¡Hola Madrid!

22-24 November

My first time in Spain and with my favorite person in the whole wide world! 😍 This trip was definitely one of the most chill trips I have taken so far, mostly because I really couldn’t have cared less if we were on a barren wasteland. I just missed my sister even though we’re only a 3 hour flight away (yes, 3 hours from the UK to Spain!).

On FRIDAY, the first day I got there, the weather was a bit gross, kind of like the usual UK look. We stopped at the cutest little pastry shop right next to Sarah’s apartment, where she admitted that the lady definitely had to know her name because she went there too much. (No shame babe, the bubble tea shop owners know me by name too). We got these mini creme brulee bites and a really good layered mini cake bite. AMAZING. After grabbing our sweets, we went to her very nice flat. I’ve never seen a young adult’s flat look so nice and professional. Her roommates are amazing (even though one of them doesn’t clean which puts Sarah into a dark place) and one of them, Jay, was from southern England! I never realized all the little cultural things that I have picked up in Manchester until we started talking about some things that he clearly missed about his home, like his PG Tips bag that he literally had someone smuggle when visiting him.

By the time we were all done catching up, it was getting dark. We said goodbye and headed out to this cute *~*vegan*~* health restuarant called Honest Greens that Sarah has been wanting to try ever since she has reconnected to her plant based diet. Her roommates joke that she is happy and inspired by everything, and while there is a bit of humor to it, she really does put her heart into new little things that she encounters everyday. She pushes herself to learn Spanish even after a tiring day of translating at her school and she even was trying new foods like lentils (she broke a giant lentil bag open, found out she hated them after a small batch, and then put them into a bowl in her cupboard that I think has sat there since September lol). In the morning, I walked in on her doing yoga and she decorates her room very specifically to fit her cozy vibes. Now, she is back on a plant diet after watching a food documentary about meat consumption. As a life long vegetarian, I was THRILLED!

As we’re walking to Honest Greens, we found ourselves in the middle of the first day of the Christmas markets! I found them to be a bit different than I expected because half of the stalls were beautiful Christian figurines and traditional Christmas gifts while the other half of the stalls made me feel like I was at a carnival..? They had giant plush animals, random trinkets that screamed my local Dollar Tree’s name, and various versions of Santa hats. This was the very first day of the markets so they weren’t all set up yet but I would also say, people don’t come to Madrid for the Christmas markets so they just aren’t as spectacular as Germany’s or France’s. Sarah also explained that Spain is a v e r r r y traditional country; that is, they have very few influences from America on their holidays or day-to-day life. Not good or bad, just that outside cultural influences have hardly swayed them. I would say that the UK is much different as there are many American and other European influences on their culture which is maybe why I feel more at home? But what I WILL say is that the Starbucks in Spain has refreshers (UGH!!) and while they only have the Cool Lime flavor, I would 100% consider moving there because the UK has NONE of the refreshers!! (Hey @StarbucksUK, do you understand the money $$$ moves you’d be making if you introduced Strawberry Refreshers onto your menu because I have a severe addiction and need it ASAP).

Away from the markets, it started to rain and as I had no umbrella because iT nEvEr RaInS iN sPaIn we ran to the restuarant. And OH my gosh if that food wasn’t everything I have been craving. It reminded me of Piada, Balance, and CoreLife and had a very cute, nature-y vibe. The menus were in English (bless) and I blacked out for a moment as I ate a very delicious avocado-mushroom-spinach-boujee-healthy-toppings salad. It was also affordable so I would definitely reccommend this place!

It wouldn’t be a Schaller get together if ice cream wasn’t involved, so we set out on a quest for gelato (!!!!!!!!!). On the way, we came across some verrrrry interesting shops. One was super relaxing and made me want to decorate my home like Home and Gardens magazine. The other made me feel like I was in Japan; I was surrounded by so many cat themed objects and everything was super cute and puffy with either Spainish or Japanese written on it. The last store was what Buzzfeed would be like if you could walk around in their website. There were random TV products that were useful but you would most likely never use them. There was a whole section dedicated to Trump. Trump toilet paper, bobble heads, toilet brush, fuzzy haired dolls. Another section were decorations of objects that just said “You’re so f***** hot” on them.. So odd…? After walking out of what felt like a fever dream, we made it to the gelato shop. Sarah ordered in Spanish and the server asked her how long she had been speaking Spanish, complimented her, and explained how to order a bowl vs a cone (guess there’s a specific word). I thought it was nice of him to not start speaking in English when he noticed Spanish wasn’t her first language because many people I have encountered, especially France, will do this which is frustrating to someone trying to learn. The scoops were very cheap and amazingly delicious. No idea what flavor mine was, it was literally called “Violet Spain”.

