Hola from Madrid!

Hola people, it´s 9:20am and I am sat in the common room at MAD Hostel in Madrid while Meg is primping and preening back in our room. We agreed that she would write a post about our journey here, which had some interesting twists and turns, so I am covering what happened after we got to the hostel.

We checked in and were given some room keys which are electronic watches that you swipe on things. At first we couldn´t open our door, and no one came to help us so we were forced to ask the man at the desk, who already seemed a touch exasperated with our ineptness. I could just see him thinking "newbs".

After he taught us how to open the door, we went inside to flump down on the beds and rest.... only the beds were messy and had various items strewn o´er them. One even had a set of clothes on it; another had an empty bottle and a lot of hairs of suspicious origin...

We decided to lock up our luggage and head out for a wander round the neighbourhood while the cleaners tidied up our room for our return. It was nice and hot, and after sitting on the sun terrace eating squashed danish pastries we set out. Meg bought some Pineapple Emotion juice and a sticky yellow plum from a little shop, and I continually referred to Spaniards as Mexicans by mistake (I can´t stop doing that for some reason).

After meandering around some backstreets that weren´t very intriguing (several Indian restaurants on one street), we headed back to a main street and followed it down. We saw a pet shop with lots of tanks with animals in them. There were adorable kittens and puppies, but they all looked hot and it was dirty and smelly in there, so it made me feel sad to see them all cooped up.

We went further on and I noticed an impressive looking building down a turning, so we went there and found ourselves in a big square, dominated by the Museo de Arte Sofia Reina. We decided to have a drink and then go in, so I had a beer and Meg had a latte and we staved off several men scrounging for change (one of them at least serenaded us on his guitar first).

In the Museum we saw lots of Picasso, Dali and other famous Spanish painters´works. We saw the Guernica and lots of works Picasso did to prepare for it. We also saw some exhibitions that weren´t in the permanent collection. One was photography by Steichen which was exellent, and the other was about technology combined with art, which was AMAZING. There was one piece which was a wall of pieces of rubbish, which fluttered and rippled like the ocean. We realised that there was a camera in the middle, and the rubbish was moving in response to us moving, forming our silhouettes on the board. This was called "Trash Mirror". There was also one that made our picture from woven curls like a mat or basket, and one that used spinning discs to the same effect. Then there were some amazing pieces looking at light which I can´t even describe. Finally there were some pieces using electromagnetic fluid that forms into spikes like stalagtites, then melts back down into liquid, it was so interesting.

After the Museum we headed back to the hostel, napped briefly and met one of our roomies who was crying and thus not very sociable. We left her to herself and headed out for dinner. After a lot of wandering and asking for directions we found El Estragon, an all vegetarian restaurant I had read about. We enjoy a lovely atmosphere, delicious food, and great music (Nina Simone), but didn´t enjoy the price (€30 in total, ouch). We will need to be more careful finding cheap food in the future, but it was our first night and we were exhausted.

I think Meg will cover our nighttime antics, so I´ll sign off and grab some free breakfast, i.e. a croissant.

Mojo