Leaving the GIANT city of Baracelona, we hopped on a train and within 3 hours we arrived in the beautiful city of Madrid. Although we heard many rumors about Madrid saying that the city was boring, there was nothing to do and what not, we actually found Madrid to be very nice and a way more peaceful place than the chaos of Barcelona. We hopped on a metro and after a few stops we were in the middle of a large plaza surrounded by many tall buildings of various sorts. We began to feel more and more comfortable in this new city as we approached our hostel. We had been trying to decide if we wanted to cancel one of our nights here, but upon arriving at the hostel and feeling the chill vibe, we decided to stick to our plan and stay here the full 3 nights. Still quite tired from the travel and lack of sleep caused from partying late the night before in Barca, I laid down in our cool room and got some well needed sleep. Made a really good pasta dinner (a current staple of our diets now) and then went for a long walk about the streets. Perhaps the best part of Madrid was the fact of how clean and safe it felt, for being a city of more that 3 million people, we felt very comfortable and at peace for our entire stay. Returned to the hostel to watch a movie with some of the other travelers. (sidenote: NEVER watch the movie harald and kumar escape from guantanamo bay in a foreign country with anyone but americans, the movie is a total embarssment for us and makes us understand where everyone gets these stereotypes about Americans, really you feel like an idiot. And watching this movie was not our idea also, it was the guy from New Zealand, stupid kiwi)

We were up and at it mid day after a very restful sleep after not partying here and having partied for the previous 5 nights. We needed to make train reservations for the rest of our travels so we got going and walked to the train station, enjoying this picturesque city. Along the way we saw a restaurant for an all you could eat for 10 euros, suddenly with out control our American instincts kicked in and we were soon in front of a large plate of food that we quickly realized was s***. This was our third bad restaurant experience we had had and we left feeling full yet completely unsatisifed and ripped off, I WILL NEVER GO TO ANOTHER BUFFET LIKE THIS AGAIN! We finally got to the station and after shilling out 70 euros for our reservations for the rest of the trip we decide that we needed to get away from anywhere that required us to spend any more money. We soon found our self in a very nice park resembling many that I´m used to in the states. We found a shaded bench and were able to take a break and relax from the heat and enjoy thr beauty of this very natural park, a thing that I have been starting to miss quite a bit being over here is the fact that I have always lived in very natural places and I´m growing tired of the world of stone, morter, brick, and concrete. We eventually made it back to our hostel as we walked yet another road finding many amazing building and works of art, such as the building in the picture above. We got back to our hostel and decided to make another pasta dinner with one of the guys that we had met in the hostel, and after a great dinner we decided to go out on a pub crawl with a few other aussies from our hostel. (sidenote: Euorpe is filled with Australians, literally they are EVERYWHERE! luckily they are lots of fun and always down for a good time....and they speak english, thats nice too.) So off we went the 7 or so of us soon found the other hostel and were soon in the basement bar with a giant liter of sangria in hand. Some how I was able to not pay for the pub crawl, which was extremely lucky and nice for me since we had already spent around 80 euros that day. After a few hours of talking with our new Aussie friends we started to get going and were brought to a swanky bar where we got a shot of some random watermelon thing. Around 3 we finally got going again and made it to the club, Kapital, where we danced for a few hours well into the morning. Very cool club, with 7 stories of terraces and floors all overlooking a giant dance floor with more lights than I have ever seen. The coolest part of the club was that every 10 minutes or so a giant blast of ice cold air was shot from the ceiling billowing out on the crowd, it was awesome because for the first time ever I was not covered in sweat and hot as hell. Apparantly we heard a rumor that the club puts extra oxygen in the air to keep people from not getting as tired, I believe it cause we danced there till around 5 in the morning! Finally on the Spanish party timeline. Finally got home and took a well needed sleep well into the next day.

Got up around 12 the next morning and after yet another pasta breakfast/lunch we set out to go and view some of the amazing buildings that are scattered throughout the city. Had a very chill day reminicing about the previous night and walking about the city. Got back to the hostel in the late afternoon and had yet another chill evening hanging around the hostel hanging out with our Aussie friends.

We woke up early the next morning to catch our train out of Madrid and further south to Granada! Leaving Madrid I felt happy to have come here and glad that we had spent the full time in this wonderful city.