Spain, I'm here!

Next week I am taking the bus to Valencia to carry out a dream I've held for almost 10 years - to attend La Tomatina! But I begin my Spanish adventure in Madrid, the capital of this wonderful country.

Arriving at 10am on Saturday morning I found my hostel and headed off to the San Miguel tapas market for lunch and then on to the walking tour first, followed by the pub-crawl at night. When in Spain!

The walking tour was fab, it was with Sandman who seem to do a pretty good tour and in a number of different countries. On our tour today we covered, Plaza Major, the oldest restaurant in the world, Royal palace, Opera House, Spanish Inquisition, the origins of tapas, Spanish civil war, Spanish empire, Austrian empire, plaza de la villa, and plaza de puerta cerrada.

We were also told about nun cookies! It's this incredible hunt you can do here. So a quick story the Cloistered nuns are Catholic nuns who live their whole lives living in a convent and see no one from the outside. In order to make money the nuns in Madrid make cookies.

The whole process is really why you do it. So first up you have to find the door of the convent, then ring the bell and say that you're there for cookies. You go down a passageway to a window, where you put your money on the lazy Susan. You can't see the person on the other side and they can't see you. The lazy Susan spins around and there are your cookies, with change if need by.

As per usual, the nuns were on holidays in August and I was unable to taste the cookies. But my Spanish housemate, who is from Madrid, sent me a very good guide for future reference: http://bit.ly/1UmjFDJ

At the end of the walking tour I headed back to the hostel to check-in and have a nap. My hostel recommended a tapas for dinner in the opposite direction I was to meet the pub crawl, so I quickly scurried over there for tortilla and wine before meeting the gang. This pub crawl was not very good. But I met some lovely people. We visited 3 bars and a nightclub, it was mainly just us in bars and our free shots was basically fruit juice. There was no atmosphere and one pub crawler tried to lecturer me on not being a vegan - eh!

But the couple from Holland and the girl from Norway were awesome and we had a great night anyway. I waved goodbye to the guys at the taco stand as they were headed for another nightclub and I was headed for bed.

Welcome to Madrid!Read more