Madrid: Bienvenue? Bienvednidos!

Plaza Mayor

So waaaaaaaaay back in February, I went to Madrid! Olé! It was a muy fast trip; we left Thursday afternoon, stayed Friday, and flew back Sunday morning. It was fun but freezing. This was right at the beginning of that really cold spell, and my friend and I were like, quelle chance that we're going to Spain, it'll be warmer there, right? No! It was literally below freezing the whole time, and I was getting sick too! Aye yi yi. But Madrid was beautiful nonetheless!

So the night we arrived, we took the metro from the airport, which was really easy. And it's pretty cheap in Madrid too! When we stepped out of the metro station, right across the street was a boba¹ store! *gasp*  My friend loves boba, and it is pretty much non-existent in France/Europe in general, so she was super excited to find some! And continuing the amazing food trend, we found a frozen yogurt place too!!! I got tart with chocolate-covered peanuts as a topping! (I wouldn't normally pick this combination, but the topping selection was a little strange.) Mmmmmmmm so good!

Tapas!

So anyways, after checking into the hostel, we eventually got to this tapas bar that my friend had looked up online. El Tigre! If you order a drink there, you get a plate of tapas for free! So we both got a beer and a giant free plate of tapas!² Olé! Now, I know what you're thinking. Katie? In a bar?? Drinking a beer??! Not exactly my usual hangout. But while we're making revelations, let's be honest. I'm a college student studying abroad, on a weekend trip to a city famous for its nightlife- saying I had "one" beer that night is not the whole truth... See, I actually only drank about 75% of it. I was feeling pretty sick and the beer was making me feel more nauseous, so I decided to focus on the tapas instead. Delicioso!

Bear and the Madroño Tree -
the symbol of Madrid!

Afterwards, we walked around a little to see all the buildings lit up at night. It was really pretty, but I didn't take any photos because I was afraid my fingers would fall off from the cold.

The next morning, I was feeling a little better, but it was still ridiculously cold. We went on the free walking tour that our hostel does with other a few other hostels in Madrid, which was a good way to see a lot of sights in not too much time. (It wasn't actually that free since we tipped the tour guy afterwards.) Here are some photos!

Puerta del Sol

Almudena Cathedral

After the tour, we were hungry and headed to the Chocolateria San Gines, which my friend had found online. We got the Madrid specialty: this impossibly thick hot chocolate with a plate of warm crispy churros!!! SO BUENO. Omg the hot chocolate is like a cup of melted chocolate and the churros are so golden and crisp and you dip them in the chocolate and it's so delicious omg.

Ice!!!

Then we walked around some more to head to the Reina Sofia and Prada Museums. Madrid is such a beautiful city, I took so many photos just walking down the street. We stopped at the City Hall of Madrid and the Cibeles Fountain in front of it. We also saw a smaller fountain on the side of the road that was literally ice because it was so cold.

City Hall of Madrid

Cibeles Fountain - lions!!!

Les Oiseaux Morts - Pablo Picasso

We went to the Reina Sofia Museum first, which was amazing. We saw a lot of really cool and famous art, including Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos in most of the museum. We also went to the Prado Museum, but we only made it in like less than an hour before it closed, and we weren't allowed to take photos there either. But we saw a lot of cool famous paintings again that I remembered from when we talked about art in history class in high school, like The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch and The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya.

WHAT is this???

Oh... Oh, dear...

 After we got kicked out of the Prado by this lady yelling at us in Spanish that it was closing, we headed to this restaurant my friend had found recommended online. Well. It was something. It was on this little side street, and the waiter spoke only a few words in English. They also didn't have an English menu, so we had no idea what anything was. The waiter drew us a very puzzling picture of like a cloud with stuff sticking out of it and some scissors, and he seemed to think this was a very definitive answer to all of our questions. It was getting awkward to keep asking him to repeat his explanations, but we established that the main dish here was fried lamb intestines. Dear God. Not really my first choice in food, to say the least. He was really nice though, and brought us a sample platter to try. I stuck to the french fries, but my friend is a little more adventurous and actually enjoyed the fried lamb intestines or lungs  or jowls or whatever. After some more confusing exchanges, we figured out that actually all this restaurant had, besides fries, was fried lamb intestines. Luckily, I was not very hungry...

We took the metro back to the hostel, and before you knew it, we were on the plane again the next morning to head back to Bordeaux. And we arrived back to snow! It was so pretty, but I didn't frolic too much since I was still sick.

À bientôt!<sup>3

1</sup> In case you don't know, boba is like this Asian drink that is tea (I prefer iced) with these little chewy tapioca balls in it. So you drink the tea through this giant straw and every few sips a slimy bullet comes shooting out and you almost choke and die the first time and you're like why are my roommates making me try this I'm going to gag and die right here on the Price Center floor yikes, but then after a few sips, you get used to it, and it's actually pretty good.
² So I was worried about getting carded and not understanding them talking to me in Spanish, since people always say I look so young blah blah blah, and I was sick, so I was kind of flushed and puffy, which I think probably exaggerated my natural youthfulness. But my friend was like, are you kidding, the drinking age is probably 12 here! And I did indeed have no problems. (I looked it up later, and the drinking age is 18. *wink*)
³ I tried to shove some of my ramblings into footnotes this time. Thoughts?