Madrid, ole!

24.08.10

Hola from Madrid!

We love Madrid. And Madrid loves dogs, rollerblading,longboarding, mackin' in the park, and the gays. It's been in the mid 90s since we got here, but it's much better than the sticky Oregon heat. We haven't done much since we're all tired from traveling.

Basically, our MO is find food, goto the park and nap, and repeat.

Tim and I cracked about two seconds after getting into our room and we bought air conditioning, which neither of us regret even for amoment. This is our nicest hostel by far, and somehow we haven't gotten lost yet, though that is not to my own credit by any stretch of the imagination. I am so utterly lost in Europe, haha. We are about 20 meters from Plaza Mayor, which is a tourist attraction but Ihave no idea why. I really like the vibe of Madrid; it's laid back anddon't-worry-be-happy-esque. However, we're not entirely pleased by the food;it's good, but in small portions and very different from what I'm used to.Example: for breakfast yesterday I ate hot dogs, french fries and fried eggs; I thought that sort of nonsense was confined to the walls of Denny's!

25.08.10

Today was our last day as a foursome, and nobody is really ready for tomorrow. We woke and left the hostel by noon, found some fairlydecent food, and headed off in a new direction.

One thing I don't enjoy about Madrid (or, to be fair, about any big city in general) are all the street performers and employees of various businesses forcing their agenda upon you as you walk by. If we don't get handedat least 5 business cards, have 3.2 fans waved in our faces, and get propositioned to sell our gold every 17.3 seconds, I would think we were no longer in Madrid. Some of the street performers are scarier than others:yesterday we came across a shiny devil-goat/pinata thing that caused Jacob to let out a quiet little girl shriek.

Anyway, our travels led us to the royal palace, behind which lies a vast and beautiful foresty-garden. After finding a (seemingly) hiddenentrance, we wandered down a few paths, ended up at a fountain, and somehow spent the next two hours there. It felt like we were in the land of Fern Gully or something. The walk home sucked, so to reward our efforts, Tim and I boughtsome gelato, which seemed to quiet down the whining.

As I had said before, the Spanish diet doesn't agree with us, and we're too ashamed to return to the safe halls of McDonalds, so we gotthe European version instead: Döner Kebobs. These turkish fast food joints havebeen on every street in every country we've visited. Their the one common link.We love them because they're fresh, delicious, and dirt cheap: the perfectcombo. After snagging dinner, we headed back to the hostel to watch "Bill &Ted's Excellent Adventure," which was too much for all of us. Then we took one last walk together through the very much alive streets of Madrid. 11:30 at night, and people are outside at cafés drinking wine and chatting with theirbest friends. Such a different lifestyle from Eugene-ians. After a few longing looks exchanged between Jacob and me and some hugs, Tim and I bid Jen & Jacob adieu. I'm pretty bummed; it's amazing how close you can get to someone after having to wear the same 3 pairs of underwear for 2 weeks. . .