To save money, we went grocery shopping for the rest of the weekend. The cutest puppy and a very nice shopkeeper greeted us in the fruit shop. She asked Sarah if we were sisters.. twins? Sarah didn’t know the word twins in Spanish so the lady LITERALLY acted out childbirth to demonstate twins. I mean, good effort of her trying to get over the language barrier, but very bold 😂😂😂. We bought some cheap apples then went to a supermarket for the rest of our food. Overall we spent €11 and bought carrots, peanut butter, chocolate, squash, yogurt, tomatoes, cucumber, bananas, juice, and face wipes. It was a lot of food for very little and it makes me appeciate the cheapness of Spain (the UK would never).

SATURDAY brought beautiful weather and we decided to pack a lunch to save money and have a little picnic in the park. While Sarah started packing out food, I took a very interestingly cold yet hot shower. Sarah didn’t think it was a big deal, but in Spain, hot water is not common. Public sinks only have ice cold water. Sarah said she thinks this is why she gets sick so much at her school because she can’t properly kill the little kid germs that sneeze and cough on her 24/7. At her apartment, you have to light a little fire in a box that heats up the water for the sinks and showers. While a bit inconvienant, it was smart for energy conservation!

Our first destination was the cat café, La Gatotecca. We were an hour late for our reserved time (oops) and had no idea what the lady said to us in Spanish so we walked into the cat area. I picked up this cute kitty and one of the ladies started scolding me in Spanish, yet I had no idea what she was saying! Finally, a worker explained in English that we were supposed to wait 30 minutes until we could go in and they were supposed to have went through a mini orientation before we entered explaining that we shouldn’t lift the cats up. Kind of awkward, but they were nice and we were clearly very confused. Sarah explained that moments like these happen anytime she steps out of her daily school routine but she was happy we could experience it together. In the end, it cost us €4 each for a drink and to spend half an hour with the rescue kitties. Worth it.

After our fill of fuzzy heaven, we decided that the beautiful day could not be wasted indoors. As we walked to a park to eat our lunch, Sarah explained to me how there was this amazing train station with a huge jungle inside. As we turned to continue our commute, suddenly Sarah exclaimed that there was the exact station she was just talking about! Excited to see the hype of this indoor jungle (and to see how impressive it really was for myself), we took a quick detour. And tbh, I was shocked with how cool it was. It felt like I was in the tropical jungle section of the Toledo Zoo, the only thing missing was the smell of monkey poop and humidity steaming up my glasses. There were tons of plants and tropical trees reaching up to the glass ceiling. We spotted a bunch of wild bananas hanging from a tree. And sitting on the stone benches lining the walkway was a woman eating Burger King and texting. I was brought back to reality when I realized that this was actually a fully functional train station. The government filled half of the train station with 7,000 various plants made up of 260 different species in 1992! The train station expanded, leaving the now tropical jungle area empty. Now if only Perrysburg would fill the empty Kroger with a jungle…

Away from the station, onto the park. This is one of Sarah’s favorite places, Retiro Park, and I can now fully agree. Retiro is an enormous park in the middle of the city yet if you stand near the center, you can only faintly hear traffic. It was the perfect spot for lunch. We found a bench between some trees glowing fall yellow. There was even a pack of cats that lived near the bench! The pigeons didn’t seem to mind them and as much as we *spspspspsp’ed* at them, they didn’t seem to like humans much.

