Madrid
We drove to Madrid for an overnight visit, and it was well worth it. From where we were staying near Gibraltar it was about a 6 hour all-highway drive. Luckily the rental car had an auxiliary input for the iPod so we were able to keep ourselves entertained during the drive. Once we got to Madrid, we found our hotel which was piss-ass expensive for where it was located. Most everywhere we stayed in Morocco was well under 100 bucks a night, but Spain's prices were nothing like Morocco's, which is ok with me because luckily Spain was nothing like Morocco. The hotel we stayed at was 99 euros for the night which is like 150 bucks or so. To be fair, it was a 4 star hotel and was really nice. The drawback was that it was about 15 minutes outside of the city, and I really, really, really didn't want to drive in the city. Taxi rides are expensive but there was no way I was driving. I had already had a bad experience in another Spanish city (Malaga) and I wasn't going to do it again. So we checked it and got a taxi to our first destination--the Harley shop. 
And here she is. It wasn't open when the taxi got there, so we camped out at a pub across the street and had a beer waiting for it to open. Luckily when it did open they had plenty of shirts, and they spoke English--something I noticed at all the Harley shops, people always spoke English.
There's the pub we camped out at--it's the brown sign next to the blue one.
Our hotel room in Madrid. It was really nice, but for whatever reason both Rachel and I slept like shit that night.
And after the Harley shop, we got another taxi to the other staple of any city we visit--the Hard Rock Cafe.
This was inside the Hard Rock--that bull would make noise every half hour or so and scare the shit out of people eating. Another cool thing at this Hard Rock is that we got served by--wait for it--a MEXICAN. He was cool as hell, saying how he hated the Spaniards, etc. etc. I asked how the local beer was and he told me it was shitty and that I'd end up ordering a Budweiser next. He was right. In fact, when I ordered the Bud he began singing the Star Spangled Banner. Awesome.
Q. If you don't have a backyard in Spain, where do you let the dog get some fresh air? A. Your insanely small balcony on which the thing can't even turn around.
This was a really cool roundabout where we waited for the open-top bus to come pick us up so we could do the city tour. After the Hard Rock we went back to the hotel. This was the next morning. I decided to take my chances and try to find a parking garage in the city. So we checked out of the hotel, and luckily I was able to find a garage downtown. We then walked around until we found somewhere that looked like it might be a spot where one of the tourist busses might stop. We thought this place looked like a good candidate, and we were right.
And this is a park that is opposite of the arch roundabout in the picture above. Once again, while we were waiting patiently for the open-top bus.
Between Rachel and I we took way too many random pictures on this trip. This is one. And unfortunately, I'm going to probably post lots of these.
Back to the hotel room. I've stayed in my fair share of hotel rooms and this is something I've never seen. This is a speaker in the bathroom that was connected to the plasma TV. As you took a shit (or shower, or whatever) the program you were watching on the TV was blared into the bathroom so you wouldn't miss one second of your CNN news on repeat.
The main drag of Madrid had bleachers set up for over a mile, like they either just had or were going to have some type of parade.
So I've been on 4 different open-top buses (London, Edinburgh, Lisbon, and Madrid) and I've always had a live guide that spoke English. This bus, however, was much different. You paid for your tickets when you got on the bus (which were good for all-day, hop-on hop-off, like most of them) and they gave you a set of headphones. You had to plug them into the seat in front of you, and then select a language. As you drove past certain sites, an audio guide would tell you about them. After having done both, I would much rather have a live guide.
What's funny is that English was number two on the little guide here--designated by the Union Jack (the British flag) but the audio guide was clearly an American.
I forgot to mention that Madrid was hands down the coldest place I have been in a long time. I haven't seen snow in two years, and haven't experienced temperatures colder than 50 or so degrees since then. Well, this is me waiting at the bus stop for the open-top bus after just looking at the temperature which was on a sign nearby. It was around 10 am and 2 degrees Celsius (around 35 F.) I was dreading having to get on one of those open toppers and drive around the city. I was fucking freezing sitting there. My blood must have thinned, because before I moved away from home anything above freezing wasn't all that bad. As the day wore on, we passed a temp sign that said it had warmed to 10 degrees C, or 50 F. Which was still fucking cold on the top of that damn bus.
Random street in Madrid, as most of the pictures are.
Ah, McDonald's. Everywhere humans are. I've also made it a goal to eat at a Mickey D's in every country that I go to, and I was very, very, very happy to find that the McDonald's burgers in Spain taste just like American burgers. The beef in Bahrain tastes like ass, and no amount of ketchup can hide that shitty taste. The Big Macs I had in Spain and Morocco were heavenly.
Asians, no matter where you go, will always be taking pictures. This Japanese dude was no exception. In fact, he got in the way of lots of our pictures. Asshole.
