Shortly about Madrid
I’ve never been scared on a plane before, but my flight from Brussels to Madrid was terrible. It was extremely bumpy, without the seatbelt I would never have managed to stay on my seat, but in the end we landed safely.
It should have been easy to get from the airport to the city – the only thing I really had to do was to buy a metro ticket and ho into a train, but this turned out to be quite a challenge! After fighting with one of the ticket vending machines for like five minutes one of the security guards came to tell that the machine in question was broken and that I should pick another one. So I did, just to find out that it only accepted spanish credit cards. I went to withdraw some cash and returned with a 50 euro bill – the problem was that the machines only accepted 10 and 20 e bills! After receiving some help for that same guard who had obviously been watching (and laughing at) me, I purchased a five-day tourist ticket instead of a single ticket. Just to avoid using those damn things again!
I found Cat’s hostel easily, it has a great location near Puerta del Sol, the most central of all squares in Madrid. I slept in a 14-bed mixed dorm, which was ok, really neat and I had lots of nice roommates mostly from Europe and South America. I had long conversations with several of them and I’ve been marketing Finland as a place to visit! 
The building was a 17th century palace and thus appealed to me, in the inner patio we had a lovely fountain for example. Between 18 and 20 euros a night with breakfast, not bad.
There were a few things above the others during my stay. On thursday I visited Palazzo Real, the Royal Palace, which was definately worth of the mere 3,5e it costed to get in. As my Brazilian roommate told me, the Spaniards surely have known how to use gold. The decorations in all of the rooms were amazing! The throne room was splendid, if you count out the hidious carpet that looked like it would have been stolen from a cheap B&B in London. My favourite room was the one Charles III used for dressing up, it was decorated with shades of green, brown and beige (and plenty of gold, of course), absolutely beautiful! Anyways, the palace is with no doubt worth visiting if you ever go to Madrid.
One of the places i fell in love with was the “Central park of Madrid”, Jardines del Buen Retiro ( I got there by accident but I do not regret it), where I had a bit more than two hour walk on friday. The area was breathtakingly beautiful with small ponds, fountains, statues, little waterfalls and plenty of crisscrossing paths. I took plenty of pics so you’ll see what I mean by breathtaking as soon as I get the pics from my cam to my laptop.
For shopping Madrid is definately a place to go to. Mango, Zara, Bershka, H&M, Sfera, Estradivarius…plenty of great affordable shops. Many of the buildings in the city center were quite high compared to many other European cities, which turned out to be a physical challenge while shopping Several stores were narrow and had more than five floors, which equals quite a few steps, and if you visit like ten of such shops you end up having not only plenty of new clothes and an empty wallet but also rather sore legs and feet. I still have a bad wound on my left foot (thx to my dear hobby dancing) which made it quite painful to walk during the first two days, but I only stopped for a few coffees and a quick bite during each day. Shop till u drop Yet, only one pair of shoes!!!
On Friday I was supposed to have quite a lazy day as I had seen all the places I wanted to, and walked already about 70km since arriving on Tuesday afternoon. I spent a bit more than an hour in an Internet cafe (chatting with people I already miss really made my day) and enjoyed my regular tall skinny latte at Starbucks accompanied with a cheesecake with raspberry and white chocolate. That was to die for, luckily there are no Starbuckses in La Hulpe or I’d gain tons Anyways, that was the whole lazy part, I seriously do not know how to stay still.
In a nutshell, Madrid is a beautiful and lively city full of things to do and see. It is surprisingly neat and safe considering its size and if you don’t mind staying in a hostel it is cheap to spend a few days there. I did like the city, but still there was something it lacked, in some ways it was a bit impersonal compared to places like Rome, London and Paris. I think it might have been the people, I am surprised how boring the Spaniards are. But anyways, I had great time there.
Right now I’m in La Hulpe but I’m gonna write more about this place later, I’ve really got to unpack all my stuff.
By the way, our formation ended up being second in the nationals!
