So I’ve been in Madrid for a few days now and its been an entirely different experience than Paris. For one, it’s a lot less overwhelming than Paris, in that there aren’t 100+ museums and some monument to something every few blocks. Also it seems more modern in that there are some major streets which follow a straight path, and the area with the sites and activities is smaller and easier to navigate. Also it may have helped that I took one of those hop-on/off bus tours the first day I was here to help orientate myself. And it probably helps that I can speak some basic Spanish instead of just giving the deer in the headlights look when someone starts talking to me in a language other than English.

Also this is my first hostel experience and its turning out pretty good. I had a little bit of a hard time finding the place, as my plane came in at 11:35 pm and I had forgotten the name of the place as I only made reservations two nights earlier. So I had to pay the outrageous internet fee at the airport in order to check my email so I could get the name address of the hostel. Google maps helped me out in giving me a general location of the place but the address was something like Gran Via 59 7°, which I’ve never seen before. That’s OK, I could tell what metro stop I needed to get to, assuming Gran Via 59 was the main address. Unfortunately only some of the streets have signs posted which tell you the name of the street and most buildings don’t have their address visible. Also keep in mind this is about 1:00 am now and the streets are fairly quiet, luckily for me Gran Via is one of the major roads in this part of Madrid. So I finally spot a building with an address, 66, and I can tell that I am on the wrong side of the street, but I’m close to 59! I spend the next 5-10 minutes walking up and down the same block where 59 should be but there is no ‘Mucho Madrid’ hostel or sign… I’m starting to wonder if this place even exists. I ask some guy who wants to give me a flier for whatever it is he is promoting ‘donde esta Gran Via cinquenta nueve?’ ‘Esta aqui!’ and he points to the area I have been walking in front of for the last 10 minutes. So I take one more walk down and I’m still not seeing anything, finally
I notice a ‘57′ over a dark iron gateway, and I know that I’m close! So I walk one store front down the street to be met by a shuttered metal garage door, “but the hostel info said it was open 24hrs..” so I walk past a few more of these closed metal garage doors and find another door like 57 which has a 59 over it.. phew. I find the name of the hostel on the key pad outside (its in 1/8″ letters) dial the number and 20 minutes later I’m finally settled and about to fall asleep.

The place is clean and I’ve met several cool people including a couple who is taking nine months to travel around the world, mostly on train. They left this morning for Rome (that’s where I’m headed next), but will be leaving just as I am arriving. But we went out a couple nights ago for dinner and drinks and had some Spanish drink called Vermouth which was maybe the cheapest alcohol I’ve ever had, probably about 60-70 proof for €1.5. And last night I went out with another guy I met at the hostel, Oscar, to get some authentic Madrileno chocolate con churros, which are churros that you dip is melted chocolate, very good.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures of Madrid because they are very anal about not letting you take pictures of anything interesting… although I was able to sneak a few in of an Egyptian temple that was moved here when a dam was built that was going to cause the area where it was originally constructed to flood. So hopefully I can get those posted later.

Also I added a Videos link to the top where I posted a couple videos I took earlier but was really late getting uploaded. I don’t know if they have sound or not, I am having troubles getting the sound to play on my laptop..

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am and is filed under Traveling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.