Madrid

We left off with my touchdown in Madrid. That was almost two weeks ago. Staying current!

When I got out of the airplane in Madrid, I walked for what felt like 12 miles through the airport. I went over at least eight moving sidewalks. I just kept following the sign that said "way out" until I got to the customs area. This was less eventful than I expected, as depressed-looking Spaniard simply stamped my passport and I went about my business. My business was chilling in the airport for an hour or two as I didn't have a place to stay that night and had never been to the city. I began by getting a map and calling my professor. The phone call was for the low, low price of one euro for 30 seconds of speaking time. Anyway, I was able to surmise what Metro station to exit to meet my friend, who I was planning on splitting a room with.

I asked the lady at the Metro kiosk - in Spanish - what the fastest way to get to the Atocha station was because I was baffled by the Metro map and very easily could have taken five or six trains if I didn't get help. This didn't work out so well because she spoke far too quickly for me to understand her and I had to revert to English. it turns out that speaking a language for the first time in three weeks makes you a little rusty. From there I got on the Metro and there wasn't really a problem there. Just some possible strange looks from the locals for being all gross from not having access to a shower for however long and having a large bag and backpack with me. The fun began once I got off the train.

The Atocha station opens up to the street at a large traffic circle. Looking at my map, I had no idea which part of the circle was me. So I just kept walking. I ended up walking the opposite direction for quite a while, fruitlessly looking at the map every couple of blocks to try to find where I was. I say fruitlessly because I didn't know what street I was on because street signs are on the sides of buildings rather than on posts like in the US. Once I figured out that I was going the wrong way, I turned around and eventually figured out which way to go. Hooray, generally decent sense of direction when given a map!

When i arrived at the hostel at which I was hoping to stay for the night, they didn't have any rooms. Which sucks because it was affordable, had internet and had a decent amount of people there (duh I suppose). So, panicked, I again called my godsend of a Spanish professor who was in Madrid and she helped me out and met me. She found me a hostel, which could have taken me a lot of time to do given my lack of proficiency in understanding Spanish and the fact that it was a Friday in a popular tourist destination. So after all that, I got my stuff settled and got ungross after walking around with all my stuff in ~90 degree weather and had some delicious tapas and cerveza with my professor and her daughter. Then I slept for about five hours. Then I tried to meet with my friend/future roommate but he also got lost! Then i slept for an hour. Then I, two hours late, had the idea to ask the person at the hostel if he had seen my friend and I had just missed him! So I waited there and stole their internet for an hour and was able to communicate with him through the only means I had, which was Facebook. We arranged a time we were meeting in the morning and I proceeded to sleep another 8 or so hours.

In the morning I met Nick (aforementioned friend) and my professor and her daughter and we went to buy our tickets to go to Salamanca the next day. The train station was amazingly large, based on my knowledge of how one train station looks. It had trees and a mini shopping mall and other assorted delights. You take a number to get an appointment to buy a ticket, sort of like the department of licensing. After that we got a mini-tour of that particular region of the city and parted ways with those two. We just hung out in the thankfully fanned room for a while then went to the modern art museum a few blocks away, also thankfully air conditioned. It was pretty interesting. There was a wide variety of art and "art" there. I think that is about all the highlights of my day and a half-ish in Madrid. I'm sure there is a lot more to see there than I saw but hopefully I am able to come back someday and see it.