4 Days in Madrid: Part 2

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March 11th: To say the morning was a bit rough, it was about as rough as a bears ass. The rest of my roommates and I, oddly, woke at 10am on the dot and a few of us just said "It's 10am" at the exact time (Try jinxing that one). The lecturer had been blowing up our phones with message after message "Meet at 11:30. Don't be late" every 5 minutes to ensure punctuality. I give her credit for having faith in our time keeping. We went down to the restaurant to have breakfast which consisted of croissants, sugar glazed doughnuts, coffee and water. I couldn't find the tea, which kinda got to me and all I could think about was how sad it will be to go without tea. Was a traumatic thirty seconds of thinking, let me tell you.
We met at 11:30 and told that we would be walking around to see different things in Madrid. We walked down to the Sol Plaza to meet our tour guide for the day. She

started by explaining the significance of Sol. The statue to symbolize the icon of Madrid "El Oso y El Madroño" which is a bear eating out of a tree. The tradition behind the bear is that you rub his foot to signify you'd return to Madrid. Rubbing a bears foot, surprisingly, was not as weird as the other traditions we were thought. We crossed the plaza to the real ground zero of Madrid, which was a symbol on the pavement which meant all paths lead to this point in Madrid, you placed you foot on it, again to symbolize you'd return to Madrid. We walked through the streets of Madrid and continued to a famous theatre. As impressive as the architecture of the building was, most of us were curious about where to rent a segway. Even the police has segways, it looked so cool.
We continued on towards the famed Palacio Real. The Palacio Real is the Buckingham Palace, but three times the size and less televised marriages. The palace was huge, the grounds had a nice crowd looking around and taking pictures. I asked the listing price of the palace, hoping it would be up for sale. Not only was it not for sale, I was just short of the price by about €200 million. The palace had a chapel adjoining it which was really cool, from an architectual point of view. The visit there was quick because some of the group were atheist and afraid of burning alive or something. We kept going until we came to the Plaza España, the Plaza containing a tribute to Don Quixote. We took the typical tourist pictures around the statue, as you do. Then the tour guide popped up saying "To say you are returning to Madrid, you

must rub the donkey's balls". I was amazed at how she said that with a straight face. The hardcore tourists were up molesting this poor donkey statue when the rest of us kind of brushed against the testicles, in an awkward way.
By this time (Around 1:30) we were given time off to go for lunch and look around the Gran Vía, which is main shopping street in Madrid. A few of my classmates and I had the same idea "Pizza!". As much as I wanted to experience Madrid, I couldn't have tapas for twice in 24 hours. We came to this nice little Italian restaurant. Discovered some of my classmates can't be brought out in public as they spill everything. The Spanish however, make a mean pizza, let me tell you. We finished up and headed back to meet with the rest of the group and off we went to see the Egyptian Ruins of Madrid. This place was so calm and quiet, not many people but one of my classmates did managed to chat up a woman and get advice on travelling Madrid. We didn't spend long there as my lecturer realized we were all tired from trekking around Madrid and gave us time to chill for a while. A few of us went back to the Gran Vía to look for souvenirs and get ice-cream. There was a HB ice-cream parlour, so me being a fatty, had to go in and get their largest ice-cream. I made no mistake. The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling in and out of stores, browsing, until we were called for a "surprise". Keeping in mind, my poor feet were killing me, the tour guide suggested we go to a museum. We took the metro to the museum where we met a friend of my lecturer. Another Venezuelan. These people are just beautiful, they age so well.
We waited in line for a good 45 minutes before the doors of the famous Prado museum opened. The Prado museum holds some world famous paintings from

Velazquez and Goya, to name a few. This art museum is massive, with steps and many many rooms. My legs were fit to give out at any moment as the rest of my class and tour guides took their time. The art was amazing but at this stage, my legs were just not able. We left after an hour and a half and took our time going back to the hostel where some of the people wanted to go on a night out and I just wanted to lie down. However, the group planned on going for a nice meal together, as we hadn't spent much time together on the trip. We went to a nice local restaurant and after eating the pizza earlier, all I wanted was a burger. I ordered the only burger on the menu. The woman came down with a burger, no joke, the size of baby's head. I love my food and hate seeing food go to waste, but this burger got the best of me. The atmosphere was nice and the crowd were cool (Some even photobombing our group photos with suggestive positions). After dinner I accepted losing my leg power, strolled slowly back to the hostel and chilled out on the terrace but had to leave not long after. Spain is actually super cold at night, surprisingly!
- Hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for Part 3!