Madrid has been a very different experience to the rest of my trip so far for two main reasons: the French and World Youth Week.
As I explained last time, Zac and I accepted an offer to split an apartment for cheap with six French girls who gave us a taste of authentic French cuisine 3 meals a day for 4 days. When we went to the supermarket at first I was worried by the fancy stuff they were buying, and the stuff we had just never heard of, like creme fraiche (which they loooooove). But divided by eight it all turns out cheap and we had a three course, gourmet birthday feast for Lola's 20th (who passed out early in a drunken stupor, the best outcome for any birthday girl).
I don't know how the French aren't fat. The amount of butter and animal fat they use is ridiculous: 2 sticks of butter, 4 packets of creme fraiche, 2 cartons of cream, and the 50% fat 'sauccisson' sausage, all gone in about three days. The French sophistication must be rubbing off on us too because while at a cafe one day a random man approached us and told us "you eat very well". What a compliment. I told you so mum!
My favourite part about our new chain-smoking friends was the language barrier, particularly that of Camille who often said hilarious things like "I'm exploring my button" (she meant popping a pimple), and out of nowhere "belly belly belly belly dance" (I still have no idea what that was about).
World Youth Week, for those who don't remember Sydney 2008, is a pointless gathering of Catholic 'pilgrims' to see the visiting Pope. The entire process makes no sense, but it cost the Spanish government a lot of money. So the streets were overrun with yellow-shirted, red-hatted pilgrims scurrying about going nowhere in particular. The pope had already visited and left, and without any centralized leadership neither the pilgrims nor anyone else knew what the were supposed to do for the rest of the week. The pilgrims ruined fast food for everyone. They were given books of discount coupons which meant that I waited for literally half an hour (no exaggeration) in a McDonald's line. Yes, travel budgeting has forced me to eat the stuff.
So that was the abnormal Madrid experience, on to the more regular one. Zac and I tool yet another free walking tour, the cheapest and most efficient way to get a grip on a place's history (Madrid's is rich) and what there is to see and do. The tours are also a taste of home because the volunteer guides are nearly always Australian. We visited one of Spain's main art exhibits (the famous Prado was closed) where we saw some Picasso, including the awesome 'Guernica', and where we saw an awesome temporary exhibition of Yayoi Kusama. Overall I'd rank it the second best museum I've seen so far in Europe, and I've seen plenty. On our last night we thought we'd go check out a Flamenco show we'd been reccomended. We walked the majority of the way there, before realizing that Flamenco really sucks!
Overall I'm finding the Spanish very friendly, the Siesta from 2-7 very inconvenient and the espressos huge. One strange thing about
Europe is that espresso, or coffee, means something different everywhere. In Portugal you get espresso for 50 cents, so the price of 2.60 in Madrid seemed outrageous. The coffee was literally a mug full of undiluted espresso. I finished it, over the course of an hour, and bounced off the walls for the next 12 hours. So pretty good value after all.
Tomorrow we head down to Marbella, 'Spain's answer to Monte Carlo', I'm told. I don't think they have a casino there, but if it's anything like Monte Carlo I'll feel nice and classy and leave with more money than I came with. Fingers crossed.