It is called "The Way" and is right in the center of Sol. When our driver from the airport was taking us there, it looked to be a very sketchy area and we were getting nervous. All the horror stories we heard about hostels came flashing into our minds. And when the driver stopped at a building that had a pub in the basement, I was terrified! But it turned out to be wonderful! It is the top rated hostel in Madrid and rightly so! The workers were so happy and helpful, the rooms clean, it had a kitchen for us to cook our own meals, a lounge with flat screen TVs, and free Internet access. 
This picture is of me, with Sarah and Reesa, in our bunk bed at the Way. Our first day in Madrid had a shake-y morning, we slept in a room of 8 girls, two of them had stayed up til four in the morning packing their crinkly vacuum bags so we did not get much sleep. But it was still an amazing day. Our first stop was the Prado Museum! This is one of the most famous museums in the world and I can tell why, it was breathtaking on the inside and the out. I saw originals of some of the worlds most famous paintings and sculptures. No pictures were allowed in the building but here are some of the outside! 
The favourite thing I saw there was the Roman statue exhibition, ever since my Mythology class, I've loved anything pertaining to mythology, it's so fascinating and it's everywhere here! I see it on buildings, notice parallel story lines in movies and theatrical shows, hear it in songs... it's fun :) After the museum we were STARVING! After looking for a place to eat we decided to go to a restaurant that Ericki (our hostel receptionist guy) recommended. It served traditional Spanish food. One dish we wanted to try is Paella (there is supposed to be a squiggle over the e and it's pronounced pie-A-aah) which is sort of a Spanish casserole. Not going to lie, I expected Mexican food. I know that wasn't smart of me, but it's true. Here is Paella, if you can tell, it is most defiantly NOT Mexican food.
The picture does not capture the whole of what is paella. Keep in mind though that I did actually like it. The other girls didn't but I would order it again if given the chance. This is a rice and seafood dish with chicken. The chicken is first plucked then chopped up and thrown into a pot of water, bones, skin, blood and all. Then the sea food is added, muscles, scallops, prawns, crayfish, and calamari. The crayfish are whole and still have their eyes and legs. The rice is then added to soak up the water and flavor, some peppers are thrown in to the mix, and it is served! Here are some closer up images so you can get a 'taste' of Spain yourself: 
It really is tasty, I probably owe it to my Dad that I liked it at all, from learning to enjoy trying new foods when possible. Thanks Daddy! 
In this Movie, me, CJ, and Rachel eat a crayfish as Sarah watches disgusted :] The legs were annoying cause they got stuck in my teeth... but other wise they were yummy! After lunch, Reesa was feeling sick (not from the paella from the stomach flu) so she went home and took part in the national ritual of siesta. This heaven sent daily activity is national nap time. Everything closes down from 2-5pm, shops, restaurants, pubs, museums,everything. I personally think that America should take part in this event as well. But it did cut in on the limited time we had there. Those of us who weren't sick went and found the Plaza Mayor and Palace Royal. (the Plaza is the red brick building and used to be they mayors house but now is used as a political office space and we saw opening Carnival ceremony concert in it on our last day (more on that later)CJ is on my right and Sarah on my left. The Palace is the big pretty white building)
After wandering the beautiful sunny grounds of the palace, we went back to the hostel to check on Reesa, make dinner (spagehtti), and go to a Flamanco show! The show was breath taking. There were only 2 dancers, a boy and a girl, and a 4 person band with 2 singers. The singers were entertaining to watch sing, each time they had to reach a high note or hold a note, they would scrunch their face all funny like :] the band was a keyboard player, two guitarists, and a drummer. The drummer was not on a drum set but a funny little wooden rectangular drum that he sat on. It was the coolest drum I have ever seen.
The dancers were so pationate, it was beautiful. The male (Paulo) did a solo number and he was so fierce the typical male dancer = gay did not cross a single person's mind. He was gorgeous too, that did help the fact that everyone was in love with him, at least I was twiterpated by his dancing :] The girl (don't know her name) had a solo number too and was graceful like none other I had ever seen. All in all, this was one of my favourite parts of Spain. The show started at 10.30 pm and went till past midnight. Siestas must be put in place because everyone stays out so much later than any other place I've ever been. On Friday the five of us hopped on a train to Toledo, where the phrase 'Holy Toledo' comes from (from people making fun of the religious people influencing politics). This city was beautiful, hills, old architecture, and my favourite, sword making! My Grandpa Pommerville used to collect swords from around the world before he died and I think he got one that was made in this city. I think this because my favourite sword of his (Arthur's Excalibar) said 'Made in Spain' on it and I saw the sword's sister sword. It made me tear up a little bit, remembering Grandpa. I wanted to buy his sword so badly but I highly doubted the chances of me being able to get it home on the plane... stupid American security measures... Anyways, here are some lovely pictures of Toledo, it's cathedral, and gorgeous scenery.
This is a pretty little alley we found while looking for the Cathedral.This is another illegal picture I took (I should probably stop doing that) inside the Toledo Cathedral, which is the grandest cathedral in all of Spain. It was beautiful and I just needed to take a picture of the stain glass.
