Madrid

We took an 11 hour bus from Porto to Madrid. We are always well prepared for long haul travel so we had my ipod and laptop stocked up with power and full of movies. We also had playing cards as well so the trip went pretty quick.

We got in quite late to Way Hostel in Sol which is the funky area of Madrid. We had some dinner and met some great people straight away. The hostel invited everyone to join another hostel for a sangria party so we went along and played drinking games with about 20 people. It was a very casual social game more so then a 'get pissed' game.

There we met 2 guys called Aaron and Pete. Aaron was actually a primary school teacher form Ballarat and knew Shocka really well. Small world.. we got along with these boys really well and hung out with them all week.

First morning me n matt went to check out the palace with a Canadian girl named Corinne and 2 Australian girls living in Paris now. It was a great group and the weather was friggen hot (high 30's). The Madrid palace is the biggest in Western Europe, 17 levels, too many chandeliers to count, huge expensive carpet, priceless artwork, statues in every nook and cranny. I was blown away by the palace, the amount of money some of these past royaltys had here is staggering.

Next day we all did another free tour, with the same tour group - sandeman's new Europe - they have been so good every where I go. This tour was one of the best so far as the tour guide had studied Spanish history for 4 years and knew his stuff. I was intrigued by amount of history, fighting, wars, takeovers and attacks on this country. Fedda and I bought a book called 'history of spain' which we are reading to learn more about Spanish history because it fascinated us.

We had some very big nights in Madrid as it is a bit of a party town, we were based in the area of Sol which is famous for its pubs and bars.

Corrine the Canadian girl had planned to go to Valencia the same day I was going there so we caught a bus together. I said goodbye to fedda temporarily as he had planned to head from Madrid to London to organise some stuff and I had organised to meet up with a friend Anne-Sophie in Paris who I knew quite well from Melbourne. Our plan WAS to meet in Belgium in two weeks but it didn't turn out that way - more on that later!

Overall Madrid was one of my favourite places, fascinating history, hot weather and a great nightlife. I left the city behind by bus to Valencia as it was close by and found a cheap flight to paris from there.