Hola

Mmm, chocolate and churros made a night of no sleep and a 6:40 am flight to Madrid so worth it. Christine, Charlie, Eric, and I spent our Valentine's Day weekend in the capital of Spain, and although we were completely exhausted when we arrived, we made it to our hostel and managed to wander around the city after some napping.
We lucked out with our hostel because it was in the perfect location, right near the main sights of Madrid: Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real, Puerta del Sol, El Retiro, and the famous art museums. Everything there was very brightly colored, like this hallway leading to our room.
The other good thing was this balcony that our room had. The weather was gorgeous the entire time, so we could just stand out there and watch the busy street below. Charlie liked to stand out there and yell to his 'gente' every morning.
I promise that I'll actually get outside of the hostel, but this is the view from our bright blue room before we walked over to Puerta del Sol.
On the way out, we found this in the vending machine. Cocktail Acid. A mix of gummy soda bottles, rasberries, and eggs. Yum?
Puerta del Sol is a big open area where there are lots of stores and people everywhere. We walked by a few mariachi bands and a protest on separate occasions. During the day people are usually shopping around or relaxing at cafes.
There's a ton of graffiti everywhere on the streets, even on cool doors like these.
The next morning, we walked over towards the Botanic Gardens and El Retiro, one of the big parks in Madrid. On our way, we passed by some cow statues since they have them absolutely everywhere.
Here's a scenic countryside cow.
The Botanic Gardens were still beautiful despite most things not being in bloom at all. There were a lot of cats around for some reason, but besides that, it was just a quiet and pretty place to walk around.
Being in London most of the time, we're not used to getting much sun, so we were happy just to sit around on benches and enjoy the weather.
El Retiro is right next to the Botanic Gardens and everyone was out enjoying the day. We made our way over to a little lake they have in the center of the park and decided we needed to rent a rowboat.
It was a relaxing boat ride and Eric did most of the rowing, while singing and trying to pick up girls in other boats.
I attempted to row, but I mostly just turned us in circles.
The monument to Alfonso XII is right along the water and we passed by it in our rowboat, waving to all the people that sit around there.
A little further into the park and hidden in the trees is the Palacio de Cristal. It's a glass pavilion by a little pond.
I sat down by the water for a bit.
The Palacio de Cristal functions as an art gallery and the exhibit we saw was made up of a bunch of these hanging sculptures. It was all very pretty and shiny.
Then it was time to relax some more. Later that day, we met up with Charlie's friend who is studying abroad there and she took us to a bar for tapas where we were serenaded by Spanish men playing guitars. There was so much cigarette smoke in there because people smoke everywhere, indoors and outdoors. Since I was already losing my voice a bit, this pretty much killed it for the rest of the trip. Though I sounded like I was dying, I was having an incredible time.
On Valentine's Day, we made it over to the Museo del Prado, a museum next to the park that has a collection of European art from the 12th century to the early 19th century. It was ridiculously hot in there, so we got tired of all the royalty on horses pretty quickly.
That meant it was time for more napping in the park.
We went out for a nice Valentine's day dinner to an amazing paella restaurant. They bring you a huge pot of it to share. Besides paella, we had a lot of gyros while in Madrid because they have kebab restaurants everywhere.
The next morning we went over to El Rastro, which is a giant market they have on Sundays. It's one long street lined with shops and stalls, but the gigantic crowd of people walking around was crazy.
We walked around some more and watched this mariachi band for a while in Puerta del Sol.
This is the Plaza Mayor. It's lined with restaurants and bars, so people (mostly tourists) come to sit around in the center of it, eating or enjoying some street performers.
Nearby is the Palacio Real. Unfortunately, we were too late to get a tour, but it was nice enough to just see the outside.
We walked around it for a while and then made our way over to the palace gardens.
Here's a view of the palace from the Sabatini gardens.
Another good place to relax.
Before we took our flight back to London, we stopped by the Museo Reina Sofia, which mainly features more modern Spanish art. We got to see a lot of Dali and Picasso, including Guernica. It was amazing.
Here's a quick shot before we took the Metro back to the airport. All in all, it was a great vacation away from our vacation in London. We all did very well with our Spanish and I would definitely go back again. But, it was great to come back to our London home, even if the weather is a bit drearier here.

This past weekend we went to Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare land) with the whole program, so I'll put up a post about that this week before we leave for Italy on Friday! Also, I finally got a camera, so maybe that will make me better about my blogging? Probably not.