I am writing this blog entry a day earlier than usual as I have just returned from Madrid and tomorrow I am going to Milan.
Jemma and I decided to
use a week within this month to do some travelling and broaden our cultural
experiences so our first stop was Madrid on Monday. After a slightly stressful search for our
hostel we eventually found it and unpacked.
Staying in hostels is somewhere I never wanted to stay so I
am surprised at myself that they are the option I know choose. It makes our trips away more affordable,
enables you to meet more people and so far they have all been clean and quite
nice. I definitely think living on a
weekly budget and moving abroad has helped me become more relaxed in terms of
accommodation when travelling.
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| 'Palacio Real.' |
As we only had three
days in Madrid we decided to cram in as many sights as possible. We thought we would struggle to see half the
things we wanted to but we soon realised that Madrid is smaller city than
imagined and we were able to walk between the sights. My map skills have certainly improved as
sometimes I even directed us to the correct location. (Anyone who knows of my
poor sense of direction will know what an achievement this is!) I particularly enjoyed visiting ‘Retiro
Park,’ 'Palacio Real' and ‘Plaza Mayor.’ The
architecture in Madrid was beautiful and there was a real mix of old and new
buildings. However one thing I noticed
was the huge numbers of Police in the city on a daily basis. I am unsure of whether Madrid is a city which
is high in crime or whether such a large Police presence is the norm in Spain
but they seemed to be everywhere. It
also surprised me that right in the centre of the city prostitution seemed common during the day/night with numerous women lining the street which
was slightly off-putting. However, apart
from this the city was lovely and it didn’t seem like an area high in crime. Perhaps the Police presence was just because
it was the capital city and there were high numbers of tourists as well as
locals. I plan on asking my Spanish
friends in my class about both of these issues to discover whether any of my
guesses are true of Madrid.
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| Attempting to row in 'Retiro Park.' |
I also noticed the
eating out and drinking culture in Spain and this is something Jemma and I
embraced. I love Spanish food and also
Sangria so we had some great meals. However, we made the mistake of ordering 6
tapas dishes in one restaurant, thinking that they would be small only to have
the waiter bring us out 6 meal size portions.
Needless to say we were really embarrassed as you could barely see the
table for all the food we had on it and it was struggle to try and finish it
all. The food was delicious though and I
really enjoyed tasting the gastronomic culture of another country. As the Spanish normally eat late in the
evening, on our first night we found ourselves almost alone in the restaurant
but on our second night we ate later and the atmosphere was better.
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| Our rather large but delicous dinner. |
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| Enjoying the sun at 'Plaza Mayor.' |
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