Making Friends in Madrid

Madrid was one of those cities that we went to where we honestly didn’t do much “sightseeing,” however, we spent a lot of time meeting some really great people and having fun with the “human connection” aspect of traveling, rather than the “let’s go see as much as we possibly can in a really short amount of time” type of traveling.

Almudena Cathedral

The first thing we did was meet up with our amazing host, Juan, who picked us up from the train station after we arrived from Granada. We got a quick bite to eat while introducing ourselves and he then invited us to attend a tour guide class that he’s in, as they were doing a practice tour of Madrid for their training. Of course it was all in Spanish, but he helped with some of the translating as we watched other people in his class practice their knowledge and tour guiding skills over the next couple of hours. We got to see quite a few of the main sites straight away, and although it was difficult for us to completely understand everything about the sites it was still a nice introduction to the city. Also, after the practice tour the entire class went to a bar to socialize and celebrate a successful practice session, and we joined. It was awesome to meet all of these different people. It seemed like most of them were from Madrid, so we were able to meet plenty of locals straight away. We had a great time, and I always prefer meeting new people than seeing other sights.

After our great introduction to the city we went to Juan’s apartment to get some sleep. We decided to get another tour, in English this time, on our second day in Madrid, since we thought we would get some more information out of it. We did, but it’s hard to say that weren’t already “toured out” from a lot of the other cities that we’ve visited. I think we might need a break from a lot of the walking tours that are offered in just about every European city, as it all just eventually gets stuffed up into the same mush of names and dates that we’ve heard in every other city that we’ve been to. Not complaining, but it’s one of the harsh realizations that can happen when traveling around Europe.

                    

                      

We met some friends from the tour and had some good conversations with them about their travels for a couple of hours before heading back to the apartment to relax from the day. That evening we made some plans to go out. It had been awhile since we last went out in Barcelona so we thought it would be fun to meet up with an old friend and have a fun night. I met David while I was studying abroad in Torino, Italy. He’s from Spain and currently lives in Madrid, so I thought it would be great to plan Madrid around a time where both of us could meet up and hang out while I was there. It was great to see him again after about three and a half years of not seeing each other. We had an awesome night, and it was a lot of fun. We also rode the local city bikes that are set up all throughout the city to get around that night. The bikes have a nice little electric motor on them, which makes the peddling process a little easier and makes the bike ride a lot more enjoyable, especially after a few drinks. We came back home pretty late that night and slept in, knowing that most of the following day would be spent in the apartment…which it was.

Other than meeting up with David again to get a quick bite to eat, we stayed in much of the day and got a little caught up online with friends and family, which is always much needed after a while. We also had to plan out the rest of the trip and get all of that sorted as well, so we were totally okay with taking it easy for most of the day. Later that night though our host offered to take us to the movies, and we decided that would be a lot of fun as we’ve always wanted to see a movie in one of these countries we were visiting to see what it would be like. We decided to see Interstellar, which was a crazy, confusing, and well-made movie that had just recently been released. Thankfully the movie was actually in its original English version, with Spanish subtitles for all of the locals. This was also probably the largest movie theater I had ever been to and I felt like the room we saw this movie in was beyond IMAX; it was truly impressive. After our minds were blown for about three hours we left the movie a lot more confused than when we arrived. We went back to the apartment to get some sleep as we contemplated what just happened after watching this movie. Most of that following day was again spent in the apartment as we continued to plan our upcoming trip to Morocco.

David and I quaffing

We decided that we had to do something on our last day in Madrid though, so of course we had to make a trip to the Prado museum. The museum is free on Sundays from 5 to 7, so we took advantage of that. But of course we were running late, and after meeting up with David there we had just under an hour to see some of the more famous paintings inside. It was cool, but we wish we obviously had more time there to see everything. I’m still glad we went and would recommend it. David and I parted ways for the final time after the museum visit, and I hope to see him again in the near future. We spent a bit more time in the city afterwards but had mostly called it a day after that.

I do wish we could’ve spent more time in Madrid. It’s really difficult to spend “enough” time anywhere so you just do the best you can with it and have fun. I would definitely go back another time in the future to see more of the city and surrounding area, but I was really happy with the people we met and the friends that we made. I also think it’s time to take a break from Europe and do something different…so it’s off to Africa for the next 11 days!