Viva Espana!!!
There´s nothing more fun than arriving in a new land. 14 hours on a cramped metal tube with bad sleep gets washed away instantly. After a brief stint on the metro and getting lost for about a 1/2 hour, I found the hostel and dropped my bag. Eric wasn´t due for a few hours, so I went to explore the town.
Even though it´s big, Madrid is extremely walkable and gorgeous. Our hostel was on the one of the main streets - Gran Via - right in the heart of the city. And hooker district. I´m just glad the girls picked the place, b/c if Eric or I had, we´d never hear the end of it. Anyway, I spent a few hours jsut exploring the town, many beautiful plazas, the Royal Palace, and the Puerta del Sol - which is where the statue of the bear climbing a tree from the Spanish coat of arms is located.
I got back to the hostel just in time for Eric to arrive and we checked in. The first night we had 3 extra roommates - Yoshi from Tokyo and Vera and Tanya from Munich. Yoshi had tickets to the Real Madrid game so he was on his way out. Eric and I tried to get tickets, but it was sold out and we weren´t prepared to drop 100E+ on tickets. Vera and Tanya helped us out with info on Oktoberfest though. Eric had been concerned we needed to book seats in the beer tents, but the girls said during the we were fine as long as we were there by early afternoon. Works for us.
Eric and I headed back to Puerta del Sol to grab some food and drinks and wait for Mindy. One of my absolute favorite things about Europe is pulling up at a sidewalk cafe and people watching. And in Spain you get the added bonus of the women being stunners. I´m talking Penelope Cruz - hot. Actually, let me go for more hyperbole - every woman in Spain is a package of Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek making out in a hot tub. Yeah, that´s better. Anyway, we also grabbed fliers for "La Noche an Blanca" (The Night in White). Apparently we had arrived just in time for a big festival in Madrid. Sweet. We´ll be back later.
Satiated (and headed towards inibriated), we got back to the hostel to wait for Mindy. We found out she´s late, so we decided to kick it in the room. Awesome idea. We got just enough of a power nap to get us deep into the night. Mindy arrived to wake us up and we headed out to find some dinner. We found a cool little tapas bar and decided to eat there as we looked over the book. 2 bottles of wine and many plates of tasty food later we realized that the crowds around us had grown considerably. La Noche en Blanca was on! Streets were closed to cars, bars were open, and revelers were plentiful. Wandering the streets amid the mass of huimanity all I could thins was "UCSB!" Yes, I arrived in Madrid and a Isla Vista party broke out. Awesome!
We settled into a patio bar at the Plaza Mayor and had imense fun over 2 large pitchers of Sangria. Fantastico! Mindy however was hitting the wall and when she calls it, it´s over for her. Again navigating the streets was incredible - performers, musicians, and street vendors peddling there wares to the gawkers running around with open containers. Eric and I took dropped off Mindy but thanks to our power-nap had the juice to keep exploring. This time we headed North to Gran Via and it instantly hit me - We found DP! An absolute crush of people flowing up and down the street with a party in mind and no destination. There were also special zones that had a massive 8-person teeter totter and a 2-story slide. Why? No idea. Such is La Noche en Blanca.
Finally running out of steam around 2am, we ventured back to the hostel and took one last look at the craziness from the balcony. What an awesome way to start the trip. From there I noticed the hookers (who had become more aggressive as night fell - shocking) had become noticiably more plentiful and a group had gathered under a tree talking about who-knows-what. I remarked to Eric, ¨Well, I guess that proves the old addage ´Money doesn´t grow on trees, but hookers do.´"
We retired to the room to find Mindy totally passed out on her side with her phone turned up in the palm of her hand like she had been calling her b/f back home. Vera and Tanya were also back and we showed them Mindy and we all had a good laugh. I´m back in Europe, and it already looks like it will be an awesome trip!
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