Watchmegetlost

Watch me get lost.

(Yes, I'm hopeless at updating this blog of mine - and having just counted that I have 7 more places I need to cover, I should probably get my growing-a*se into gear and type up some posts).

So. Madrid. First solo travel - and I got lost as soon as I left h&j in Barcelona. I should probably do a crash course in map-reading. So I managed to get on the train to Madrid from Barcelona in good time (winning!!), was sat next to these canadian (well, they say they were canadian, but they looked like Jersey-shore wannabes, and I'm sh1t with accents so if they were lying I wouldn't know). Managed to steal some pringles off the guy next to me - so that was another win :)

So I arrived, navigated my way to the hostel (after standing on the street outside the station for 10 mins with a map trying to get my bearings), checked in, unpacked (weird routine, but I need to organise everything in my locker before i feel settled ha), said hi to the people in my room, and headed to the common area to use the wifi. Met a brilliant Irish girl - Ciara - tall, uber skinny, extremely travelled (lived in Fremantle for a few years!) and really kind. We hit it off, and pretty much spent the rest of the time together. Went out for a feed (one of the perks of Madrid - most drinks come with free tapas :P) so every sangria for me (no where seems to sell cider!? or bubbly?!) meant a little plate of cheese or bread or sausages or omelette .. nom nom nom.

Madrid itself - wasn't my favourite. It's a very typical capital city where history meets commercial meets residential - it just didn't seem to blend nicely. I didn't get the culture-feel that I'd been told of.. and to be honest - aside from going out on a pub/club crawl (which I wanted to avoid on my first solo attempt) there really wasn't much to do. Ciara and I spent the next day basically walking around the city - and we managed to get to almost every 'main-attraction' on the hostel map. Yes, the church was beautiful, and the viewpoint we found was pretty cool, we found a pretty cool  market - my god, they love their food (as do i haha), i also found red wine for €1.30 haha (winning again!) but I just didn't get a great feel for the place. I did however get a hug from a giant Bart Simpson in the main square - but again - what does the Simpsons have to do with Madrid? Random...

I may have had a mini freak-out at one point - I went to the 'botanical gardens' for a run, and told Ciara I'd meet her at the lake in the middle of the gardens afterwards (gave her my bag to look after)... So I finish my run at the lake.... and can't find Ciara... Who has my phone, bag, money, ID.. all that jazz (yes, in hindsight - a bit stupid to leave a new friend with all my belongings) so I ran around the lake 4 times or so, trying not to panic, running through tourists and buskers, trying to spot a tall, skinny irish girl carrying 2 bags.. Nek minit - Ciara's popped out of nowhere and is running after me trying to get my attention haha.

PHEW.

Although Madrid wasn't my favourite of cities, the people I met were incredible and had amazing stories.. My last night there, a group of us were sat around in the common room.. One chick (Rosie, from England) has just finished this 800KM Camino trail over 2 weeks through Spain & Portugal (the blisters on her feet her insane), another chick was 20 years old, from Quebec - she had an Israeli dad and a Canadian mum, spoke french, english, hebrew (because of jewish background), arabic (her dad lived in egypt), and spanish (just finished a 6 month stint working at Club Med in spain) ..wtf? And Ciara - she's lived in like 4+ diff countries (including france and australia), worked in everything from candle-making (fremantle) to waitressing, to chef-ing (no qualification) at a surf yoga retreat in portugal..  And I thought it was cool to have Seychellois' parents, understand a bit of creole and move to london haha. I can't even remember the stories / backgrounds of the other people but it really blows me away how little I know about the world compared to others. That night the group spent about an hour explaining the difference between Christianity and Judaism (don't ask me now - I've forgotten) and then how Muslim/Islam etc all works. I felt was the most naive / uneducated person there - but no one made me feel like i was stupid when I asked 'so islam is the religion and muslim is the person, right?' for the millionth time. Even though it all went in one ear and out the other, it just made me realise that people don't really care where you're from, what you know, who you were back home - if you ask, you can learn so much - and people love telling their stories :)

The 2 days in Madrid was enough for me I think. Maybe if I'd gone out on the pub crawls I would have seen more of the night life & culture. All in all, a great first stop on my own - spent more time getting to know the people than the place - but that's half the point right?

Next stop... Lisbon!!✌