After our lunch, we continued walking around the park. At what seemed like the central part of the park, there was beautiful landscaping with a view of the city. A man was playing the accordian nearby and someone was sitting reading a book looking out over Madrid. I didn’t think it could get much better but MAN I was wrong! As we continued walking, there was a giant lake where couples and groups of friends had rented out little boats and were paddling around on the perfectly blue water. We almost rented one too, but decided that our fingers would mostly likely turn the color of the water after a few minutes.. it was cold in Madrid! Instead, we settled on ordering some very traditional Spanish food at the outdoor cafe next to the lake. We ordered churros con chocolate and patatas bravas. The churros don’t have sugar on them, unlike its Mexican counterpart, but are equally as yummy when dipped in the liquified hot chocolate. The patatas bravas are potatoes with a spicy sauce but our pro tip is to dip them in leftover churro chocolate! That is, if you don’t drink it all first.

Next on our list of must-sees, the Prado museum. We decided the best way to get there would best be spent cutting through the park as we had left much unexplored. And to our lucky surprise (mostly because my fingers were turning red), we stumbled upon the weirdiest, what-the-hell-whispered-under-my-breath-iest, museum I’ve been in. It was a contemporary art installation by an artist who was into African culture and Fibonacci numbers (I have no idea how to explain it, so read this article if you’re interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number). He seemed to love neon lights and the number sequence 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55. It solidified my love for the classical art peices but the whole installation itself was pretty cool and revived my poor fingers.

After the contemporary museum, we went to the Prado, which is a very famous classical museum in Spain that offers free admission to students (and the public in the evenings on certain days). You weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside and the one I did manage to take got blurry somehow! Dang! (Here’s the website in case you wanted to see the artwork on display https://www.museodelprado.es/.) Something interesting in the area of paintings that we explored was that Spaniards would bring in people with mutations or who looked different to get their portraits done. Usually these people would live in the palaces to amuse the royals. One of the particular paintings that intrigued Sarah and I was a portrait of a six year old who weighed 150 pounds! It’s believed she had a genetic disorder that caused her disproportionate weight and she died when she was 25. While the reasons behind getting these paintings commissioned is sad, it gave a picture into the oddness of the the past and how they may have viewed something as normal while now we would never consider bringing in unusual people just to stare at them.

With our art hunger satisfied, we went back to Sarah’s apartment to get ready for the night out. Sarah and Claire (my friends from England) flew with me to Madrid but I hadn’t hung out with them yet. Apparently they met some Irish guys while on their own little adventures and they invited them to their band performance. It sounded pretty cool so we thought we’d go for it as we had no other plans for the evening. Unfortunately, our public transportation had other ideas for us. Me and Sarah waited FORTY MINUTES for the bus to arrive and when it fiiiinally did, it was so packed that the bus driver didn’t even stop. Extremely annoyed, we walked to the nearest (more reliable) subway. On our way, I reminded her that this would just make for a great blog story because no one really wants to hear about sunshine and rainbows all the time. And as if on cue, when we stepped off the subway to meet up with Sarah and Claire, there was 100% nothing sunny and bright about the neighborhood we found ourselves in. While we didn’t feel unsafe, it definitely was not a place high on my bucket list I wanted to travel to. We quickly stepped into a convienance store to grab a bottle of water, but the shopkeeper was busy playing drinking games in the back of his store with his buddies. Classy.

GoogleMaps was telling me to turn right but I kept thinking “No, this can’t be it.” But as I turned, I saw two familiar faces waving at me from underneath a lit up strip club sign. Yeeeeeah. They had been waiting at the backdoor of the venue with some other concert goers (which was right next to the strip club) for a few minutes waiting for us and said that while we were definitely at the venue the band had told us to go to, it was a little strange. We quickly decided that this was not our scene and went back to the metro.

Claire’s roommate had suggested going to the Ibiza area of Madrid for some cute bars. We walked, and walked, and walked some more. Either the bars were too expensive, too packed, or too empty. I felt like Goldilocks. Eventually, as we were reading a menu on the door of a very posh looking resturant, a Spanish woman smoking outside asked us what we were looking for. She suggested going to one of two cheap bars: one was very fun, loud, with cheap drinks and the other was chill but had great food and drinks. We thanked her and went to the more relaxed bar. Thank god for that woman, we landed on a gold mine!

