When we last saw our heroes, they were making preparations to travel from Barcelona to Madrid. Before the toot toot train ride could begin, plans for the arrival in Madrid needed to be ascertained. As the likelihood of having wifi on a train in Spain (which actually did pass mainly through a plain) was slim, I thought it would be wise to look up the deets while we had computer access in Barcelona. I printed off confirmation sheets, a metro guide and the address of our hostel, "360 Madrid Centro." As an afterthought, I decided to fire off an email to the hostel to make sure that there would be someone there to greet us that evening - not all hostels have 24-hour reception and we weren't getting in until about 11:00 pm. Well, let me tell you boy, it's a gosh damn lucky thing I did! After grabbing a quick tapas lunch, I did one last email check before heading out to the train station and lo; what lay in my inbox but an email from Francisco.
Francisco concernedly asked me "¿No has recibido mi correo anterior?"
No, Francisco, I did not receive the email that you sent me a while ago.
"¡Que lástima!"
Why is that a shame, Francisco? What seems to be the problem?
"Es que el hostal 360 Centro no existe más."
I beg your pardon?
"El hostal no existe."
I find that hard to believe, Francisco.
"Es verdadero. No hay hostal."
I see. So, Francisco, what do you propose that I do when I arrive in Madrid? Strange as this may seem, when, two months ago, I booked beds in a hostel for Madrid, I had made the [apparently wildly erroneous] assumption that my hostel existed.
"Ahhh. No."
Hmm.
"Vale, tenemos un otro hostal en Madrid, más o menos cerca del centro."
The other hostel you own is close-ish to the centre? Okay, fair enough. Hostel beggars can't be hostel choosers, I suppose. Sign us up, we'll be there! Oh, by the way, how late is your reception open?
"..."
Francisco?
"......"
Well, we have to go a-choo-choo-ing now, so answer when you can, okay? That's alright Marg, I'm sure this won't end up being a problem later on......
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| El choo choo de España |
Considering the issue dealt with, the sis and I departed aboard the speedy speedy Spain Train. After pulling her book of crosswords out of her purse, Marg promptly fell asleep. I attempted to join her in dreamland (we were still fighting the remnants of jet lag) but I failed to succeed to snooze, so I half-assedly watched the movie being shown on the baby screen at an 80° angle above my head. I didn't bother with the sound. It was about a tidal wave and looked kind of stressful, so I felt like the image was probably enough for me. A few uneventful hours later, we pulled into the station. We walked down the little tunnel that herds the passengers from the train to the station proper. Upon popping out into the main lobby we noticed with mild delight that the metro was connected directly to the train station. "Our new hostel is 2 blocks away from a metro station, Marg!" "Getting there is gonna be sooo easy, Mick!"
Noobs.
What Marg and I did not realize is that Madrid has two urban rail systems: the Metro; and the cercanías - the commuter train system. The Metro was not, in fact, connected directly to the train station; the cercanías were. Being unaware of the difference, sis and I had I heck of a time figuring out how we were meant to get to our destination. In the end, we chose the blue line C1 because some of the stops listed on its map looked kinda similar to our Metro instructions from Maps O'Google. The platform for C1 was essentially in the bowels of the Earth. The corridor leading down to it was a uniform shade of tobacco-stain brown and was possessing of all of the flickering lights and disembodied dripping sounds that characterize abandoned schools or mental asylums in horror movies. Metro and commuter rail cars are rarely known to be places of great luxury. But we had apparently grown accustomed to the shiny, metallilc, fluorescent cleanliness of the Barcelona Metro. Apparently that was not the right vibe for the Madrid cercanías. Rather, the atmosphere of the preceding corridor carried on seamlessly in the train car itself. For the next 20 minutes or so our backdrop continued to be brown and flickering. The soundtrack, however, had changed from mysterious drips to a cryptic ratting and the moist mouth-breathing of the unblinking man across the aisle. Cool.
For reasons I cannot recall, Marg and I picked a particular stop at which to alight. I can only assume that we thought it was the stop for our hostel. It was not. It was a stop for the Metro that would take us to our hostel. Ahh. That made more sense, then. Good, well at least we were on the right track. And for those wondering, the Madrid Metro is far shinier and more fluorescent than the cercanías. We descended even further beneath the Earth's crust to find the right line. After 10-minutes' dithering about which direction to take, we hopped aboard the blue line L1. To our great relief after only about a seven-minute ride, we heard the rich alto train voice call out "Estacíon Bilbao." That's us!
