A Year Abroad: Madrid.

Madrid was different from what I had expected. There were less tourists there, and a lot of the people I came into contact with didn't speak great English. Which was surprising as it's the capital city.
It was a quiet capital city, which was nice.
Coming into the city, it looked like it was going to storm, which was lovely. The clouds were so dark and grey and loomy, and the landscape was all rolling hills and greenery. It was almost like North American Indian territory, if you can picture that... There definitely is a difference in landscape between Spain and Portugal.
When we arrived, as it's a bigger city, we caught the metro to our hostel. That afternoon, we just walked around the town and visited some sites. We found an awesome tea shop, and I could actually drink it without having the awful tea taste left in my mouth afterwards. That first afternoon, we visited Plaza de la Villa de Paris (a square full of 15th century buildings), Plaza de la Independencia, Peurta de Sol and Plaza Santa Ana. Then headed home for some Chinese food! I haven't been able to find a peanut sauce dish anywhere, but I settled for chicken and almonds.
That night, I had my first 4am clubbing experience. A club had been recommended to us by some of the others staying at the hostel, so we checked it out. It was amazing! But as soon as we left the club, we were exhausted haha. On our walk home, some young guy started walking beside us and speaking spanish. We ignored him and kept walking, and he grabbed my arm. As I don't drink, I wasn't intoxicated in anyway, so can fully remember the empowering feeling of yanking my arm back and forcefully saying "Do not touch me". He stopped following us and went away. Yes! I am woman, hear me roar! haha
The next morning, we jumped up and skipped the walking tour. The woman was late by 15 minutes and acted as if nothing was wrong, so that was an indicator of how the rest of the tour would go. And as we had visited several historic sites the day before, we didn't want to double up.
We headed straight to Plaza Real de Madrid. The interior was absolutely beautiful. King Carlos III designed it and lived there, he really knows where it's at. Though I don't think I would like to try and raise kids there... We did mostly shopping on the main shopping street that afternoon. I even made a special stopover in the Real Madrid FC store. The weather was nice too, the sun was out, but there was breeze.
The next morning, we did some local market type shopping before heading to San Seb!

DAY ONE