Madrid Trip!

I went to Madrid this weekend with my program, and it was awesome!! We took the high speed train from Barcelona, so it was only a 4 hour trip, which I slept through. Once we all got there, we checked into our hotel and had freetime for the rest of day, so a couple of girls and I went out to lunch. Note/tip: in Spain, get El Menu del dia, or the menu of the day. It's usually comes with 2 courses of food, a drink and dessert all included for around 10 euro. So good! Then we wandered around for a bit, and came across Plaza Mayor, Plaza del Sol, el Palacio Real (the royal palace) and some cool statues and parks.

Friday night we went out to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday. We started "boqueoning" (drinking in a public place ~ very common for Spain) in a park and then went to bar that looked like a cave on the inside. Very fun!
Saturday morning I went on the bus and walking tour for 3 hours, and it was very nice to see the city. I was surprised at how condensed it was compared to Barcelona, which is very spread out in comparison.
Later on Saturday we got into two famous museums for free. I first went to the Contemporary Art Museum of La Reina Sofia, which houses the famous Guernica painting by Picasso. I took a picture of it, and then was promptly yelled at for doing so, oops! No fotos aqui! I still have the picture of the world famous Guernica though!

Next we went to the Prado Museum, again, another very famous museum in Spain and the world. I saw Las Meninas by Velazquez and a few paintings by El Greco. I didn't stay too long there because we were all exhausted and 4 to 5 hours of musuems were plenty for the day.

Later that night we continued celebrating my friend's birthday, and we went to Kapital, which is a 7 floor club that plays different music and has dance floor on each floor. Very cool, but very hard to find people if you get separated from them.

On Sunday, my group of friends and I paid to see El Palacio Real, or the Royal Palace. Centuries of royal families lived there, and it is still used as a formal greeting area for heads of state, presidents, political leaders, etc. The current royal family doesn't live there, but it's kinda nice because the public gets to see it. It was absolutely gorgeous inside - everything very ornatly decorated with gold, silver, and crystal. After the tour of the Royal Palace, we walked down to a flea market, but on the way we stopped at huge bascillica. It was open and I got go inside and see a catholic mass in Spanish. I only stayed for 2 or 3 min, but it was enough to see the inside of the church and hear some of the service.
Then we went to the largest flea market in Spain - how cool! It literally shuts an entire city block down. I only bought a bracelet, but literally, you could buy anything there. After the flea market, we took the train back to Barcelona. Such a fun trip!
This upcoming weekend: Portugual!
Take care and adios for now :)