Five up escalators later, we burst forth into the sweet, misty Spanish evening air. A quick consultation of the map told us that our hostel should be just three blocks to our left. We turned left. We walked three blocks. We walked four blocks. We walked six blocks. We crossed the street, turned around and walked three, four, six blocks back to the Metro. "Oh, Hostal Madrid Malasañaaaaa! Where aaaarre yooouuuu???" Definitely the right Metro station. Definitely the right street. How are we missing this? Had we been informed of the closure of the wrong hostel? We decided to give the street one more try. Only by closely inspecting every door along the road did we notice the coaster-sized "360 Madrid" sticker on the inside of one of the door frames. Verrrry sneeeaky, hostel. The keypad beside the door said to buzz number 3. We buzzed. We waited. We buzzed again. More waiting. Another buzz, perhaps? Nope. Nada. It seems that 360 Madrid does not in fact have 24-hour reception. Ah.
Let's just quickly take stock of this moment. Ravenous, jet-lagged sisters. Increasingly heavy backpacks. An eight-hour travel day. Midnight in a backstreet of an unknown city. Nowhere to sleep for the night. No friends or contacts in town. Only a mild grasp of the local language. No shops open for food. And then - I shit you not, dear friends - it begins to rain.
This is the moment when my years of training my resourcefulness as a Girl Guide finally paid off. I turned to Marg and said "Follow me!" We walked two blocks back towards the Metro until we came upon what many eyes less trained than mine would have looked right past: a huge, neon sign proclaiming "Hotel rooms, €70/night." Good eye, Mickie!
The front desk clerk, sweet, blessed Ilie, instantly noticed our aura of shabby distress and took it upon himself to see to it that we were well-settled that night. He gave us as many discounts as he could and told us that not only was room service 24-hours but that he would make our food himself (that was probably because he was the only person working at night, but still, it was nice of him all the same). And, later, as Marg and I settled into our fluffy hotel bed with our caesar salad, pasta and pizza and turned on Spanish Art Attack on the Spanish Disney Channel, we experienced, for the first time in our lives, true luxury. It turns out that everything going wrong can sometimes be just right.
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¡La Margarita está muy cosy!
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The next day, all rested and perky, we popped our bags over to the hostel (which, by this point, was actually open) and set out to explore the city. As it turns out, Madrid is gorgeous! I highly recommend it. All of the buildings are beautiful and old-timey and everything is painted in nice warm colours (or so I remember it, anyway). Once you're not an exhausted, babbling moron, the Metro is actually quite easy to navigate. And best of all, the people of Madrid are wonderful. During our time there, Marg and I had many wonderful conversations with shopkeepers and servers and bus drivers, etc. To be fair, I did a lot of the talking because Marg doesn't speak much Spanish (although she can understand it pretty well, so she followed most of the conversation). Sorry for being a talk hog, marg!
We met three particularly memorable characters in MadCity. Claudio was a very sweet Italian-Columbian server who brought Marg and I our sammiches when we accidentally sat ourselves in the MIP (that's Moderately Important Persons) section of a café. He then took it upon himself to be our personal travel guide to the city - he wrote out a list of all of the best places to visit and gave us directions to each of them. Plus the sandwiches were delicious. ¡Gracias Claudio!
At a tourist shop where we popped in to get some bus tour tickets (and mini sangrias) the hilarious Martín (if that is his real name) kept us entertained for a good half hour. The affable Argentinian had a perpetual pearly smile and a wildly contagious laugh. Chatting with him was as entertaining as a whole day's worth of sightseeing! ¡Gracias Martín!
And finally at a nice little café-restaurant that was decorated to look like my future [grown-up] apartment we met a friendly young Andalusian named Luís. With his charmingly broken English and my charmingly broken Spanish we managed to cobble together a good-sized conversation about our homelands, our travels and the lovely city in which we found ourselves (again Marg, sorry for being a chatterbox). Later on in our travels, Marg and I ended up having a bit of an evening out with a motley assemblage of characters including Luís and one of his colleagues. But that is a tale for Madcap Madrid Vol. 2...
Aside from the aforementioned activities and chitter chatter, on this first pass through Madrid, we managed to squeeze in a couple more activities. One was a nice little hop-on hop-off bus tour. It was once again the kind with the soothing commentary and pleasant local-flavoured muzak, so essentially it was a city-circling snooze cruise. Aside from the restful benefits, it's also a lovely way to get a sense of the city when your eyes are open.
The other was a visit to the Prado Museum, a vast and glorious gallery of classic masterpieces. Cherubs, well-hipped ladies and ascending Jesi (that the plural of Jesus, duh) abounded. There was also the occasional dog with a frilly collar and a handful of ancient Greek muses being chased by mischievous fawns.
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| Museo del Prado |
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| The famous "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez in the Prado Museum |
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| JAMÓN JAMÓN JAMÓN |
After only a brief two days, the time came for us hop on a plane bound for verdant Éire - like us, Ma and Pa were making their roundabout way to Dublin and it was about time for a family reunion.
Loathe to leave this enchanting town, but knowing we were soon to return and eager to continue our adventure, we navigated our way [this time with ease] by Metro to el aeropuerto. ¡Hasta luego, Madrid!
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