Madrid from Madrid

Madrid was a big city. Really big. And I liked it.

I stayed at a hostel (hostelworld classifies it as a guesthouse for some reason, but it really is a hostel) called Sant Jordi, and it was outstanding. Great people, great rooms. A little hot, but they are installing air conditioning which will be complete the day I leave. Ha ha.

The first night I walked around the city and snapped some photos. It was fun, and I was hanging around with some pretty awesome people. Nothing too exciting happened, but the hot night air was really cool. He he.

The next day I made some chill friends and we went to see the Royal Palace and had ice-cream afterwards. The palace forbid photography…

… and the ice-cream was probably the best ice-cream I’ve ever had. Jesse - one of the people I was with - has a similar itinerary to me and wants to go to Greece as well. And now that I have someone to travel with, the 22 hour ferry won’t be as bad. So your decision to send me there is going to work out well (after Italy, of course).

We had some really weird experiences this evening. Jesse was taking a night train to Lisbon tonight so I tagged along since I had some train tickets to buy. On the metro a Spanish man was starring at us awkwardly, and then decided to talk.

“Where are you from!?”

“Uhhhhhhh…” “… Canada.” Jesse is American.
I piped in “Yeah. We’re from Vancouver.”

“Oh. Well, you’re still speaking English. But I like Canada.” The man’s body language became less aggressive. “You’re less violent.”
“Mhm.”
“And I like how you are multi-cultural. Less of a melting pot.”
“Mhm.”
“I was on the train the other day and these two girls from Quebec were speaking French. I had no idea what they were saying. I thought they were speaking Czech.”
“Mhm.”

He eventually got off the train. It’s funny that the whole “I HATE AMERICAN” attitude really does exist in Europe. Now I’m not going to make make generalizations because that would be extremely hypocritical, but there are certainly some people who hold it. I’d say they are a small minority, but they certainly make their presence known. I guess I understand why many Canadians travel with Canadian flags. Maybe I’ll iron mine onto my bag tomorrow.

It’s really weird though. The whole anti-american thing is EXTREMELY hypocritical. Generalizing all Americans as ignorant or whatever is just as ignorant as Americans are said to be. And extremely ironic. Honestly though, I’ve only met one “stereotypical” American throughout all of my life’s travels, and he wasn’t even that bad. Le sigh.

When I got to the train station I had a situation of my own. I was in line to buy a ticket, and the “take a number” machine wasn’t working. I went up to a person working there and said “Hola! Hable ingles?” [Hey there. Do you speak English].
“No speak English.”
So I pointed to the ticket Machine that wasn’t working, and said “No Bilettas.”
In perfect English, she replied “That’s because we are closing in thirty minutes. Do you have a phone? You should call our ticket reservation line and come back tomorrow. Or you can go on the internet and book your tickets there. Sorry.”

No English? Excuse me? I decided to take this opportunity and lie myself. I had found an expired “number” on top of the dispenser and picked it up. It was 904 and the machine was calling 905.

I held out my ticket “Sorry. I missed my number.”
“Didn’t you hear it?”
“No. Sorry. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Well, you are going to have to come back tomorrow.”

So I turned around and went to the information desk. Moments later she walked up to me and ushered me to another line, and a man sold me my ticket. He certainly made the process difficult, and was not smiling. She was talking to him in Spanish the entire time and they kept looking at me and laughing. It was really awkward, and I had no idea what was going on. It’s unlikely that they were talking about me… but still. It’s certainly a story worth sharing.

Did it ruin my trip? Not in the slightest. All I learned was that woman is a bitch… ha ha… and it was stupid to wait until 8:30 to buy my tickets.