September 29, 2010 air traffic control and baggage claim department of airports in Spain go on strike. Airlines flying in, out and around Spain find themselves having to cancel hundreds of flights. We spent all week walking on glass and checking the status of our flights. There was three separate groups heading out to Spain last weekend, one destinded to Ibiza, one to Barcelona, and then Veronica, Laura and myself to Madrid. The flights being cancelled included that in which seven of our classmates were on. Laura Veronica and I had planned to fly out to Madrid Spain the following day, September 30th.
We had spent the first part of the week studying for our first British Studies two hour essay exam; covering over two eras of history and three questions in which to answer. After the essay was over it was vacation time and we were off to the airport, still unsure if we would be taking off or not. We had dinner at the manor and then took a taxi to the train station. It’s here where our travels to the airport alone went downhill. About half way down the mile long driveway I realized I had forgotten my passport back up in my room, of course making the taxi driver turn around ( hey at least I didn’t get to the airport, right!?!) After arriving at the train station, we had another bump in the road and mistakenly got on the wrong train, heading forty minutes in the wrong direction. The ticket collector came around and clearly we didn’t have the right tickets, thankfully he gave us a print out of three additional train switches we could take to get us back to the airport. After a few shady stops along the way we made it to the airport, and only ten minutes later then we were originally scheduled, if we would have gotten on the right train in the first place. After all this we settled in for our night of “sleeping” or in better terms attempting to sleep in the airport.
Then our weekend had an amazing change. After two hour delay we were finally taking off for Madrid, after all our upset in travel yesterday we finally made it Madrid, Spain and it was amazing. We had the ultimate girls’ weekend!After getting settled in at our hostel we showered and headed out to explore. We headed to Sol, which lies in the heart of Madrid as well as the heart of Spain. We walked around seeing the Plaza Mayor as well as many other historical sites. The view was amazing. Old decorative buildings lining narrow cobble stone streets. We walked around and had a mini photo shoot of the sites until around ten o’clock. Ten o’clock is also about dinner time for the Spanish culture. So we headed back to our hostel and cooked spaghetti, I know it’s not a traditional meal from Spain but hey it was only three Euros when all said and done! We crashed soon after that knowing we had to big days ahead of us and getting little to no sleep the night before.
Friday we woke up and went on a shopping mission. We went out back to sol which was shopping center with decently priced clothes. We did some damage in Spain, shopping wise! Spanish culture then calls for Siesta time from 2-4 everyday. During Siesta time one leaves works and heads home for a nap and then returns back to work to work much later then your standard 9-5 job. Our siesta time on Friday and Saturday was spent on the roof time doing nothing but soakin’ up some sweet Spanish sun rays! After siesta we got ready for the night. 
Laura and my friend from school, Sean, studied abroad last fall in Sweden and met a classmate Javier who is from Spain and currently lives in Madrid. We met Javier that night and he took us to el parque de siete tetas, in English, the park of seven boobs. The park contained seven large hills that overlooked all of Madrid. It was a view that my camera will never do justice for and I will never forget. We sat and watched the sun set , had a photo shoot and conversed in Spanglish with Javier.
Javier is currently a Spanish teacher in Spain, working with elementary school age students and special education kid, which made it easier to communicate. We both were infatuated with each other language and the four or us spent time just conversing in both English and Spanish. And surprisingly I remembered more then I thought I would, not saying I’m good by any means but I was impressed by myself ha. 
After spending time at the park we went to his house and met his parents, who were so welcoming and had our laughing so hard. His dad kept trying to give us food and drinks. I could have stayed there all night with them. We then left to meet us with some of Javier friends. After drinking in another park, we headed out for the evening, or should I say morning. For in Spain the clubs don’t open until about one, one-thirty in the morning. Once it hit about five five-thirty in the morning Laura, Veronica and I had one thing on our mind… OUR BEDS! And we called it a night, arriving back at our hostel in bed around six in the morning, which to them is calling it an early night, crazy huh!? Needless to say the following morning we were pretty useless. We Laid in bed until Siesta where we laid out on the roof again. Finally we got cleaned up for the day and walked around other parts of Madrid we had not seen.
Later in the evening we met up with Javier again. That night we went out for Tapas and Sangria, in which us girls had been waiting all weekend for. Let me tell you the Sangria was worth the wait and was amazing! We called it an early night that night, still around midnight or so for we had to catch a shuttle to the airport at 3:25 am on Sunday. The trip home was smooth, for we slept every part of the way home still trying to recover from the weekend. Con todo Madrid encabeza la lista de lugares que he viajado. Realmente han caído en el
Nice write up, looks like way too much shopping and night life.. JK I do like the idea of a siesta!
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