Disclaimer: Unlike my trip to Budapest which was purely sight-seeing, this trip was centered around spending time with one of my best friends from USC, Ari, who is spending the semester in Madrid. Thus, our weekend was more centered around seeing his life in Madrid, eating and well…partying.
Logistics:
- Travel - Flew Lufthansa roundtrip, with stops on both ways. Now, I am extremely opinionated about airports (am considering writing my own detailed review of every airport I encounter someday, stay tuned), and on this trip I got to encounter many. These flights were particularly confusing, as I would get on the plane and they would be speaking Czech, get off as they were speaking Italian, get on and they were speaking German and get off to hear Spanish. My brain was wreck before even arriving. On the way there I had a lay-over in Milan, which was a fine airport. Clean, fairly quiet, unobtrustive patrons and plenty of food options. However, this airport gained many points in my book when I discovered Nutella to-go packets (below). Once you’re in Madrid, it’s very easy to get to and from the Bajaras airport, by taking a bus directly into the center of the city for only 2 Euros.
On the way home, however, I stopped in the Frankfurt airport, where I had been on my way to Prague the first time. This place is literally my nightmare, my least favorite airport in the world, and in the future I am willing to pay large sums of money (that I don’t have) to avoid this place. It is enormous, poorly laid out, poorly light, they scream at your in German and your gate is sure to change at least twice. Oh and there’s no decent food and water bottles are 6 Euros.
- Accommodations - Stayed three nights at the Magda Hostel in Tirso de Molina. The location was excellent, the staff was friendly and the place was clean. Great.
The trip:
When I talked about traveling to Spain, most people immediately blurted out “BARCELONA!” A party capital filled with beautiful people on the beach? Definitely sounds like a great time, and most people acknowledge that if you’re going to do Spain for a weekend, this is the place to go. And though Spain’s capital city may not be the most exciting place for a quick visit, it is beautiful and definitely a great place to live.
The thing about Madrid is there’s not a lot of actual sight-seeing to do. The city is fairly new (everything is from the past 200-300 years), much different than nearly everywhere else people travel in Europe. I felt that the experience of walking around the city, through its many famous plazas, if why people go, and how to get a feel for the city. As we toured around the city, Ari made lots of comparisons to New York City - Columbus Square, Times Square, SoHo, etc - putting the city in a more familiar perspective.
We explored many of these different areas and neighborhoods, my favorite being Chueca, the gay district. This neighborhood is home to plenty of shopping and dining options, and also an awesome bar - El Tigre. This crowded hole-in-the-wall serves strong drinks, along with free tapas to whoever waits at the bar, making it an obvious student favorite, for study abroad and Spanish students alike.
We also spent a lot of time in Parque del Retiro (“Central Park”). It’s a beautiful and enormous park in the middle of the city that, on the sunny and 50 degrees days I was there, is packed with people. We spent lots of time walking around, relaxing, people watching and boating there. It has many different parts that look different, so that you could go there many times and keep discovering new places. It was without a doubt my favorite place in Madrid.
For our cultural fix, we went to both the Prado and the Reigna Sophia, which are unbelievable museums. Everyone in the USC Madrid study abroad program takes an art history class in the Prado, so I had personal tour guides to ask questions about all my favorite pieces to. The Reigna Sophia features more modern art, and houses Picasso’s Guernica (which is huge, by the way).
Right between the Prado and Reigna Sophia was my other favorite place in Madrid,Kapital, the city’s famous seven-story club. We got coupons that got us into the club with two drinks for 15 Euros, a pretty good deal. Every floor has a different feel, based on the set up and musical styles, and the floors seem to get crazier the farther down you go. We spent the majority of our night on the ground floor, which featured solid dance beats all night (literally until we left at 6 AM), insane acrobatic shows, lights and cold blasts of air that made the crowd go wild every time.
The other club we went to was … well, a bit more of an adventure. We went to Fabrik, rated as one of the top nightclubs in the world, where we had tickets to that night to see Fatboy Slim and some other DJs perform. Logistically, it was a nightmare, as the club was about 40 minutes outside of the actual city, and though there were buses provided, they were so poorly run that we went in cabs both ways. Getting in was also a mess, as the ticket system was disorganized and there were just too many people. Once we got inside, the club was awesome and huge … I couldn’t believe the sea of people. At the end of the night, we explored the outside of the club, which was also huge, and had cabanas, beds, tables and bars everywhere, and would definitely be a blast in the summer.
That’s about all for blog-appropriate stories, as the weekend was pretty wacky. It was hard to leave, but very comforting to come home to Prague :)
