Finally posting about Madrid

Ok, so I know I got back from Spain on Sunday, but I have just been too lazy to write anything about it, and I am sorry. I did get the pictures up and I hope everyone enjoys them. I believe in my last post I told you I was staying with these girls from the US. That turned out to be wonderful. They were so nice, and we spent some of the trip together. It made me feel better, that I had traveled alone. One of the days we took a free walking tour through the city. I learned so much about Spain and Madrid. Like did you know that Spain was under rule of a dictatorship until the 70's. I had no idea. It was a good tour, but our guide did get a little long winded. I think he just really liked hearing the sound of his voice, because he kept going on and on. By the end I was zoning out a lot. But I am still very thankful he was knowledgeable on Spain.

That evening all the girls in my room and I decided to take one of the Pub Crawls they do through the city. You pay 10 Euro and you have a tour guide (who was quite a cute Spanish guy) take you to 3 different bars and you end up at a club. You also got a shot at each bar and discounted drinks. It turned out to be a really fun time. Since my camera had been stolen in London when I was out, I decided to leave it in my room. So I didn't really get any pics from this evening, sorry.

On Friday, after staying in bed a little late, I got up and did some more site seeing of Madrid. On the walking tour we only saw the outside of places, so I decided to go see some of these places on the inside. I went into the Cathedral and the Palace in Madrid. The Cathedral was huge and really nice. I have seen quite a few churches since being in Europe and the unique part of the ones I saw in Spain, are that they have lots of gold inside. Which, considering their history with Central and South America, it is quite understandable. The Palace on the other hand wasn't worth the money. It was boring and I barely got to see anything.

That evening I went with the ladies from Delaware to meet up with a family friend, that was living in Madrid, to have Tapas. These are basically appetizers, don't worry I had no idea what they were before going to Spain. They were delicious. Then we met up with some of her friends, who were mostly teachers from the US teaching English in Spain, at a Karaoke Bar. It was a lot of fun and I met some really great people.

At this point of my trip I had felt like I saw as much as I wanted to of Spain and decided to take a day trip to Toledo. It is a small town outside of Madrid, that actually used to be the capital of Spain. Here I got to see many old buildings, a castle, and I walked, a lot. I loved this town because it was very quaint and not commercialized. There were many little shops and restaurants, and it was easy to get lost in the small windy roads. I thought it was so cute and had some great things to see. I would suggest seeing it if you are in the area.

I can't wait to go back to Spain, I think there is so much more to see. I hear Barcelona is amazing. Jennie: that is where I think we should go when you come!!!!