MAD Weekend
For the first half of last week my family was still in town, so I had the treat of a few more nice meals befor they took off on Thursday. There was also a really good crew of people staying at the hostel during that time, so a few nights after dinner I met up with some of the guests down at La Rambla to go out. I’ve met so many great new friends just working at the front desk, and you’d be surprised how eager some people are to go out with the receptionist at their hostel. I think that a lot of them assume I know the hot spots really well (maybe I play it off that way just a bit). Sometimes I’m sad to see people go after having so much fun with them, and I usually try to encourage them to extend their stay.
On Friday evening, the night before our departure to Madrid, we went out as a group for Indian food, where I treated myself to some exceptional samosas. We sat at dinner pretty late, which was not in our best interest considering the early train ride the next day.
We boarded our train to Madrid just about last minute at 8:30, and caught up on some sleep until we arrived at around 11:15. The intrax guys in Madrid were still asleep when we arrived at our hostel, so we had to get Jaclyn (the one girl in Madrid) to wake everyone up as we made our way to their apartment. When we got there the guys showed us the royal palace, plaza mayor, and a few other cool things in the city. It truly has such a different feel than Barcelona. I could spend a few paragraphs trying to articulate the differences, but I will spare you the wordy, vague description. What I will say is that it is definitely not the stuffy, all work no play city that people from Barcelona make it out to be. I actually noted that there seemed to be more locals out and about in the central area, whereas here in Barcelona when the streets are flooded with people it tends to be mostly tourists.
Still, I like Barcelona more.
We went out to a really cool discoteca on Saturday night, called Buddha, where we stayed longer than we had originally planned, considering the 10:00 day trip to Toledo the following day. Toledo is a really cool historical city that is reminiscent of Moorish rule in Spain, and is also home to one of the country’s few synagogues. It is also quite beautiful, and perfect for a one day trip (Also, a lot of cool weapon stores, for some reason).
