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| View from our balcony at the hostel |
Let's talk about this hostel, shall we? Like I had mentioned previously, it was pretty nice as far as hostels are concerned. Its about the size of a dorm room and had 2 sets of bunk beds and a twin bed in the middle so 5 people could sleep in there if you so choose. This set up was their definition of a suite. There was no air conditioning (standard) but luckily there was a breeze coming from the balcony, which is not typical for a hostel to have. We had to share a bathroom with the entire floor, which had 2 showers, 2 sinks, and 1 toilet for about 7 rooms. There weren't too many girls on our floor so we lucked out. One girl from Japan stood next to Sarah in the morning and popped her zits in the mirror over the sink, it was just what I wanted to hear about before we went to breakfast. You could eat breakfast at the hostel, but we wanted to explore a little more before we left (plus the Syrian boys in the room next to us kept yelling off their balcony in Arabic the night before so I was ok with leaving).
While we were getting ready, I heard some chanting coming from down the street. We looked outside and there were some protesters coming our way. They were protesting against the cuts to public education in several Spanish regions, and to defend education as the true path to liberty and justice. A peaceful protest, and as I'm typing this I realize this all happened the night before. Oh well, too late now - let's just pretend it happened today.
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| Instead of being in school, these students were protesting. |
So we remember there is a place we had passed the night before that had Doner kebabs. For those of you who have never had one, its a little piece of heaven on Earth and more commonly referred to as a gyro. The ones in Spain do not have tzatziki sauce, but instead more of a toum sauce - its delish. As we wondered down to the street we thought the delicious Doner kebabs were on, we found ourselves going deeper into Chinatown (every major city must have one). As we were getting ready to turn around and backtrack, and small Spanish grandma came out and rushed us into a small cafe. She said "This place has very good food and is cheap" in Spanish, so she was either related or was really a big fan of this cafe. We ended up there and had one of the best breakfasts I had ever had. The waiter, who I assume was the owner, brought us all coffee and water as we deliberated over what we wanted. In Spain you typically order plates to share with everyone, but I was feeling particularly selfish and wanted my own. We ordered a potato & aioli appetizer and then I ordered scrambled eggs with potatoes and chorizo mixed in, both major staples in a Spanish meal. Everything was amazing and then he brought us each out a croquette, which are little fried balls of ham, beschamel cheese and potatoes. I'm drooling just thinking about them.
Once we were full and happy we made our trek back to the airport to pick up the rental car. I must say, the Metro in Madrid is one of the cleanest modes of public transportation I have ever been on. There was graffiti everywhere but I will take that over the dog sized rats that run around in New York. We finally arrived at the airport (mind you, I had to schlep my over sized bag through the streets again - I need to learn the art of packing) and grabbed our rental car. It was a manual so I got out of having to drive, so I made a comfy home in the back seat full of snacks and trashy magazines. As we were pulling out, it became apparent that Jeff did not know how to put the car in reverse. He tried everything and finally resorted to Fred Flintstoning it and trying to push it out with his foot, while still sitting behind the wheel. When that wasn't working so well, Sarah got out and started pushing the car. I'm fairly certain the Spaniards thought we were nuts. We finally figured out that you have to pull UP to reverse instead of push DOWN....which is what we do in America. Ooops.
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| This is how Americans back out a European car. |
We checked into our hotel and they had 4 individual twin beds for all of us...another staple of Spain. The plus side was that we had a corner room so the balcony wrapped around both sides and we had some amazing views.
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| View from the North |
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| View from the East |
With views this spectacular, I was confident this was going to be the best part of the trip. Until we got to the bar...
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