Un Poco Tarde

I should have started this a while ago, but one of the few things that is still the same with my life in Madrid is that I never stop moving.  A few of my friends from Pomona and I stayed at Las Musas Hostel for the first few days and had a blast.  I´ve never stayed in a youth hostel, but I´m convinced they´re the coolest thing ever.  Among my new friends: Pablo and David from Argentina, Gustavo who goes to Redlands but is studying in Morocco for the year, Sarah from Toronto, and Antonio the official party guy of the hostel.

Our very energetic tour guide

The journey from home to hostel was lengthy, but after sitting next to a guy (who ironically happened to be from Madrid) on my San Fran to DC flight who was headed to India and had a 7-hour and a 10-hour flight ahead of him, I decided that it really wasn´t that bad.  Actually, the most difficult part of the journey proved to be the shuttle ride.  Our driver was a toothless, yet well-dressed Spanish man who could not for the life of him figure out where our hostel was (I don´t blame him with the amount of tiny streets in Madrid).  We stopped at least three times to ask random people on the street where to go and, about an hour later, happened upon the hostel miraculously.  Having not slept in about 18 hours at that point, I was a little weary, but took that to be my introduction to the habitual lack of sleep for which the Spaniards are so famous.  We joined a walking tour of the city, which turned out to be three hours long, but was a great introduction to central Madrid and its history.  After guilt-tripping us into paying her by comparing her performance to that of a beer in euros, our friendly tour guide led us to a restaurant with a Menú del Día (the most common way to get lunch here, which is a prix-fixe menu including drinks, 1st and 2nd courses, dessert, and coffee).  It was pretty good, though we were a little bummed when the waitress brought my friend Zach steak instead of the rabbit that he ordered - that had taken up the majority of our table talk as we waited for the food, and then it didn't even happen.

Churros!

The first couple days were wander-aimlessly-around-Madrid days.  Despite my over 24 hours without sleep, I stayed strong, and that night all of the Pomona kids in Madrid united for Churros and Chocolate.  Then, Karina, Cati and I went to tango night at another hostel.  While there, we met Pablo and David and went out for drinks after.  The next morning we ventured to The Rastro, a blocks-long flea market in the narrow windy streets of the La Latina district.  It was another great way to begin our time in Madrid, there were street performers everywhere and they sold everything from used sweaters to crystals.

Bexers or Boxes? You pick.