The most beautiful city I've seen outside of Italy. My weekend there (despite sickness and credit card problems and missing uncles) was perfect. Matt and I spent most of our time simply wandering the streets, happily lost, soaking up the glory of the city and its heartbeat.
The first night it rained for a few minutes, soaking the city in a glorious shimmering magic. We wander through lit plazas, stopped for a glass of wine and then met up with about 15 fellow nomads at Cat Hostel for a pub crawl. The crawl itself was junk. Wish I could tell you where we went, but none of us remembered check names, we just blindly followed the intimidating man with sign on the back of his t-shirt that said "Pub Crawl FOLLOW ME." The people on the crawl, however, were amazing! All in their early 20s, full to the brim with life and excitement, they made the night a ridiculous mash-up of blush-worthy, impossible ecstasy. Matt and I stumbled home to Mad Hostel (great place) at 6:30am. Bienvenida Espana.
The next day was filled with a breakfast of croissants, orange juice and coffee, wanderings, a stop by the Reina Sofia for some Picasso and Dali (DO NOT eat at the cafe right outside the museum! Biggest tourist trap of your life!!!), then home for a siesta.
(Matt, shooting pics from our breakfast table in a plaza a few blocks from our apartment. Some awesome pics will be posted on his blog: http://jekowsky.tumblr.com/ soon enough I'm sure!)
(The courtyard inside la Reina Sofia)
That night we went to a fantastic flamenco show housed in the back room of a restaurant called Casa Patas. Amazing dancing - the guy did the entire routine in a three piece suit! The music and the woman dancer were mind-blowing too and, of course, there was yummy sangria. It IS Espana after all... We then grabbed sandwiches and wandered til we found the best local bar in Madrid: El Tigre. Full of singing Spaniards, pints of mojitos, and giant piles of tapas. Heaven.
From there we wandered around the post-1AM streets until we stumbled into a fantastic garden full of fountains and monuments (no idea where we were; totally and completely lost and loving it) and then we wanted to hit up Joy and Kapital (two clubs we'd heard were must-sees) but I got really sick and at 2am we had to call it a night.
Sunday morning was more wandering, breakfast at el Museo de Jamon in la Plaza Mayor (a big, beautiful plaza that reminded me of St. Marks in Venice when we ran into it at night lit up after the rain), and more wandering.
(As spectacular as the plaza is, the sky seemed to upstage it in almost every shot.)
We noticed that there were a lot of people in Madrid wearing what we termed "Aladdin pants." Loose, pajama like pants that cinch at the ankle - Marc Jacobs introduced them a few seasons ago, and though they certainly aren't popular in the States, they seemed to be all the rage in Madrid. So, we had to get ourselves some Spanish pants. Obviously. Within 20 minutes we'd found two streetside shops that sold them. I bought a gray short pair that was actually very tame for Madrid and then a bright green pair which, now back in London, I'm a little worried about actually pulling off. Matt got black. I think we should try matching back at school just to freak everyone out.
(I think officially these would be called "harem pants" but as you can see from the picture below, these kind of take that to an extreme...I'll probably take them in just a little bit once I get back to my sewing machine...)
I had to leave at 1:30 to catch my flight back to London via Frankfurt (random, I know but it was cheaper) and on our way to the metro we ran into a giant protest put on by government workers right by the Sol station. Policia, sirens, shouting. The Madrid weekend experience was complete.
(The protest)
There's so much we didn't get around to seeing that I desperately want to go back, but for now, I can safely say that Madrid is an absolutely incredible city and I will never never forget my first 46 hour exposure to its charms.
More Madrid pics :)
(I want to live in a yellow apartment!)
(Perfection)
(Awesome church we just happened to turn a corner and see)
(Three blocks from our hostel!)
(Hall of Agriculture...I think. Awesome horse statues.)
(More Madrid streets...)
(Matt checking his camera. We walked around like awesome nerdy tourists and took pictures of just about everything!)
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