Bumming around Madrid, and more Aussies

The spanish are pretty relaxed. Morgan told us that they don´t do much work. Their working day starts around 9-10ish, and then they have morning tea at 11, which goes for about an hour, lunch at 2, which goes for about 2 hours, and they finish work at 6. Pretty sweet working day! There´s also only 4 high-rise buildings in the whole of madrid. One of which is Deutche Bank. Looks like the Germans are running the country! It´s pretty wierd in the morning though. I went for a walk the other day at around 9am and there wasn´t a soul on the streets. I had to check my watch cause it felt like 5am in the morning rather than 9.

So the original plan for yesterday was to go to Toledo, another quaint little town just outside madrid, for the day and look around, take some photos, the usual touristy stuff. After the fiasco of getting to Avila yesterday, i figured it would be okay if i didn´t get going until a bit later, and maybe the relaxed spanish culture is getting through to me. So i went to the sunday morning flea markets to start the day. Truth be told, they were a bit of a let down. Think Paddy´s markets strewn across lots of little spanish streets, just with fewer chinese people. Yeah. The only decent stuff seemed to be jewellery, but even then there wasn´t anything that i hadn´t seen back at home before.

When i eventually got to the statin, there were no available seats on trains coming back to madrid from Toledo. Bummer! Okay, on the bright side, it´s only lunch time. I figured this would be a good chance to go see the rest of madrid instead. Maybe a museum or two? Went to the Palais Real ( i think thats how its spelt) only to find that the line went half way around the block, and it was closing in little over an hour. NO way i´m gonna line up and pay an entry fee just to see 5 mins of the inside. So that plan got shot down too. Instead i ended up walking around city´s shopping district, thought maybe i might find some good bargains. No such luck either. Probably cause i was so tired and not really concentrating on shopping. So in the end i just went back to my hostel (at 3pm) for a siesta.

Forgot to mention that i checked into Cat´s hostel on Saturday night. It´s where i originally wanted to stay, but they didn´t have any spare beds cause of the stupid public holiday. IT´s also about half the price of where i was before, AND includes breakfast! Met some nice people at the hostel once i woke up. They were just sittin´ around in the hostel and i thought i´d join them; Rainy, from Latvia who has been travelling for the last 4 years funding his trip by busking as a human stautue. Hank & Felix, two Dutch guys studying journalism and trying to learn Swedish. Jonathan, from Sweden trying to teach the dutchmen how to speak swedish. Reni, a thai Swedish girl (we asians really get everywere!). Danny, from Hondurus who dances like a crazy gay man, and Jane from Perth who´s been travelling on her own for a year now. We sat around, drinking vermouth, eating peanuts and sharing travel stories. Not that i had any. The dutch guys told me all about their country and kept trying to teach me dutch and convincing me to go there. Hey, i´d love to go, if i had the money or the time! Apparently it´s the birthplace of licorice.

I´d arranged to meet the girls for drinks at around 11, and i bought these guys with me. We ended up being a group of around 10 once again. It´s cool how easy it is to make friends when everyone´s so far away from home. Although i kinda feel like the grandma of the group with everyone still being in uni. Man.. i really wish i´d have been bothered to actually save while i was at uni and do this a few years ago. I feel so old and cynical compared to everyone else.

At the pub we met two Canadians (Geoff and... damn, i forgot the other one´s name, but he was cute) Both from Vancouver. They danced with us for a bit, but were on a pub crawl and had to leave to go to the next pub.

The pub scene is pretty cool! Last time i went out with Liz & Co we stayed out til 4am, and the clubs were still kickin´when we left. Apparently theres this area of madrid that totally goes off on saturday nights until around 6am. But i was so tired on saturday (after avila) that i just went to bed and slept. Another cool thing about the clubs is that although drinks are really expensive, if you´ve got a big enough group walking past the pub, they have people who try to get you go go in by offering you free drinks. If you walk in with one of these guys, everyone gets a free shot and they waive the cover charge. It makes it alot cheaper to just go to lots of different pubs instead of staying at the same one all the time.
So we went to another pub, and the canadians were there again. This pub crawl seemed like a good idea, so we decided to join up. Lucky for us the guys running it were pretty cool and we didnt´have to pay. Gary, the Irish man, and a spanish dude who was kind enough to keep offering me his jacket each time we went to a new pub, cause i didn´t bring mine and it was bloody freezing! I have to say though, that of all the accents i´ve heard so far, the irish one is probably my favourite.

THere were a few more aussies on the pub crawl. James and Evan from Adelaide, and Lyle from the Gong. There weren´t any americans in the group, and as a result there was quite a bit of american bashing. Mostly from the canadian guys, should i be suprised?

All in all, was a great group, and we ended up staying out till 4am. Went back to the spanish dancing club, and i felt less uncoordinated this time cause i was dancing with Lyle, your typical Aussie bloke who´s got absolutley no idea about salsa! I think we were more barn dancing than salsa dancing, but it was fun.

Lisa arrives today, Can´t wait to see a familiar face. Although this travelling alone thing isn´t as bad as i thought it was. I think i´ve about had enough of madrid though, ready to try somewhere new. Everyone i´ve spoken to says barcelona is pretty awesome. I´m looking forward to it!