completely different from Guell, but I loved it so much. It’s enormous, and it is beautiful. Daisy and I lounged around, reading, listening to music, and playing silly middle school games like Soulmate and Lemon.
I should also mention that the weather was fantastic. It was between 75 and 85 degrees the entire time we were there.
Eventually we headed back to our hostel for a bit before going to Las Cuevas de Sesamo, another one of Court’s recommendations: it’s a really cool basement bar famous for its sangria. It was an incredibly popular place; Daisy and I had to wait about 25 minutes to get seated, but the wait was well worth it. It was packed, with hoards of 20somethings at every table, each table donned with a giant pitcher of chilled sangria. There were also lots of philosophical and/or inspirational quotes all over the walls. Of course they were all in Spanish, so I didn’t know what any of them meant, but Dais was able to translate a few, and they were aesthetically pleasing in any case. Additionally, there was live piano playing. It was a strange mix, a tuxedo’d man playing classical tunes on the piano while young Spaniards yell and laugh loudly and drunkenly. But everyone was happy and having a great time, it was a lot of fun. Also, Daisy and I met two other Americans here-Evan, a junior at Tufts studying abroad in London, and his sister Becky, a senior in high school, visiting him during her Spring Break. They were great, and from Oregon! Thus, Evan and I actually knew a lot of the same people.
We left the sangria bar together and went to a couple more bars before going to a club called however you say “8:30” in Spanish. This club was awesome. They played great music, and we danced all night long.
Saturday: We’d decided to meet Evan and Becky at La Mallorquina (according to Courtney, the best bakery in the entire world, or at least in Spain) in the late morning. Courtney insisted that we get a “napolitana de chocolate,” which we did, and it was pretty amazing. It was similar to a pain au chocolat, but different… I can’t really explain how. But it was damn good. The bakery was really cool in general as well; you stand at a little pastry bar and eat your pastry and drink your coffee. Alright well, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but it’s fun.
After that we ate lunch at another Courtney recommended locale: la Finca de Susana. Apparently this place is entirely run by student chefs, which means that despite the extremely classy interior décor, the food is not very expensive. Unfortunately on Saturdays they don’t serve the “menu of the day,” which is what Courtney recommended we do (starter, main course, desert and wine all for only 8 euros!) but the food was still quite good.
After lunch, we all went to the Reina Sofia, another world famous art museum in Madrid. Personally, I quite preferred this museum to the Prado. There was a ton of Surrealism, which I love: incredible Dali and Picasso collections. The most famous piece in the museum (and I have to say, seeing it really was completely mind blowing) is Picasso’s Guernica. Quite an experience.
When we were done at the Reina Sofia we went back to Retiro (the Prado, the park, and the Reina Sofia are all in the same place) and explored new parts of the park that we hadn’t already visited. Evan and Becky had also already been here, so we tried to find places none of us had been to (it wasn’t difficult. I’m telling you, this park is gigantic). Once again, we ended up lounging around, this time with ham croissant sandwiches in tow.
After a while, we all went back to our respective hotels/hostels to rest, and met back up at the bocadillos place for dinner later on. We were planning on going to a hookah bar, but I had to wake up at 5:00 AM (really 4:00 AM-daylight savings finally decided to happen in Europe, on the day I had to catch an early flight. Cool.) so Daisy and I said goodbye to Evan and Becky and went back to the hostel after dinner.
All in all, a really wonderful trip. It was great to be able to travel somewhere with Daisy, too. I wish we both had more time and money to go somewhere else together. Regardless, I couldn’t have asked for more out of my time in Madrid, and I wish I could go back before leaving Europe this summer. And Courtney, while you weren’t actually there with us, you were an absolutely marvelous tour guide.
