"We need to find a pub with less class and more beer". Been awhile since I started an entry with a quote from a fellow traveler. This one was uttered while trying to find a place to drink and finding ourselves in a rather swanky looking place with only one beer on tap. But I should rewind a little. I arrived at Madrid airport at about 10pm after successfully navigating 3 trains and a plane all in one day from Kirchdorf, Austria that morning. It was a rather long metro ride then to my hostel, but I made it with no issues, checked in, and went to bed. The next day was my first real taste of Madrid and I must say it was a weird one. I'm not sure if it was because it was the holidays or what, but there was a lot of people out and some crazy stuff going on, mostly the street acts. Lots of people dressed up, same basic stuff like Mickey, Dora the Explorer, Smurfs, human statues etc. But some weird ones too like a guy in a table with just his head and two puppet heads either side poking out. There was one old lady, lots of plastic surgery (face and boobs) standing around in not much with people taking photos of and with her. Not pleasant to look at at all, not sure what the deal was there. Just an all round weird first impression.

Unfortunately my hotel was rather quiet and the few people who were there didn't speak English or not much English. So I did the free walking tour to hopefully meet some people. I should point out that I was going to meet a friend from my language class in Dresden here, but a family emergency meant she was not in town. The walking tour outside to be not only entertaining and educational, but also successful in finding some friends to hang out with. After the walking tour we decided to get a drink and then hit the Prado museum which has free entry after 6pm and closes at 8. It was during this hunt for a drink that the phrase was said which I quoted at the top of this entry. Finding a decent pub in Madrid is almost impossible, they just really don't have that culture. But we eventually found a place to make do. The museum itself was OK. Standard fare, lots of Spanish art, mostly by Goya. 2 hours was enough and I'm glad we got in for free.

The next day was of course New Year's Eve. I spent the day not really doing anything. I went and bought some wine and grapes for the festivities that night. I did the tapas experience tour that night with the guys I had met on the walking tour. Tapas is perhaps something I should explain. It's a fantastic Spanish tradition which started something like 500 years ago, or maybe even 800, can't really remember. But anyway, back in the day the peasants who were barely getting paid could only ever afford to either drink or eat for lunch. Most chose to drink, and then no work got done in the afternoon (this may also be the beginning of siestas). So the king at the time made it law that whenever an alcoholic drink is served it must be served with free food. This practice is no longer law, and no longer standard in much of Spain, or even in all the pubs in the places it still is done, but there are still quite a few places to be found. The size and quality of the tapas varies from place to place, but if you find a good one you never need to pay for dinner. So anyway, this tapas experience took us to 3 different places where tapas were served. The first place gave us so much food or was ridiculous and we couldn't even eat it all. The next couple of places were quite that crazy. After this we went to Puerta del Sol for the New Year's celebrations.

We got there quite early so we got a decent spot and it wasn't so crowded. We all had some bottles of wine, however, the only bottle opener we had was my crappy souvenir magnet one. It snapped off stuck inside the cork of the first bottle we tried to open. So then one of the girls went back to her hostel to find a bottle opener and came back empty handed. My hostel was the farthest away but had the best chance of having one so after a while I decided it was either that or no wine. Unfortunately when I got back, about an hour to midnight the cops had closed off all the entrances to the plaza and weren't letting in any glass. So i had to open my bottles there and pour them into large plastic cups. Then it turned out that the place was so crowded that there was no way I was getting back to the gang while trying to carry these cups, so I had to abandon one. It still took about 45mins to get back. So in the end we shared this one glass of wine and they didn't even open theirs.

Ok, so now to the grapes. In Spain they have a tradition going back only about 100 years or so, perhaps not even quite that, where at midnight on New Year's you have to eat a grape and make a wish at each chime of the bell. So 12 in 12 seconds. I had been told about that a while back by Cristina, plus a few other people since then. Most made it sound quite difficult, but it was actually incredibly easy. It was a shame I didn't get to spend New Year's with Cristina, nor anyone else from the Dresden gang was was the original plan, but it was still quite fun anyway.

On Thursday I got the tracking number for my laptop only to find out that it had been in Madrid since Monday but they needed to get in contact with me about something. I sent them an email that night but didn't get a reply to that until almost a week later, and it was a useless "we've passed this onto the relevant department". On Friday I went to Segovia (I'll write about that in the next entry). I tried calling them but their numbers didn't work so on Saturday I went to one of the depots in person and finally got in contact with them, turns out they needed a copy of my passport. Even after giving them that it still took them another 2 weeks before I had my laptop delivered. 2 days to get from Perth to Madrid. 2 weeks to get from Madrid to my hostel. So I ended up spending in relatively quiet, boring 3 weeks in Madrid.