Madrid Madness

It was an emotional farewell to our buddy Hielo who had safely got us around on our road trip from Barcelona to Madrid. We left him (or her?) at the Madrid airport, covered in dust and with only one tiny scratch (that the avis dude tried to sting us with even though we had full, no excess insurance). It was back to the legging it for me and tuffy. We metro'd it in from the airport to Charlotte's (Alex's friend who lives in Madrid) and her directions were bang on, so even we couldn't get lost. She had a room for us all set up to crash in. Was gonna be interesting sharing a double blow up matress for two rather large sized blokes - I opted for the side against the wall, to avoid getting double bounced outta the bed. That night, Charlotte and her flatmate Louise took us out into the city for some drinks and dinner at Templo de Debod. Heaps of people in Madrid were out in the park, chilling and having drinks in this park - seems like the thing to do. Was a sweet view from up there and the Egyptian temple was pretty cool.

Charlotte had written a huge schedule for us to get through whilst in Madrid, it was like having our own personal travel guide! Super sweet, as tuffy and I would have had no idea what to do... Our first full day in Madrid, Charlotte and Louise took us on a sight seeing tour of the city centre, while we waited for Sly to perch his was into town. Charlotte's free walking tour covered most of the main sites, highlights being the churros shop (deep-fried sticks that you dip in chocolate), the museum of ham, and the sangria and tapas feed. Andrew was gonna meet us round 4ish, so we decided to hunt out some new jandals, cos our other ones had blown out big time - mine had worn through the bottom, so I was essentially walking round barefeet... After the ultimate perch arrived, we grabbed a beer in town, before cutting loose at the girl's place. This was the beginning of a pretty epic night out, and some pretty heated discussions about burqas... After we became friends again, we hit Madrid town, and it was nuts. Epic times. Madrid know how to party man. We hit a few bars and clubs til the sun rose... the next day was gonna be a write off.

We surfaced around 1.30pm, when Andrew came round from his hotel. We weren't all in that gooda shape, but decided to change up the schedule and head to the pools in Casa de Campo. The pools were awesome. We nailed a perch under a tree on the grass, just near the pool and pretty much perched and swam for the rest of the afternoon. That night Denmark were playing to stay alive in the Euro, and because Charlotte and Louise were danish, we went down to their local to munch some tapas and watch the game. Denmark lost in the end, but we had another round of some epic tapas! gonna miss this stuff when we leave...



Monday rolled round and we needed to seriously start thinking about the next part of the trip... We decided that we'd just book flights to Budapest and see how we went from there. So we found some flights for around 100 euro and locked them in. By that time, it was round 2pm and Charlotte's plans had to be readjusted. First we boosted to the cable car and took that across to the middle of the park at casa de campo. Was a pretty sweet ride, good views and shit. There was a theme park near the otherside, but didn't have time to check it out... guts. The rollercoaster there looked pretty ean! When we got back, we headed to Retiro, the big park in the city. It used to be the park of the king and queen, but they opened it up to the public (or so the story goes). It was an epic park. We checked out the crystal palace, and the turtles that were swimming in the pond outside the palace, then headed to the lake for a perch/siesta. Round 6pm, we headed back to the flat, as tuffy and I had to get our classic NZ feed on for the girls. We decided to go with a Lamb roast. We actually found exported NZ lamb in the supermarket - although it was frozen solid... It was gonna have to do. We had a shit show of finding mint sauce, so decided to make our own, but didn't have any idea how to make it. Tuffy nailed it tho and it turned out pretty sweet. The feed itself was massive. Roast lamb, roast veges, mint sauce. awesome! The girls loved it. We cranked the NZ music, starting off with all the Flight of the Conchords stuff, but i think the jokes got a little lost in translation for the Danes... Afterward, we just sat on their balcony having beers and yarns, with a Kiwi soundtrack. Awesome way to spend our last night in Spain!

We fly outta Madrid tonight, so today is the last day in Spain... kinda sad to be leaving really. Spain is awesome man. Our spanish is still pretty limited, but it's a sweet language. Not sure of the plans for the day, but haircut is up there. will keep you posted how that turns out - the language barrier means anything could happen...

Next stop: Budapest, Hungary. Bring it East Europe!