I got on the train around seven Paris time. Got in to my cabin and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible. It was a small room with not a lot of leg room. There was no way I was going to spend eleven hours in such a cramped space. I got out of the cabin and walked toward the bar. Watching the bartender and the chef work on a moving a train was fun. Imagine the challenge of making a drink and cooking a dish, while everything is shaking and could fall any minute.
I met Kim at the bar. She was an accountant from London going to Madrid for work. She worked for THQ, so we quikly started to talk video games. Once the nerdy talks were out of the way she told me about her travels to South East Asia and South America. Kim turned out to be pretty exciting person for an accountant.
After a few drinks I head back to my cabin. The beds were folded out and the lights were out. I got up on my bunk bed, turned on my music and passed out. It wasnt long before I was in Madrid. I hopped on the metro and made my way toward the old city center. I found the hostel, checked in and made myself comfortable on my new bed. The room was big and spacious. There were no bunk beds and the other three beds were empty. I had the whole room to myself, atleast for now.
I went out to the common area and met a group of lone travelers. John from Florida, Ryan from Edmonton, Mellisa from States and Alex from Quebec. They were all travelling by themselves and had merged in to a group of their own. They´ve been hanging out since yesterday. Apparently Madrid had gone a little crazy the night before. They told me about the protests around the city and how they heard gun shots and witnessed confrontations between the police and the protesters. They seemed a little surprised to see that kind of stuff in Europe. I hanged out with them for awhile. They were going out for food and then to see bullfighting, but since I wasn't hungry, and am too much of a hippy to support bullfighting, I decided to go out on stroll around the city.
I try to get an idea of where everything is when get in to a city. Madrid's much smaller than Paris and has a completely different feel. I walked around for a bit and head back to the hostel. The Lone Travellers had also returned. They were planning on hitting up a park on the northern side of the city, since I had no other plans, I decided to join them. The park offered a full view of the city. It was a beautiful sight. The park also offered a building that looked like a crypt from Indian Jones. It was apparently built by the Egyptians and offered to the Spaniards as a gift. I love the old days when countries build buildings and monuments and sent them over on a ship as a gift.
(The Lone Travellers™)
We came back to the hostel. This was the last day before The Lone Travellers were parting ways, each one heading out to a different city. I grabbed their details and bid them farewell in case I wasn't going to see them again. I went back to my room and met three Brazilian girls who had checked in. They were going to be my roomates for the next few days. Their English was pretty broken but it was enough for us to get to know each other. We had a short chat and decided to head out tonight on a pub crawl. I also rallied up a few other people around the hostel for the crawl and before we knew it we ended up being a pretty large crowd. The pub crawl company should have really given me a cut of their earnings for that night cause I made them a lot of money.
We went out, hit up a few a pubs, got drunk and danced and sang the night away. It was close to morning time when we came back to the hostel, pretty smashed and passed out. Great first night.
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