Madrid dias dos y tres

Thursday was our first full day in Madrid. We went on a walking tour of the city with all of the USAC students. We saw the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum. Both were awesome and really interesting. We also had paella for lunch .... so yummy! We were exhausted and jetlagged by the time it was all over so a siesta was completely necessary. 

The Royal Palace

People playing music in Puerta del Sol

My first paella!

After the walking tour of Madrid and my nap, me and my friend Lauren walked to Parque de Retiro, about 10 blocks from out hotel. It was really pretty - Lauren and I both got new cameras for our trip so we wanted to try and get some good pictures. The park is HUGE, there is a big pond thing where you can row boats. Even in January there were plenty of people doing it. There were lots of fountains, statues and trails. Also in the park was Palacio de Cristal. It's a really pretty building made of all glass and it's right on a lake with a water fall you could walk under and a fountain in the middle. It was really cool! I could have walked around and gotten lost in there for hours but we only had a little over an hour before sunset.

Parque de Retiro

One of the fountains in the park

Palacio de Cristal in Parque de Retiro

Entrance to the Park

This is the view of our street standing outside the 

front doors of our hotel. The giant man standing 

on the building is the back of the Tio Pepe sign in 

Puerta del Sol

Another view of our street in Madrid - Our hotel was Hotel

Regina on the right!

After the park we had to get back to the hotel for a meeting about our housing in Spain. When that was over I went with my friend Zoe to get a coat (finally) but it really hasn't been that cold for most of the day.

Thursday night was also my first night out in Madrid. I went with some of my friends to an Irish pub, where I tasted my first ever sip of alcohol. HAHA. I had no idea what to expect but it was good! ;-) The night life in Madrid is insane. Everywhere you walk there are club promoters handing out cards for you to go to their bars/clubs. They offer free entry, discounts on drinks etc. Because most people don't go out here until after midnight, people are literally begging you to come to their bars any time before then. It's awesome! At the Irish pub we watched part of the Real Madrid game. We thought about getting tickets but they were really expensive and we will get to see them when they come play in Alicante. After the pub we went to another bar where we payed 5 euro for open bar... I'll take it. It was empty when we got there but was quickly packed with USAC students and other study abroad kids.

Friday we toured Segovia (which got it's own blogpost.. It was amazing!)

After a siesta and dinner we went out to find a good bar. We ended up finding this awesome little underground sangria bar... It was the coolest place! You go in the front door and there is nothing there, but when you get downstairs it's filled with tables and little stools. It was almost all spaniards which was new for us so it finally  really felt like I was in a foreign country. It has rounded walls (kind of looked like a tunnel or cave) that were orange-ish and there were random Spanish quotes written all over the walls. The only music was a cute old guy in a tux playing the piano... Much different and better than all the American music we've been hearing at the other bars. It was PACKED (definitely fire hazard) and there was no dance floor just a bunch of table and little stools. Luckily there was one table left and it had exactly the right amount of seats for our group. They brought us sangria in a glass pitcher and little juice glasses. It was the BEST sangria we've had so far and my favorite place too. I really wish we could go back! After that we went to another Irish pub (there's surprisingly a lot of those) and called it a night around 3 (early for Spanish standards)