Madrid

Weather was still pretty miserable on Friday, made slightly worse by the giant hole I discovered in one of my shoes. So a large amount of Friday morning was spent looking for a pair to replace them, definitely easier said than done when you have size three feet. Luckily if there's one place to go shopping in Spain its Madrid, so didn't take too long to acquire some 10 euro converse lookalikes. Mission accomplished, we headed down past the Prado and on to the Reina Sofia. It being a modern art collection there was of course quite a mix of works, ranging from a room decked out like a tropical island complete with live parrots in a cage to Picasso's Guernica, probably the most famous piece in the gallery. It was pretty useful having Ben too, him being an art history student and already knowing the place like the back of his hand. Culture done for the day, we went on for a drink on the terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (or CBA...) which is one of the highest in the city so has an incredible view. Luckily the weather had cleared up enough to actually see the city! On the way we detoured through the main train station, which at first seemed like a rather odd stop to make. But as soon as we went inside I could understand, not only is it a really impressive building but it even has its own indoor jungle complete with turtle filled ponds. Not sure whether person who came up with this was a mad man or a genius, but it was incredible.

After going back to the flat to recuperate for a while, we went out for dinner (had to get used to the concept of actually paying for food again) before heading out to pre drinks. It was a friend of Ben's birthday and so there was quite a lot of people there, which apparently is quite unusual for Madrid, and I swear the majority of them were from London. Don't think I've been surrounded by so many Londoners since I was last at home. Coincidently also met two separate people who knew some of my friends in Granada, it sometimes seems like such a small world. The club we went to was also pretty incredible, and yet again there seemed to be palm trees growing in the middle. Apparently Madrileños are very keen on their indoor greenery... It was a really fun night, although at 20 euros entry and 30 euros for three drinks, not exactly cheap. Can definitely see why going to clubs in Madrid is not as regular an occurrence as it is in Granada.