This led to a fun bit of detective work to figure out where her place was and a bit of luck to see if we could even find her. After a taxi ride, a confident wander about(thieves get excited at the stumbling, slow lost and wandering tourist. So walking fast and confident fixes some of that), and a score on a cool cafe with some internet, a few things came together. We didn't have an actual address, so Candace used some of the pictures describing the place, one in particular of the outside of the building, to get a visual of what the place was like. I went out and found the building! lol. Our host was standing outside with a friend hanging out waiting for us - Yay! We then taught her how to confirm bookings =)
We woke and figured out how were were going to get to Rome later, whether it be a ferry, flight, or train. Went shopping for some food and then headed out to my hometown Acala De Henares, which is 20-30 minutes east of Madrid by train. Funny thing is we got to the station to leave for Acala and as we got down the escalator to get on the train it literally started slowly pulling away! I was like NOOOOO!- While I ran after it. I don't know if you have ever had the feeling - The one where you do actually get to the dock and the boat just unroped 30 seconds ago and its pulling away and everyone waves at you as you sit there and watch. Or that you missed the train by 10 seconds, because that's exactly what happened to us... luckily the next train was only like 30 minutes from then, so we busted out our two Kindle programs (one program is on Candace's phone where I downloaded Hunger Games, book 2 for her, the other the Kindle fire won from SW region contests, where I had At the Queen's Command: The First Book of the Crown Colonies on it. Have since finished the book and recommend it, and have downloaded the second Of Limited Loyalty: The Second Book of the Crown Colonies. I just think its funny he puts the Series Name in his titles of his books so I did the same :)
Candace wrote the Acala blog entry and its been posted so cool!
It was great being in Acala and seeing my hometown where I studied abroad. Great memories! Back in Madrid around 11pm, we got ready and went to El Kapital, which Candace also wrote about. Last time I was there I guess I didn't even get to see the top two levels! We didn't even know they existed until we kept going up and going up... Cool light shows from above the dance floor - Huge structure that moved dozens of different ways and blew out Fog with a strong cool breeze that could cool the whole room down and blind everyone momentarily..
The next day we got up and walked over to a vegetarian restaurant we found that had really good reviews. On the way we passed a couple huge buildings, which Madrid has a plethora of - Congress De Los Diputados -
It was hotter so we were always making sure to walk on the side of the street that had the shade wherever we walked to. We 1st went to a huge plaza and got a map of Madrid and a bus tour pass. This included two different bus tours of Madrid, one (Line1) going northwest and west while the other went north and covered the eastern portion of the city. We started with Line1
Remember, bus tours are a LOT of pictures and Little commentary. But we did happen to find, through our headphones, a Cat voice. It was interesting to hear his commentary, probably designed to entertain kids on the bus who were listening, but since Candace loves cats so much we got a smile out of her every time he talked =). At the end of describing something he would always throw in something about him being a cat like - "Now thats a tall building. Even though I have 9 lives, I wouldn't want to try that out!", and so on and so on.
And the bus tour goes on... An ancient Egyptian Tomb gifted to the Spanish Throne -
We decided to take a break from the tour shortly after and got off (since you can get back on every 10 minutes anyways anytime you want), and took a walk through some Gardins and passed an interesting performer -
We walked back over and took a seat on some grass in the shade and read our kindle books while the breeze, open atmosphere, plaza in front of us, huge statue behind us, and thousands of leaves above us sunk in. Eventually we hit up the bus tour again to move on -
This arc was 5x smaller than the Arc in France. But hey, since we don't have many Arcs in the US it was still cool.
Lots of cool buildings.
We passed by an area where there were a ton of people creating a flowing crowd. We thought maybe a festival was going on? 10 seconds later we caught site of the Futbol stadium. It appeared that a soccer game was going to start because it was absolutely crazy around it.
I was down to get out and maybe get some tickets. Candace not right then, and since shes usually down for anything and everything, when on the occasion that she isn't, it's not a biggie, so on we moved on-
CENTER of the country! -
Time for another stop - Hard Rock Cafe Madrid. We got some amazing nachos and watched music videos that were live music performances by The Doors, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, and tons of other old school rock and roll bands. Getting back on the tour bus we headed back to the main square Plaza del Sol, and scored some cool performances by some street performers.
Got actually got a CD from these guys so maybe you will hear it at the next wine and cheese party!
This guy had his mannerisms down pat so Candace fell for his act and wanted a picture!
Well done!
There were some pretty crazy other performers out there in the square too - EX:
We then took the metro back to our area, grabbed a bunch of fruit, and headed up to chill. I worked on the blog a bit with a open window to Madrid-
Candace had a little fruit ses -
The next day we headed out to Segovia. An awesome day trip from Madrid that I did once a long time ago on my abroad trip, so I wanted to take Candace there to see it as well. She has written that blog entry so we will organize the pics for it and post it soon!!
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