Real Madrid

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September 3 – September 4

After having drank those pitchers of sangria in Barcelona, once we arrived in Madrid and at Mad Hostel, we made sure to find the bar (conveniently around the corner from our room) and drank some more.

Why not, we were in Spain.

Slowly the small terrace bar started filling up with its thirsty guests enjoying the afternoon sun, cheap beer and those pitchers of sangria.

J and I were minding our own business reading and writing. When both of our ears pricked, not with the exciting conversation, but the many Aussie accents filling the air.

J and I had been travelling for nearly a month and had not come across any Australians, New Zealanders, yes. But no Aussies, they were a warm welcome.

We eventually worked up the courage and asked if we could join the six or so other backpackers who had all formed into one big group.

After learning all their names and where they were all from, we had decided we’d all do a bar crawl the hostel was offering that night.

We were there for the night, ‘what the hell’ we thought.

The ‘getting to know’ conversations with everyone lead us to know they had all basically travelled around the same way (with Busabout) and had all just come from Valencia.

Travelling in the same circle, and who also later joined the growing group on the terrace, was none-other than a well-known Aussie comedian: Josh Thomas.

Poor him being stuck with that many Aussies, whom all just about knew who he was, probably gave him a fright.

So from the Mad Hostel, we followed two Gold Coast girls to the Cats Hostel where the Mad City Pub Crawl started at 11pm.

Many shots were had, we met loads of other Australians, and after having way too much Vodka, the crawl began.

Basically all I remember is J running around the corner of one of the bars and returning with a kebab.

Well the next morning certainly reminded me of my trip around Europe with Topdeck.

After that particular night, we made sure to grab our stash of vegemite to have on toast.

We then decided to join Andrew and Lauren (a couple we met the night before) on the free walking tour of Madrid.

I will suggest to those who are trying to make that decision while travelling: don’t do a walking tour when you have a hangover!

The highlight of the walking tour was going into the oldest restaurant in the world, Restavrante Botin, opened since 1723 and learning about why Spanish people eat grapes to celebrate New Years Eve.

Once the tour had finished J and I returned to that same kebab shop as the night before with Andrew and Lauren for lunch.

Not being able to handle anything to strenuous such as more walking. We decided to wait our hangovers out in the common room at the hostel before it was time to leave to head to the train station for our second overnight train. This time bound for Paris, France.

A chef at work in Restavrante Botin.