We met at the AiB at 10:15 on Sunday morning and got taxis to the airport. The journey to Madrid, 2 hour flight, and all that was nothing special so I'm not gonna add anymore about it. Once we got to Madrid, we met with our guide for the week, Diana, who, much to the enjoyment of the guys in our group, was very cute (mid to late 20's). We went straight to the hotel to drop our stuff off through the insanely complex subway system, there are like 3 or 4 levels of tunnels underground. Anyway, after dropping off our bags we met at 5pm for the walking tour of the city where we got to see a bunch of historic buildings and the likes, as we do. We stopped around dinner time and a group of us got dinner in a little restaurant which was meh, not the best food I've had but not the worst either. At around 10 I met up with Brittany, friend from LMU and we went to McDonald's so she could eat (her choice) where we sat and talked for a couple hours. At 11:30 we got kicked out so we moved over to a bar where we chilled till about 12:30. On our way out we saw both LMU groups in the bar we were in (Bonn and Madrid groups) and were invited to go out with them but neither of us were feelin' so we decided to call it a night.
On Monday, we had to get up at 7:15 so we could be in the lobby ready to go at 8:30. Breakfast was simple (not enough for some people) but I thought it was good, just a roll and a de-licious croissant. Our first stop of the day was an art museum with a ton of different artists showcased. I got a new appreciation for Dali while there, his paintings are way more involved than I thought and I was legitimately impressed with his work which is rare, don't appreciate art as much as I probably should but whatever. We then went to Toledo and walked around exploring it, very beautiful city. The streets seemed to be lined with Mid-eval shops with swords and suits of armor literally every 50 feet. There were a couple gorgeous churches and since Diana is an art history major she knew all sorts of information about them which was bonus. Another cool stop we made was the oldest synagogue in the world which was, unfortunately, no longer in use but was still fun to walk around in. We got back to the hotel at 6 and relaxed for a couple hours before meeting at 8 to go to the flamenco dancing show. The only word that seems to fit the experience is passionate. Both the music and the dancing were awesome and all the artists got really into the music/experience which I enjoyed. It ended at 12:30 and I was not the only one who was wiped out and decided not to go out.
Tuesday started early again with a visit to the Prado Museum for about 4 hours which was legit. Got to see a lot of paintings I'd only seen pictures of before and even though we spent 4 hours there we only saw a fraction of the collection, that museum is packed with stuff. Lunch was a little sandwich-like shop which was by far the best food I had on the entire trip. They were like hot pockets full of meat or mushrooms and cut in half, kinda hard to describe but the important part is they were delicious. From there we went on a tour of the royal palace which was beyond beautiful but I wasn't allowed to take pictures unfortunately. Our tour guide was more pretentious than even the royal family but all is well, it was still cool to see the palace. With my free time I went with the shopping group to Zara where I finally got a leather jacket as I'd been looking for for ages then roamed back to the hotel to relax. Dinner was with Ian and his friend and Mike from my group, we went to a little cafe then to churros and chocolate which was delicious. The night then turned into bar hopping and Brittany and her friend joined us at around 10. At 3am Brittany and Ian both called it a night so Mike and I headed to the club where the rest of the group was. At around 4 we left with one of the members of our group who was done, to put it nicely. Mike and I stayed up till 5:30 to make sure she was ok (kept getting called back by her roommates to come help with her).
Wednesday was supposed to start at 6:30 because we had to meet at 7:30 to leave but unfortunately none of our alarms went off so we all woke up at 7:30 to a call from Victoria at the front desk. Needless to say we panicked and threw our stuff in our bags and sprinted out. I, in my rush, forgot my newly acquired jacket so I had to run up and get it. By the time I got out of the hotel they were no where to be found (I was about 10 minutes late), so I sprinted to the metro and thankfully found a sympathetic guy that spoke just enough English to point me in the right direction after he let me use his phone to call my group (I had run out of money). Finally made it to the group and relaxed a little then passed out on the train to Barcelona. When we got there we went straight to the hotel to drop stuff off then some people went out for lunch or to the beach but I felt awful so I stayed in. As it turned out I threw up twice that day, never made it out of the hotel, and slept for a total of about 16 hours by the next morning. I missed the bus tour of the city which I am still kicking myself over but lesson learned on that whole ordeal, that's for sure.
Thursday started off much better than Wednesday seeing as I was feeling much better and was an hour early as opposed to 10 minutes late to breakfast. We went to Montserrat to visit the church on the mountain which was beautiful. We got to hear the all boy's choir which is the oldest in the world, they were damn impressive. At 4 we got back to the hotel then at 6:15 we took an optional walking tour of the city, only about 6 of us went, which ended at the outdoor market and I got to have some delicious fresh fruit which I was very happy about. The tour ended at the hotel where we picked up the rest of the group for dinner (the farewell dinner) which was paella, it was pretty good but again, not as good as I had hoped. After Mike, Steven, Emily and I headed back to the hotel to watch an episode of Portlandia which was hilarious then crashed at around 11.
Friday was a relaxed morning, we didn't meet until 9:30 when we checked out and put our bags into storage. Most of us then went to the Picasso museum which was very cool. I'm not really a fan of his later work but his early work, from when he was 14-17 or so is absolutely amazing. He painted better than most do in their entire life by the age of 14. Our tour ended at 11:30ish and Eric, Kara, Mike and I went to the aquarium where I learned that Eric knows fucking everything about fish. Sorry about the profanity but literally at every tank we walked up to he had something to say about every fish and could name all of them. It was a small aquarium so it only lasted about 2 hours and we had 4 to kill so we then roamed back into the city to explore and get lunch. Ultimately we ended back at the market where we roamed around for a while looking at all the stuff available for sale, some of which was pretty gross (lamb's heads, cow tongues, pig heads/feet, the likes). At 4 we left the hotel for the airport and got there without any eventful situations. I made it back to my house at 11pm where I promptly fell asleep.
All in all, a great trip. It was much more relaxed than the Berlin/Prague trip which was nice but it was still eventful enough for my taste. After emptying my camera I realized I never posted the pictures from Switzerland that I took nor the ones from Karneval on my Facebook so I'll be sure to do that. Gotta sort through em first though, make sure nothing is too incriminating or too blurry =)
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