Day 2-3: Madrid

So I am a little behind... only hitch about staying in 5* hotels is everything is insanely expensive. $14 bottles of water, and $26 for 24 hours of internet. The internet was not reliable either. So here is our Day 2-3 updates, we just arrived in Barcelona and I will be updating Day Four tomorrow hopefully.

Day 2

The day started off right, our hotel included two free breakfasts at their 5* buffet so Sal and I took first dibs. The meal was delicious, not exactly authentic but we ate like kings... and on our way out we ran into none other than Steve-O (from "Jackass").



After breakfast the sight seeing began, we made the whole trek on foot starting with Gran Via which is essentially like walking down Market in San Francisco or Broadway in New York. Gran Via was bursting at the seems with people and construction is rampant in the city. Madrid has already began preparing for the 2016 Olympics.

Looking down Gran Via


Banco de Espana (built between 1884-1891)


After making it through Gran Via we arrived at my favorite sights in the city, the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), and the Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena. In front of these two sites was the Jardines de Sabatini Palacio Real (Sabatini Gardens) which offered a brilliant landscape leading up to the Palacio Real.

View of Backside of Palacio Real from Sabatini Gardens


Palacio Real


Cathedral


Next we proceeded on to the two major commercial and public hubs in Madrid, Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol. Plaza Mayor is probably the most culturally rich place we've yet to encounter, from young to old, local to tourist, everything could be found here. Spanish flags lined the square and street performers entertained the masses. Cafes lined the edges of the square with places to eat, drink, and mingle with the locals, the place seemed to have an energy of its own. Puerta del Sol was much different, think of it more as Times Square. The New Years celebration has taken place here since the 60's. Puerta del Sol offered plenty of places to burn your money, as Sal quickly found out after buying a hat for 80 euros!

Plaza Mayor


Duff Beer in Puerta Del Sol... it exists and it is delicious!


I've discovered that as a group we aren't that interested in art. So certain key landmarks here like Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia weren't all that interesting to us. Collectively we seem more interested in culture, history, and any impressive architecture or engineering. I'm sure as we move forward to some of the more prominent works of art that may change.

Day 3


My first experience booking a reservation on Eurail, relatively easy. However this is only the case when you do it in advance. If we had waited til the day of we may have had a major problem. I cannot help but mention the women in Spain are absolutely stunning, problem is most either don't speak English, or they are pretending they can't because they are so used to getting hit on. This hasn't stopped Sal from getting us into conversations with nearly every girl we see.

So with no more sights to see we spent a large portion of our time exploring the night life, and returning to our favorite place El Hecho, the same place we landed our two overwhelming margaritas the first night. Only issue this time Sal and I somehow downed 6, John and James both had 5. We managed to camp out in El Hecho for 5 hours and we fell in love with our waitress Saida. Sal tried repeatedly to hit on her using his iPhone translator and I usually had to clarify to the best of my ability and then translate her response back to him. I'm surprised how much Spanish I can not only speak but also how much I understand.

El Hecho


The boys with Saida


After we finished at El Hecho instead of resting or taking a break we did what we shouldn't have done and continued drinking. On our way down Paseo Del Prado John was attempting to take a drunken photo of the four of us when another American approached and asked if we wanted him to take a picture. After a little conversation I found out he was from California, and after a few questions I had found out not only is he from Thousand Oaks, he works for Amgen, the same place my sister Rachelle, brother in-law Norm, and cousin Jacob all work. His name is Chip and he is traveling with 2 buddies and 6 girls... they are arriving in Barcelona soon, so we will have a group to cause some trouble with.

Picture of us Chip took


Chip


Upon our return to the hotel apparently we met an awesome older couple that apparently I was talking all about financial planning with... unfortunately I don't remember any of it. Which ultimately my memory loss also led to a date with the porcelain, the margaritas here absolutely destroyed me! I'm feeling all better now =).

James trying to cheer me up after I lost my lunch


The couple from the lobby