First Two Days in Madrid

Hola....

The first two days in Madrid we spent in the city centre, close by the famous plaza Sol. We were picked up from the airport by our friend Emily, she helped us a lot with the language and introduced us to the metro system. The stations were huge and very confusing until we go the hang of them. After dropping our bags off at the hotel (around 9pm) she showed us around, letting us look at the amazing buildings and the streets littered with rubbish. She said that the cleaners were striking. We had dinner at this very cute restaurant which was absolutely packed and the food was amazing. We order multiple plates and shared it around. You are given a small loaf of bread to start your meal which is very reasonably priced also. I cant remember exactly what we had but there was a huge mixture like pork and salmon. We were so full we didn't even want dessert. Our hotel was very cute, it was on the 4th floor of this old looking building over looking a little square. The next day, mum and I had to make our way alone to Emily's house. Finally we made it, after getting a little lost and then we took the metro into the city centre. We did a lot of walking that day, all round Madrid. The streets are littered with street performers all trying to make money, and its like an un-spoken rule that if you take a photo you like them, so you give them some money.

This woman was a statue, watering his plants.

This man was making HUGE bubbles.

We saw building after building after building all with so much detail. We stopped at this little cafe for some lunch (around 2.30) and had little sandwiches and some really nice dessert slice things. Then, we continued to walk. At the moment Spain is having alot of protests and un happiness and some how we managed to get caught up in a health protest.

Alot of the protesters were wearing white coats, like doctors and nurses.

And then mum decided to get involved...

After escaping from the crowds of protesters we made our way to the Museo Reina Sofía which is like an art gallery/museum. Because it was a Sunday we were able to skip the highly priced tickets and go in for free. The special thing about this gallery is that it is home to some very famous Picasso works. Including the Guernica. But photos were not aloud, but take a look at the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_%28painting%29 There were also more weird and intriguing paintings of his along with many other peoples works.

A few photos of buildings in Spain

That night, our last at the hotel, we had dinner at Emily's a wonderful Italian meal and then ventured home to our hotel to pack up our stuff ready to leave for Aranjuez.