This was a massive park in the center of the city, much like Central Park in New York City.
A cool fountain we passed as we were lost trying to find the hotel.
Me, freezing my ass off on the bus. I took well over half of the pictures on this vacation, but I was so cold on this bus that I refused to take my hands out of my pockets. All I wanted was off that damn bus. So almost all of the pictures you see of Madrid Rachel took. Apparently the Minnesota weather hasn't left her like the Ohio weather has left me.
A good ol' American restaurant.
I actually took this picture. It was an accident that I got the statue of the Pope (I didn't see it until I looked at this picture later.)
Most of the street signs were really, really small and really, really old. Some also were really, really cool like this one.
"Hey Miguel, what should we put in the center of this roundabout?"
"I don't know, Pablo. How about a rhinoceros will some balls ?"
WTF?
Another street. The bus was even colder on streets like this, where the sun was half-hidden by the buildings.
In both Madrid and Lisbon they've taken some of the main drags and tunneled them under the city so you can get from one side of the city to the other much more quickly. They helped quite a bit, actually.
An elevated look over part of Madrid.
Unfortunately, we didn't spend much time in Madrid because it was so expensive. I wish we could have spent more time there especially at night because they seemed to have overhead Christmas lights everywhere.
Another cool old road sign.
A little square.
I've seen cops in cars, trucks, motorcycles, hell even on horses. But never have I seen them on scooters. Although I must admit scooters and small motorcycles were all over Spain & Portugal. I imagine they are so popular because gas is so expensive and they are relatively easy to park.
Rachel took a construction photo for Dad. Of what, I'm not sure.
We got on the open-top bus not too long after they started running. Within 20 minutes the top of the bus was full even though it was fucking cold, and then as we began stopping at various places the line to get on the bus started growing at every stop. These are all people trying to get on our bus. Maybe 4 or 5 actually got on. This photo was taken only about an hour after we got on ourselves. If it is this damn busy in the middle of winter I can't imagine what it's like in the middle of summer during the tourist season.
The crowds in the city started picking up around 11 am or so.
"Adidas Stuff." ?
Navigation was a bitch with signs only in Spanish, though I suppose our map was only in Spanish too. It should have been easy enough to match point A on the map with point A on the sign--but you try driving here and then come talk to me.
I liked this building.
Entrance to the main park.
Behind that statue is the Prado museum. The line to get in this place was about 400 deep at 11:30 in the morning. There were huge lines everywhere for anything touristy.
"English Spoken Here" on the Union Jack. Where's the American flag?
Another park.
Randomness. The buildings by and large in the city were very large, very ornate, and very cool. Most of the architecture in Europe (or what I've seen, anyway) makes most American architecture look pretty bland.
And finally, a picture of one of the open-top buses that I froze my ass off on.
And here she is. It wasn't open when the taxi got there, so we camped out at a pub across the street and had a beer waiting for it to open. Luckily when it did open they had plenty of shirts, and they spoke English--something I noticed at all the Harley shops, people always spoke English.
There's the pub we camped out at--it's the brown sign next to the blue one.
Our hotel room in Madrid. It was really nice, but for whatever reason both Rachel and I slept like shit that night.
And after the Harley shop, we got another taxi to the other staple of any city we visit--the Hard Rock Cafe.
This was inside the Hard Rock--that bull would make noise every half hour or so and scare the shit out of people eating. Another cool thing at this Hard Rock is that we got served by--wait for it--a MEXICAN. He was cool as hell, saying how he hated the Spaniards, etc. etc. I asked how the local beer was and he told me it was shitty and that I'd end up ordering a Budweiser next. He was right. In fact, when I ordered the Bud he began singing the Star Spangled Banner. Awesome.
Q. If you don't have a backyard in Spain, where do you let the dog get some fresh air? A. Your insanely small balcony on which the thing can't even turn around.
This was a really cool roundabout where we waited for the open-top bus to come pick us up so we could do the city tour. After the Hard Rock we went back to the hotel. This was the next morning. I decided to take my chances and try to find a parking garage in the city. So we checked out of the hotel, and luckily I was able to find a garage downtown. We then walked around until we found somewhere that looked like it might be a spot where one of the tourist busses might stop. We thought this place looked like a good candidate, and we were right.
And this is a park that is opposite of the arch roundabout in the picture above. Once again, while we were waiting patiently for the open-top bus.
Between Rachel and I we took way too many random pictures on this trip. This is one. And unfortunately, I'm going to probably post lots of these.
Back to the hotel room. I've stayed in my fair share of hotel rooms and this is something I've never seen. This is a speaker in the bathroom that was connected to the plasma TV. As you took a shit (or shower, or whatever) the program you were watching on the TV was blared into the bathroom so you wouldn't miss one second of your CNN news on repeat.
