Parco del Buen Retiro

So we finally decided to venture out today. We headed to city center by metro (about a 15 minute ride). Where we did a "3 hour" self-guided walking tour. It took us about half that time. We call it European time because everyone things it takes alot longer than it does.

We began at the statue of the Bear and Tree Strawberry monument which led to a street that house the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The architecture around here was stunning! Next stop was the Cibeles Fountain and the Cibeles Palace, where we went in to explore for a bit and take in the history. A little further along was the Gate of Puerta de Alcalá - an archway commissioned by King Charles IV to commemorate the many battles waged by Madrid to keep control of the city.

Afterward, we wandered through El Retiro Park where there were ample opportunities to take some awesome pictures. We stopped by a lake with some gigantic statues surrounding it where people were rowing and enjoying the warm day, and stumbled upon the Glass Palace (which is exactly what it sounds like). Near the glass palace was a pond that was absolutely filled with turtles and black swans.... That's right. Black swans. We sat and watched our animal friend for a bit before we ventured further into the park. Next stop was the fountain of the Fallen Angel (another photo op) and walked out of the park to continue our tour.

Next up, we strolled around the Literary Quarter and Museum Quarter which were full of book shops and - you guessed it - museums.

After the walking tour we decided to grab some lunch at this restaurant that had pasta, fries & sangria for 6.90€. Amazing right!? No, wrong. The food was microwaved... But honestly, we didn't even care cause we were so hungry. It wasn't the worst food I've had.

We got on the metro to head back to our host's house to get ready to go out. We ended up just hanging out for a bit & watching a movie. Breanna obviously took a nap. Nap Queen. Shaunessa & I ate tons of fresh salad we made & watched Step Brothers.

We got ready and went back into the city around 10:30 pm with our host Keri. She took us to a pre-drink bar.. Because the real bars don't open until 12. There we had one of Madrid's known drinks... Beer mixed with lemon Fanta. SOOOO good.

We left the bar after our drink to grab a "street beer" (only 1€ *in Spanish accent) where we sat with all the locals and drank our beer.

We then ran into someone Keri knows & ended up going with him to this rock & roll ish bar/club where we stayed the rest of the night.

So this was a super local bar. Barely anyone spoke English. Whenever someone would speak to us, we would just point to Keri. Because of the humor we have, we obviously used this to our advantage. When people would try to talk to us in English, we pretended that we would only speak french. Later during the night, I started pretending I was deaf. We also taught some people in the bar sign language.

We left around 3:30 to go get some pizza & headed home, where we got to bed around 4.Read more