This is a skyline view of Toledo from the library. This is me with Toledo in the background :] It's gorgeous isn't it?
This is the train station in Madrid that we went in to catch the train to Toledo. After Toledo, Rachel went back to the Hostel because she hurt her foot and couldn't walk. And the rest of us and one of our new roommates Kyle (Kyle was so nice! She is a graduate from UC Berkley who decided that she wanted to tour Europe taking cooking classes in all major cities and then make a cook book her blog is culinaryhopscotch.blogspot if you want to check it out!) went to one of the opening ceremony activities in the Plaza Mayor. It was not what we expected. When you think of Carnival, you generally think of masked people and a huge party. What we saw was a piano concert from a piano that was suspended 20 feet in the air. Pretty cool but not as excitin as we would have liked. After a few minutes we got bored and Kyle went off to a pub and the 4 BYU students went and got delicious churros and thick hot chocolate to dip them in to take back to Rachel so she didn't feel so sad about her hurt foot. Here is a video of the carnival piano show and a picture of us with our churros! Our churros were the second best snack I ate in Spain. The first is fondant filled licorice called chucharios and made by a company called Fini, I definatly could eat them all day long! (don't have a picture sorry, ate them too fast)
On our last day in Spain (Saturday) We relaxed a bit for Rachel'd foot and went to the Reigna Sofia Museum. We saw Rembrants, Dalis, and a million Picasos along with other famous people. Here is Rachel in her borrowed wheel chair at the museum (her foot is doing fine now, still hurts but getting better, it was a stress fracture)
Here is me studying two of Picaso's great works. 'The Lady in Blue' is one of his more famous ones, I think it's rather ugly but what do I know about his blue period?
I enjoyed the photography rooms very much in this museum. (pictures are allowed in museums in Europe so this is in fact a leagal picture, unlike some of my other ones)Our very last stop in Madrid was a stroll through La Parque del Buen Retiro, Retiro Park. It was absolutly beautiful. The best part was that it was sunny and warm!! We were able to take or jackets off and roll our sleeves up even! I quickly rolled my sleeves back down becasue my skin literally was glowing from reflecting off the sunshine that it hasn't seen in over a month. It was a perfect way to say good bye to Spain in my opinion, enjoy these pictures of it!
On a hill walking up from the museum to the park we saw these crazy long boarders, they were very good actually! CJ wanted to try out a longboard but we felt silly asking them to borrow a board so we just took stalker-esque pictures instead!Sarah and me along the trail:
The whole Madrid group in the entrance to the gardens. In the gardens there was a place where lovers would write their names in the sand, well... Spain is my lover in this picture! (and by Spain I mean that gorgeous flamanco dancer :P hehehe)
There was this cute little lake in the center of the park where couples were rowing around and being all mushy and having a great time, it's really the perfect spot for that here in this park. There were couples everywhere. roller blading, eating ice cream, reading books outloud together, very cute :] There was even a street performer! I could not understand a word that he was saying since it was in spanish, but it was still very fun to watch! The only not fun part about it was I was almost pick-pocketed. I felt something on my backpack and turned around to a lady trying to open by bag up! Scary! I wanted to punch her! But everything was safe, the only htink in the pocket she opened was my teddy bear Henry, now I would have hit her if she had taken him but honestly, no one but me wants him :] It was still an amazing experiance in Spain and I would go back in a heartbeat.
The very last adventure we had is affectionatly called the 'Airplabe Fiasco.' Not only does this involve us as the Madrid group, but many other groups as well! Everyone flew on a cheap European airline called Easyjet. This service is cheap and fast but does have a problem with delayed and canceled flights. We got the best of both worlds with this one. On the way to Madrid, there was not a single problem. On the way home our supposed 3 hour journey turned into an almost 12 hour journey. For our flight, we got there and hour early so we could print off our boarding passes and the computer was broken. Then our flight was delayed 3 hours and we were stuck in a terminal that was under construction so it had no food except overpriced candy. They did hand out free sandwiches and Cokes to apologise for the awful delay, but they were nasty. Then CJ lost her boarding pass and because the computers when we checked in were down, she was not in the system so she almost was not given another one and almost not allowed on the plane!! After that was all sorted out, what we were worried about the most was getting back to the London Gatwick Airport in time to catch the train and tube home. We were on the train with the other Spain group whos flight home was cancled! They were not able to get back home untill 2 days later(which is why I'm glad I changed Spain groups). My group ended up making the second to last train home, caught up with one of the Scotland groups who was delayed, but the tube had shut down by the time we got into London at 12.40am. So we waited 36 minutes for a bus to come to the train stop for us to ride home on. The bus ride took 47 minutes and by the time we stumbled into the BYU center, we were dead on our feet. But we were safe and sound so it all worked out in the end, just shows that prayers do get answered! We were all praying up a storm with all this frustration going on. Many other groups, most in fact, experianced problems of their own but we are all back safe and sound back home! (picture is of Reesa, CJ and Rachel chilling on the airport floor waiting for our flight)
All in all, this extended weekend was AMAZING!!! Have a great day!
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