Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

As always, things have been crazy while uni has been kind of boring. The past few weeks we've had group critiques for our major project and finally, after thinking for the longest time that I was getting along I am now moving smoothly. The studios are closed starting this upcoming week so all my shooting is going to be moved into the great outdoors, scary.

Jess, my older sister, arrived two weeks ago here in the UK for a visit. With an 8 hour time difference she was lagging a bit behind, to add to that she had two 3 hour naps before we got up at 2am to hop some buses to the airport. We headed off to sunny Madrid for a long weekend.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue, it felt nice and warm, we were pleasantly optimistic as we headed towards our hostel. Ten minutes later we were less so as we stood outside the door to our hostel trying to decipher the sign in spanish telling us that this was no longer a hostel but a private residence and we were not to knock. This seemed especially strange because the date on the paper was for the day we were there and I had received an email from them the day before and they didn't mention anything being wrong with the place. After much stumbling around, dragging our bags behind us, we found an internet cafe with another email from the hostel telling us to contact them because there was overbooking. The sister hostel was just down the street so we headed there. They didn't have room for us for our first two nights but they called over to another hostel nearby for us to go.

La Posada was a very nice hostel, we got a private room with bunkbeds. The first day we went out and did the Hop on Hop off bus tour, after about 45 minutes I looked over and saw Jess nodding off so we hopped off for good (we bought tickets for 2 days so it wasn't a big lose). Jess took a nap back in our room and I wandered around town a bit. I made my way into Retiro Park wandering the leafy paths until I saw drawn to a nice patch of grass with a saxophonist playing on the path behind me, I sat down and read for a while before deciding Jess needed to wake up.

My artsy images while I was relaxing in the park.
The first image is so you can see what I saw while I was reading in the park.

That evening we joined our "entertainment director" Pablo for a tapas tour with some other kids from our hostel and another one. We went to three different bars where we got different tapas. The first one had homemade beer, the second one wine and the last one sangria. We had a lot of fun meeting other people, it was a fun group and gave me a taste of what it's going to be like going out when I'm backpacking.

Saturday Jess and I went to the Retiro Park to wander around, we randomly ran into two of the guys from the tapas tour, which was perfect timing because we were looking around to ask someone to take a picture of us.

We spent a few minutes with them then parted ways until the evening. We walked around the park some more and then down to the Atoche train station, which looks like a station from the outside but from inside, see the images below:

After that we did more of the Hop on Hop off bus. We wandered off to see an Egyptian temple that was given to Madrid as a thank you from the Egyptian government after Spain helped save the monuments of Abu Simbel from flooding. Kind of a weird thank you gift but unique to say the least. From there it was on to the palace and the cathedral.

Jess and I at the Egyptian temple

View of mountains and hillside from Palace

We got pretty used to the spanish hours which means eating lunch at 2 and dinner around 9, it keeps the evenings going really late. That night Pablo had set up drinking games for us in the kitchen so Jess and I headed there first to drink sangria from a carton while playing cards with a group of about 15 people. There was a nice variety to the group, Poddy and Matt, our Canadian friends from the tapas tour, a group of Australians, two Brazilians and a few other random Americans. Once that was done we grabbed Poddy and Matt and headed out with Pablo to meet some of the other guys from the tapas tour and some new people to go to a bunch of different bars and clubs. After getting into the last club we realized we were exhausted so Jess, Poddy and I headed back to the hostel. We were the first to leave yet it was already after 4am.

Sunday we switched to the other hostel where they gave us a free night for all the complications before.

Monday we headed to Segovia for the day. It's a nice little walled city that was worth the trip to see. It's out in the countryside a ways and while it's a good tourist destination it hasn't lost its charm. We got to see the old roman aqueducts, the towns cathedral before heading into the main square for lunch. Then it was off to Alcazar Castle which served as part of the inspiration for Cinderella's Castle at Disney World (not to be confused with Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disney Land). If I lived in a castle this would be the one for me.

We got back into Madrid with time to shower before heading for dinner, my favorite one of the trip. We were sent down a little side alley full of restaurants. We sat outside and had to order sangria first. Then we went to order a tapas sampler and entrees. Jess ordered for us, she ordered the tapas first and when we she went to order the rest the waitress told her that that was enough and walked away. Thank god she stopped us because that was more then enough for the two of us, we were fat and happy by the end of it.

Tuesday was our last day so we decided to just bum around a bit. We did a bit of tourist shopping and headed back into the big park to find some grass. Jess napped while I read and then we finally headed back to the hostel to grab our stuff and head to the airport. All in all Spain was a nice warm and sunny adventure for us.