Whew, I just went a couple months without realizing I had a blog. Yes there is more. I am continuing my series of photos from my most recent faraway excursion in Spain. This was way back in May, so I wouldn't mind having another one already.
My first stop was Madrid, convenient for the fact that that is where my flight landed. Not convenient because of the airport, which is officially my least favorite of all time. I have never had to hike so far as I did in that monstrosity. I really like Madrid, however. For someone traveling alone, it is fun to walk around and explore on your own, pick up tapas along the way. If you want to find friends, the hostels are very active, planning tours, group activities, and bar crawls every day.
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| Old World Style - seen along my introductory tour |
The second day of my stay in Madrid was May 2 - The Day of Madrid. As I gathered from speaking to locals, it celebrates the day Madrid gained independence... from Spain? or France? Something like that. My mission that morning was to pick up a camera battery charger (which I forgot to pack) from FNAC, and on my way there found this big celebration. No big deal, business as usual...
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| A few spectators, who have been waiting for a couple hours for something to happen |
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| After a while of waiting, triumphant music played and several men in uniform marched up. These are bomberos. |
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| My main memory of this day is watching this guy in green at his post all morning |
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| The mayor of Madrid inspects the troops |
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| My camera was off when I first saw them overhead |
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| Some dudes marching |
After spending the early afternoon in Puerta del Sol and finding an (overpriced) battery charger, I wandered the eastern part of the old city. My favorite was the Reina Sofia, though Retiro Park was nice as well. Would have been nicer with a cold ice cream.
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| Looking out from the Reina Sofia. Guess who designed this statue. |
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| Hiked up this wide and long esplanade to Retiro Park. |
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| Outside Reina Sofia. People looking European. | | |
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The first night in Madrid, I went on a pub crawl. By pub, they really meant club (which makes sense in retrospect). It ended up being about 20 guys and 2 girls. The experience felt lacking after a bit, so I left with one girl who wanted to leave early, and we went to a cafebar where she had befriended the waitstaff before. As I knew more Spanish than her, I helped translate for them and they fell in love with me as well. I came back the next night, unfortunately alone this time. They teased me to bring someone next time, but they were still supercool and insisted I take a free coffee. Silly me, I heard wrong, they said coffee liqueur.
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| Farewell Madrid, time to check out some Spanish rocks tomorrow |
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