hmatt's blog

I learned a few things when it comes to traveling.

– leave a LOT earlier than you need to. I got to the airport one hour early and still barely made my flight. They shut the doors behind me!

– coach seats don’t have power adapters. Oh well. They had lots of videos to watch and eventually I just tried my best to sleep. The guy next to me seemed annoyed by everything so I tried to ignore him.

– I should have bought a map. I got to Madrid, and kind of wandered around for an hour until I found the CATS hostel.

It was 11 am on the 18th by the time I checked in.

The first group of people I introduced myself to just kind of shrugged me off. They seemed ‘too cool for school’.

Eventually I joined a walking tour. That was nice. Although I immediately figured out how much of a hassle it is to carry that large camera around. Yikes!

After the tour there was a tapas tour. That was fun. The first drink was pretty watered down, but the Sangria was tasty. By the third bar I was pretty tired. I took a siesta from 3:30-6

A couple of girls made a ruckus coming in to the room. So I joined them on a self guided walking tour. Alex and Nisha took their time unlike the first tour I did which was go-go-go.

When we got back, the entire room we were staying in was full. There were lots of Americans. Mike and his girlfriend Therese from Massachusetts. A couple of sunburned fellows from the midwest. The girls were from Berkley. Then this Australian couple told us about their adventures elsewhere.

I think that traveling with someone else is better than alone, because when you tell stories, they are able to add other details. It was fun to chat with everyone, to hear of where they have been or where they are going.

Afterward I was still full from the tapas tour so the girls left for dinner and I got lost for an hour during the night. Which was fine until it started to rain.

Eventually I found my way back to the hostel and by this time I was hungry.

So I thought that I’d just be able to meet the other travelers all the time, but the place is only occupied at certain times. The place was vacant except in the room there was one fellow. Javier from Mexico. We chatted about life in a mix of Spanish and English. He had already eaten, so we stopped in at a McDonalds. Yeah, yeah, I know. But now I can compare the experience. It was pretty much the same as in the US.

At 1:30am everyone met up for a pub crawl. That was amazing! The first place we stopped had thick smoke so my eyes were watering. Everyone was still sober so there were few people dancing. That changed as the night went on.

We had ‘free’ drinks at each bar.. Which was always a shot of Vodka. I danced the night away which was a lot of fun..

Until we got to the last dance place. It was so huge that I quickly lost everyone in my group and danced by myself until it got boring. There were so many extra guys and very few available girls! It was ridiculous.

The US couple found me outside of the dance hall, and led me back to the hostel.

Apparently we were the last ones from our group to leave. We got home around 5:45.

I woke up today around 11, and wandered around for a bit. In a little while that couple and myself are going out for lunch. Then I’m going to the main museum in Madrid.

Tonight I don’t know what will happen. Maybe I’ll be able to catch some sort of a show or something.

Ciao!