What is this? Rain?? Oh, but we'd gotten spoiled with warm temperatures and nice to darn-near-perfect weather. We arrived in Madrid Wednesday, April 4th about noon and it was cloudy and gloomy. From the airport we took the Metro to the Sol stop, right in the heart of the city center. We'd been chilly before - the first evening in Hania, Crete comes to mind - but this was downright cold!
We braved the elements for the 10 minutes it took us to walk from the metro stop to the Equity Point hostel, checked in and took advantage of the bad weather and free wifi to get some Internet planning time in. The signal wasn't the best, but we managed to send a few couchsurfing requests, book the rental car and catch up on emails.
About 7:00 - which in Spain is even BEFORE the senior dining hour - we went out to dinner. We started with dessert, though. Chocolate, of course. We'd read about a must-experience chocolate shop (chocolateria), the oldest in Madrid, San Gines, which as been around since 1894. Their specialty was "churros" - a fried bread and warm chocolate connection that melts in your mouth. The small restaurant was packed. Apparently others read the same yahoo article that we did. The shopkeepers in Madrid do not speak English and do not apologize for it. They also have little patience for anyone who doesn't speak Spanish. So we ordered as best we could, ate and left without much interaction.
As we were walking to the restaurant for the next course of our first Spanish meal it started to rain. That's when we really started to regret sending some of our clothing home (when we were in Thailand and already getting tired of carrying around our two duffle bags and backpack, we asked ourselves what we could live without. It was 90 degrees and humid. The weather forecast in Greece and Spain promised warm temps so we shipped home a box of our cooler weather clothes, one of the duffle bags and lightened our load considerably. A great decision, we thought at the time). That's also when I discovered I had a hole in the bottom of my right running shoe. So, here we are huddled under my travel-sized umbrella. Val in one of my pullovers, me wearing the warmest one I had, trying to avoid puddles and ducking into shops every so often to get warm.
Dinner that night was disappointing. Service was slow and impersonal and the food forgettable. Despite all of that, we still really liked the city of Madrid. It was cleaner than Athens and - at least in the city center - free of the graffiti that we saw everywhere in both Athens and on our trip to Rome a couple years ago. There was also an energy about the place that was positive and fun. While some local people weren't the friendliest, the ones working the check in desk at the hostel were very helpful and patient with our fragmented attempts at Spanish. The room at the hostel was clean and cozy although since we slept on bunk beds we felt a little like we were at summer camp. The bathroom was small but had a nice hot shower so we were happy campers :).
It'd been a short night and a long day so after a few hours of using the free wifi in the lounge, we called it a night about 11:00. Our plan was to get an early start the next day since that was our last day to see the sites of Madrid. We were hoping for drier weather, but I had a plan B for my shoe, just in case . . .
We braved the elements for the 10 minutes it took us to walk from the metro stop to the Equity Point hostel, checked in and took advantage of the bad weather and free wifi to get some Internet planning time in. The signal wasn't the best, but we managed to send a few couchsurfing requests, book the rental car and catch up on emails.
About 7:00 - which in Spain is even BEFORE the senior dining hour - we went out to dinner. We started with dessert, though. Chocolate, of course. We'd read about a must-experience chocolate shop (chocolateria), the oldest in Madrid, San Gines, which as been around since 1894. Their specialty was "churros" - a fried bread and warm chocolate connection that melts in your mouth. The small restaurant was packed. Apparently others read the same yahoo article that we did. The shopkeepers in Madrid do not speak English and do not apologize for it. They also have little patience for anyone who doesn't speak Spanish. So we ordered as best we could, ate and left without much interaction.
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| After the churros were gone, Val ate the rest of the chocolate like a soup. And he says I'M the chocolaholic?? |
As we were walking to the restaurant for the next course of our first Spanish meal it started to rain. That's when we really started to regret sending some of our clothing home (when we were in Thailand and already getting tired of carrying around our two duffle bags and backpack, we asked ourselves what we could live without. It was 90 degrees and humid. The weather forecast in Greece and Spain promised warm temps so we shipped home a box of our cooler weather clothes, one of the duffle bags and lightened our load considerably. A great decision, we thought at the time). That's also when I discovered I had a hole in the bottom of my right running shoe. So, here we are huddled under my travel-sized umbrella. Val in one of my pullovers, me wearing the warmest one I had, trying to avoid puddles and ducking into shops every so often to get warm.
Dinner that night was disappointing. Service was slow and impersonal and the food forgettable. Despite all of that, we still really liked the city of Madrid. It was cleaner than Athens and - at least in the city center - free of the graffiti that we saw everywhere in both Athens and on our trip to Rome a couple years ago. There was also an energy about the place that was positive and fun. While some local people weren't the friendliest, the ones working the check in desk at the hostel were very helpful and patient with our fragmented attempts at Spanish. The room at the hostel was clean and cozy although since we slept on bunk beds we felt a little like we were at summer camp. The bathroom was small but had a nice hot shower so we were happy campers :).
It'd been a short night and a long day so after a few hours of using the free wifi in the lounge, we called it a night about 11:00. Our plan was to get an early start the next day since that was our last day to see the sites of Madrid. We were hoping for drier weather, but I had a plan B for my shoe, just in case . . .
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