When you order drinks at a Spanish restaurant, it automatically comes with tapas, or bar snacks. We got small glasses of beer that came with quiche slices and these dough balls. AMAZING. We then ordered croquetas and an onion stuffed with ratatouille filling. We were all having a great time, catching each other up on the adventures we had that day, laughing about the weird stuff that always seems to attract themselves to me and Sarah. Our waitor could sense we were having fun, gave us shots on the house, and then as we were leaving asked us in Spanish “Where are you guys off to now to dance?” To which we replied, “Bed!”. The Spanish are known to stay up very late on nights out, with most bars and clubs just beginning to open at 11pm. And that includes the dance club that is right by Sarah’s apartment, because I could hear the bass thumping until 5am.

SUNDAY The last day with Sarah!! This was the worst day because I knew I had to leave and I was not looking forward to it. Sarah had been such a great host, letting me borrow her stuff, that I took her down to the pastery shop to pick out some sweets before we started our day. She picked some good ones: palmera de coco and this really moist sponge cake bite. The palmera cookies were dusted in coconut and were made of two cookies smooshed together with an almond paste. The moist sponge cake felt like I was biting into a citrus fruit, it was that juicy! I’ve never had a pastry that had so much juice soaked into it, it was weird, but really really good. On our way to the Almudena Cathedral, there was a little park with some fountains, so we stopped to eat our desserts and watched little old men play something like horseshoes and some fluffy dogs play catch with their owners.

As almost if the city knew that we had just consumed over 1,500 calories, we were greeted with the biggest set of stairs I have ever seen. But in order to get to the Almudena Cathe dral and Royal Palace we had to muster up our quads. Some heavy breathing and burning thighs later, we made it! We stopped to rest by this wall that was built in 800AD, one of the first structures of what is now modern day Madrid. A tour group stopped nearby and me and Sarah began to eavesdrop. The guide explained how the wall signified Muslim influence on the city because of it was built when Muslims had control over the area. She also explained how there is evidence of Muslim influence on the architecture and language of the Spanish city, as well as Jewish and Christian.

So we actually thought the building behind the wall was the Royal Palace but it was actually the Almudena Cathedral! The cathedral was not built until the late 1800s then was finished in 1993 (after work on it was abandoned during the civil war). The insides have various styles and eras of artwork depicting different parts of Christianity. It was so peaceful Sarah and I didn’t talk the whole time. None of the pictures I took even came close to justifying the beauty of the architecture and art.

Okay so we thought the cathedral was the palace but we weren’t far off! Right behind the cathedral sat the home of the Spanish royals. To get into the gates you had to buy a ticket, but it also meant that we could explore the inside too. Tickets weren’t too shabby, €6 for students. TIP: Buy online because then you can skip the huuuuge line and the price is the exact same, just make sure you show your student card with your digital ticket.

While the plaza was beautiful in itself, sitting atop a giant hill over Madrid, nothing would prepare me for the inside. I wish I could think of a better word than lavish to describe the interior rooms but I’ll stick with it. Unfortunately, there were only a couple of rooms we were allowed to take pictures in so I can only try to describe them. The rooms we were given to tour were richly, expensively, lavish as hell. There was one room where everything was porcelain, including the wallpaper. The royals each had a room for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dressing, sleeping, smoking, and studying. From top to bottom, each room was gorgeously thought out, from the same monochromatic color scheme in some, to tons of gold and classical paintings in others. The dining room had 50 chairs down a table so long and perfect I thought I was looking in a mirror. And to be honest, the throne room wasn’t even the most extravagent, but still quite powerful. I just could not even begin to imagine the life of a royal, especially hundreds and thousands of years ago. But, they also can’t begin to imagine mine either. Without getting super deep, we only have one life so you’ll never understand how someone else is living theirs *mind exploding*.

To end our day, we went on an extensive search for a cute postcard. Spoiler alert: there were none. Everything was extremely tacky. We ended up going to a small, artsy neighborhood outside of the city, watching owners walk their dogs, a soccer player do cool tricks with her ball to music, pigeons puffing and cooing and walking by us, and little kids running around their Spanish mothers. It was a relaxing last few moments of Spain. We even made it to the airport early (wow, be proud mom!). I felt like I was going back home to Ohio. It’s so weird that we’re both in Europe and with very different lives. The UK feels more like home to me while Spain was so culturally different. I can see why Sarah loves it, especially with all the sunny days! I can’t wait to go back for Christmas xx

PHOTOS I DIDN’T INCLUDE BUT LOVE… ENJOY