Thursday
I decided to forgo my classes since I was flying out of Lyon at 4pm and it takes about an hour and a half for me to get from my place to the bus station to the airport. I met Danielle there, who is another friend of Michael, the friend I was visiting in Madrid. Danielle studies in Grenoble, which isn't far from Lyon, and it ended up being that we had a French class together at UCSB.
The flight only took about an hour and a half and we got right onto the Metro with Michael, who met us there. The Metro in Madrid was really impressive, it was maybe even bigger than the Métro in Paris! It took us almost an hour to get to our hostel, which ended up being really nice, and in a really convenient part of downtown Madrid.
That night, we went out for tapas with Michael and he/Danielle's childhood friend Sara, which is my new favorite thing in the world. You buy a little beer/wine and get a plate of appetizers...AMAZING! However, we went to some not so typical Tapas places on Thursday, like a sandwich place that had over 100 little sandwiches on their menu, a Mushroom place where we got a plate of mushrooms rather than tapas, and then we went to a little café to get Chocolate con Churros, which was hot chocolate (aka hot chocolate syrup) that you dip churros in. MMMM! And each place only cost like 2-4€!
pictures of Thursday:
A building in Sol, one of the main squares that was about 5 minutes walking distance from our hostel!
This plaque, out in front of the building in the picture before this, signaled the EXACT middle of the country of Spain. if you look closely, you can see that it says 'KM 0'...apparently there are plaques like this on each kilometer point all over Spain, and this one is smack dab in the middle of them all!
All the sandwiches at our first stop of the night. They have so many that they need 2 menus!
The best mushrooms EVER! They had a bunch of seasonings and (of course) ham in them. Ham is like the number 1 meat of Spain...it's everywhere!
Chocolate con churros...mmmm
Spain is really big on street performers...But most of them just dress ridiculously and do funny things when you give them money...Like this guy.Friday
We woke up early to eat breakfast and get started with the Cathedral and Palace. The Catedral de la Almudena was pretty neat because on the outside, it just looked like another big ol' spanish building...it didn't look like a cathedral at all, but once we got inside it was pretty much your run of the mill gothic cathedral, although it had a lot of tacky spanish paintings and stuff on the inside.
Next was the Palacio Real, the royal palace of Madrid. We had seen on our way there some random processions with Spanish guards and horses and a carriage, but didn't think much of it. But we got to the Palace and realized that the procession we saw was making its way to and from the Palace! So unfortunately the palace wasn't open for viewing, but we did get to see a cool ceremony of different ambassadors being welcomed into the Palace by the guards and all that jazz.
Afterward, we walked through Plaza de España, this little square with a fountain and a little flea market, then we visited a raaandom little Egyptian temple, Templo de Debod. Afterwards, we found a restaurant and went out to a nice lunch where we ate Paella of course! Next, we walked to a super big park (Parque de el Retiro) and rowed around this little lake...Then walked around the park and came across this giant glass house, as well as a few really pretty gardens.
Later that night, we went out for tapas again. This time we started at one of the most famous tapas bars in Madrid, El Tigre. It was good. 'Nuff said. We found a couple other places to try out, including one place where I tried Black Sausage (or was it Blood sausage..), which is apparently some kind of nasty Spanish thing, but I liked it! All the food was super fried and greasy, I loved it. Haha. We ended up meeting up with a bunch of girls that either Michael or Danielle knew, and went to a bar that we called the Cave Bar, because it looked like a cave...and we all split this huge drink in a fishbowl that was called Leche de Pantera, or Panther's Milk.
The outside of the cathedral...doesn't look much like a cathedral, huh?
The inside, with its tacky spanish-ness 
Outside the Palace with all the guards on horses! There were also guards inside of a car that were dressed in old white wigs, and a carriage that transported the guests. 
The Palace.. you can see all the guards and the band on the left hand side 
Random Egyptian temple!
Birds eye view of Madrid
Paella!
Big monument in the Park
Michael and me rowing!
Sweeet glass house
Me in a waterfall!
Gardens at the park
Walking back, we passed City Hall
I found el GAUCHO! The gaucho is UCSB's mascot! :)
our Tapas at El Tigre...that and 3 drinks all for less than 8€!
Chicken and crazy sausage at another tapas place
the "Cave bar"...not its actual name, but it's fitting, no?
Danielle, me and Michael sharing our Panthers MilkSaturday
On Saturday, Michael's parents arrived from the Bay Area and Danielle is a longtime family friend of theirs, so we hung out with them a bunch. But first, Danielle and I went to the Museo del Prado, which is basically the Spanish/Madrid National Gallery. It was really nice, but pretty much it was the same as every other big gallery of 17th century art that I've been to (Lyon musée des beaux-arts, the louvre, the national gallery of Scotland, etc). It was cool though, and afterward we met up with Mike and his parents and had some Kebabs...one of the only forms of European fast food.
Later we met back up and went to the Reina Sophia, another museum a little more modern. It had a lot of Picasso and Dali, which I really liked. It was also in a huge awesomely designed building!
Then, we went out to tapas with Michael and his parents. We revisited a couple of places that we had been to already, but this time had Mike's mom snapping pictures the whole time, which was funny. Another place we went to quite a few times was the Museo del Jamon, which is the "museum of ham"...it's actually a ham restaurant/tapas bar that was all over Madrid. It is completely covered in legs of ham and its actually kind of gross, but it was a funny place to go.
Michael in the biggest Museo del Jamon
Museo del Prado
Courtyard outside the Reina Sophia
OK this place has to be explained. El Corto Ingles is Macy's on steroids. The main department store building (all kinds of clothing, sporting goods, and one story was a toy store) is 8 stories, and has a grocery store on the bottom floor. There are also 2 smaller buildings, one of which is 4 stories of electronics, and the other I'm not sure about because we didn't venture in...but this place is CRAZY!! It was also kind of expensive.
Another sweeet street performer.Sunday
All we did on Sunday before we had to leave was we wandered around the outskirts of a HUGE Sunday morning flea market. We walked around for about 5-10 minutes and didn't even begin to touch the surface of this thing...I think it went on for at least a kilometer. It was definitely one of those 'hold your backpack in front of you, watch out for pickpockets' kind of places, because there were SO many people!
So Danielle and I headed back to the airport and flew off...Only to be greeted by none other than freezing cold and a little bit of snow! Yikes.
All in all, I really liked Madrid, but I'm not too sure that I'm quite ready to give up my French lifestyle yet!
I have finally solidified my plans for winter break: Disneyland Paris for a day, then flying from there to Prague with my friend Celine, taking the train to Munich, where I'll spend New Years with my German friend Laura. I'm going to stay in Munich for a few days, explore some of the surrounding areas and hopefully take a day trip to Salzburg, Austria...Then I'm meeting up in Stockholm, Sweden with 2 guys from my program from UCSB! I'll be gone from December 27th until January 8th, and I'm super excited!
Have a good Thanksgiving everyone, my day has consisted of 5 hours of classes...Yuck. However a couple of friends are coming over to have dinner so hopefully that will turn out well! I'm very thankful to have avid readers such as yourselves to support me on my journey this year :)
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