On Sunday I was up bright and early because we were finally going on that tour of Madrid that I have been anxiously waiting for because I really wanted to get to know the city a little bit before exploring it on my own. I took the train in, which is great the trains and metros are so easy to use in Spain. Once we got into the city Maria Jose took us on a walking tour of the historic area. Originally we were suppose to take a bus tour but because it was nice we decided to walk. A group of us might go back to Madrid this weekend to do the bus tour since we will be able to see the other neighborhoods. During the tour we got to see were all the museums were and I found out that we are going to go to the Prado Museum as a group, which will be good because that way I will have a guide to explain everything.
Post Office
All the buildings in Madrid are so beautiful and every time I turned the corner there would be a building that made me feel like I went back in time. Even the post office was amazing. We also visited Plaza Mayor, which is the main plaza in the city, which has this amazing painted wall that is incredible. After the Plaza we quickly walked through the Mercado de San Micuel. This is a huge market, which is currently inside because of the winter, that is open every day and has every type of food imaginable. Maria Jose told us that it was extremely busy because on Sundays a lot of Spaniards will go there for drinks and tapas before going out to a late lunch. Hopefully, next time I visit it won't be as crowed so I can walk around and taste all the delicious food. After the market we went to the last stop on the tour, which was the royal palace but don't worry the royal family wanted to move into a smaller palace so they moved to the suburbs...see Mom even the royal family of Spain likes the suburbs better then the city. The palace was unbelievable I don't think I would ever be able to find my way out once I walked through the front door.
Royal Palace
After the palace we were done with our tour but we were given 20 euro for lunch. A group of us found this restaurant that had a menu al dia (menu of the day) for 15 euro so we thought we would check it out. For lunch I got bread, paella, fish, dessert, and wine for only 15 euro and everything was delicious. The entire group planned on going to a Real Madrid game that night so we had a couple of hours to kill before the game so we went shopping and just walked around. We even managed to find a Starbucks, which was great because I was starting to miss my latte even though the coffee was great.
When we arrived at the stadium the atmosphere was already insane. The Spainards really take soccer seriously. Clearly since I am a poor college student we bought the cheapest seats in the house and even though the seat were really high up we got to see the entire field. Real Madrid ended up winning again Malaga with the score being 2-0. At one point during the game the fans got mad at the referee and started shouting. It was so loud that I couldn't even hear my friend sitting next to me. We left the game a couple minutes early to attempt to avoid the massive rush of people leaving the stadium. Even though by the time I got home I was exhausted I had an amazing day and each day I come to love Espana more.
Santiago Bernabeu Stadium
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