The main drag of Madrid had bleachers set up for over a mile, like they either just had or were going to have some type of parade.
So I've been on 4 different open-top buses (London, Edinburgh, Lisbon, and Madrid) and I've always had a live guide that spoke English. This bus, however, was much different. You paid for your tickets when you got on the bus (which were good for all-day, hop-on hop-off, like most of them) and they gave you a set of headphones. You had to plug them into the seat in front of you, and then select a language. As you drove past certain sites, an audio guide would tell you about them. After having done both, I would much rather have a live guide.
What's funny is that English was number two on the little guide here--designated by the Union Jack (the British flag) but the audio guide was clearly an American.
I forgot to mention that Madrid was hands down the coldest place I have been in a long time. I haven't seen snow in two years, and haven't experienced temperatures colder than 50 or so degrees since then. Well, this is me waiting at the bus stop for the open-top bus after just looking at the temperature which was on a sign nearby. It was around 10 am and 2 degrees Celsius (around 35 F.) I was dreading having to get on one of those open toppers and drive around the city. I was fucking freezing sitting there. My blood must have thinned, because before I moved away from home anything above freezing wasn't all that bad. As the day wore on, we passed a temp sign that said it had warmed to 10 degrees C, or 50 F. Which was still fucking cold on the top of that damn bus.
Random street in Madrid, as most of the pictures are.
Ah, McDonald's. Everywhere humans are. I've also made it a goal to eat at a Mickey D's in every country that I go to, and I was very, very, very happy to find that the McDonald's burgers in Spain taste just like American burgers. The beef in Bahrain tastes like ass, and no amount of ketchup can hide that shitty taste. The Big Macs I had in Spain and Morocco were heavenly.
Asians, no matter where you go, will always be taking pictures. This Japanese dude was no exception. In fact, he got in the way of lots of our pictures. Asshole.
This was a massive park in the center of the city, much like Central Park in New York City.
A cool fountain we passed as we were lost trying to find the hotel.
Me, freezing my ass off on the bus. I took well over half of the pictures on this vacation, but I was so cold on this bus that I refused to take my hands out of my pockets. All I wanted was off that damn bus. So almost all of the pictures you see of Madrid Rachel took. Apparently the Minnesota weather hasn't left her like the Ohio weather has left me.
A good ol' American restaurant.
I actually took this picture. It was an accident that I got the statue of the Pope (I didn't see it until I looked at this picture later.)
Most of the street signs were really, really small and really, really old. Some also were really, really cool like this one.
"Hey Miguel, what should we put in the center of this roundabout?""I don't know, Pablo. How about a rhinoceros will some balls ?"
WTF?
Another street. The bus was even colder on streets like this, where the sun was half-hidden by the buildings.
In both Madrid and Lisbon they've taken some of the main drags and tunneled them under the city so you can get from one side of the city to the other much more quickly. They helped quite a bit, actually.
An elevated look over part of Madrid.
Unfortunately, we didn't spend much time in Madrid because it was so expensive. I wish we could have spent more time there especially at night because they seemed to have overhead Christmas lights everywhere.
Another cool old road sign.
A little square.
I've seen cops in cars, trucks, motorcycles, hell even on horses. But never have I seen them on scooters. Although I must admit scooters and small motorcycles were all over Spain & Portugal. I imagine they are so popular because gas is so expensive and they are relatively easy to park.
Rachel took a construction photo for Dad. Of what, I'm not sure.
We got on the open-top bus not too long after they started running. Within 20 minutes the top of the bus was full even though it was fucking cold, and then as we began stopping at various places the line to get on the bus started growing at every stop. These are all people trying to get on our bus. Maybe 4 or 5 actually got on. This photo was taken only about an hour after we got on ourselves. If it is this damn busy in the middle of winter I can't imagine what it's like in the middle of summer during the tourist season.
The crowds in the city started picking up around 11 am or so.
"Adidas Stuff." ?
Navigation was a bitch with signs only in Spanish, though I suppose our map was only in Spanish too. It should have been easy enough to match point A on the map with point A on the sign--but you try driving here and then come talk to me.
I liked this building.
Entrance to the main park.
Behind that statue is the Prado museum. The line to get in this place was about 400 deep at 11:30 in the morning. There were huge lines everywhere for anything touristy.
"English Spoken Here" on the Union Jack. Where's the American flag?
Another park.
Randomness. The buildings by and large in the city were very large, very ornate, and very cool. Most of the architecture in Europe (or what I've seen, anyway) makes most American architecture look pretty bland.
And finally, a picture of one of the open-top buses that I froze my ass off on.
posted by byroninbahrain at 5:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home