Day 119: Madrid, Spain

So, we’ve found ourselves back in western Europe once again; and it’s certainly evident. Clean streets that don’t consistently smell like piss, aloof self-important citizens, and utterly useless businesses that call themselves ”pharmacies” but really only sell nail polish and cellulite creams–yes, all the things that make up true ”western” countries. But really, that just isn’t very helpful when a person has a splitting headache or a mysterious skin rash on his or her leg which may or may not be from that ratty looking, odd smelling blanket in a Bolivian hostel. Sure, it is definitely nice to be able to walk any street around any part of the city and it looks just as clean as the tourist areas. Sure it’s nice to have properly refrigerated yogurt and cheese that’s expiration date hasn’t already been met and far surpassed with the new year. But really, it’s disheartening to walk to the streets where 9 1/2 out of 10 people have absolutely no sidewalk etiquette and the metro escalator is some kind of secret death race.

And of course it’s very upsetting to pay $25/night for a crappy bed and shared toilets when the exact same crappy bed would have cost only $5 anywhere in South America. Even our first morning here in Madrid, we can feel the smoldering heat of our wallets (correction: wallet) as it screams from paying $8 for a tiny sandwich.

So despite all its faults, Madrid is actually a very nice city. It’s one of the cleanest cities we’ve ever been to and, given its size, that’s a true rarity. We were lucky with a fabulously warm and sunny day as we spent our first day of vacation getting our bearings and stocking up on bread and nutella (our 2 meals/day for the next week…no joke). We checked into the Cats hostel, which is a very posh place indeed. A historical sight managed but the Madrid government, its interior is a stunning array of Arabic art and stained glass.

Cats hostel interior

We spent the afternoon lounging in the big ”central park” of Madrid, El Retiro. It’s a sprawling green space, one of Madrid’s many–kudos!– where picnic blankets abound and parents play soccer with their kids.

Flowers in the park

View in the park

Capping the day off with ice cream candy bars (a new one of us!) and meandering through the park was a great start to our mini vacation!