Madrid!

¡Hola a todos!

On Wednesday I went to Madrid for the Ministry of Education's training day for all the language assistants in Spain. It's quite an interesting tale so I will start at the very best place to start - the beginning.

I set off on Wednesday morning for Sevilla Santa Justa - the largest and main train station in Seville, which I had never been to before. I thought i'd attempt to navigate the metro. I didn't really know where it is so I asked at customer service in the metro station. I went over and asked her 'How do I get to Santa Justa' she looked me dead in the eyes and said 'No, imposible'. I gave her a bit of a look and said 'So I can't get there?', to which she just replied 'No. NEXT'. I grabbed a map and looked where it was, took the metro to the nearest station and walked the rest of the way. It really wasn't that difficult and certainly not impossible.

At the train station after a mini heart attack of seeing the price of the train - it was 60€ each way for a return of 70€ for a single. Seeing as I didn't know when i'd be leaving friday as I really wanted to stay longer and have a look around Madrid, I bought a single and planned to buy my return the other end when I was leaving. This didn't quite work out as I hoped.

After the best 2 and a half hour train journey of my life - this time I was on the high speed train - the AVE. This really is a high speed train, I think it said the top speed is 250 km/h, not too bad! I slept the whole way but kept waking myself up with my head falling forwards off the edge of the window. I woke up a few times to people giving me a bit of a funny look. I just went back to sleep. When I arrived in Madrid I didn't realise the distance to the hotel, my phone was on about 2% battery and as that is my source of all knowledge and maps, I thought if I attempted to get there via the metro and it died, I would be eternally stuck in the Madrid metro system so opted to take a taxi there. The taxi driver nearly killed me a few times, but other than that it was alright. This turned out to be a wise choice as someone else got a metro and a bus to get to the airport, then a taxi from there which is definitely closer and it cost us the same. Although I got there in about half the time he did. Good old instincts! Or maybe laziness. Probably instincts though.

The hotel that the Spanish Ministry of Education had organised for us was seriously good too - the biggest hotel in Europe. I thought I had been in some pretty big hotels but this was something else. I went to the reception where the woman told me that we wouldn't be staying there and there were no rooms for us, I had a brief panic of where the hell am I going to stay for 3 nights but then I saw other English people heading toward the lifts so went and asked a different receptionist on the sly, who checked me in to my room.

A lot of people opt to do this programme so I thought that they would have provided a lot of rooms, maybe why they chose to do it in the biggest hotel in Europe! As I went to put the key card in the door I heard voices in the room, we were sharing rooms with others. Turned out the 2 who were in my room were actually really nice (I was told not to bitch about them on here because they're going to read it. If you want the truth, ask me privately.) They were really nice guys who turned out to be working not too far from me. We had no warning that we would be sharing rooms, which led to some funny stories. The first guy in my room, Jason, decided to strip off and get into bed for a siesta when in walks Josh to see another man asleep in, what he thought was, his bed. Slightly awkward. Could have been worse, one of the girls we met said she was in the shower when her roommates arrived.

Over the two days we had various talks about different aspects of what we will be doing, our duties and other things. It didn't really teach me anything that I didn't already know - but it was a trip to Madrid in this incredible hotel with dinner, lunch and breakfast included. The food there was incredible. They had a huge buffet with every kind of food you could imagine. I haven't really eaten that much when I've been here down to a few things so this was my chance to eat as much as I could before having to fend for myself again. I met quite a lot of people who will be working near me, including the uni friends of one the guys in my room, who were also really cool. This other guy then appeared out of nowhere and said he was teaching in a primary school in Castilla y Leon. Noone really questioned it until later on when he told everyone he was living a lie, he has a work placement in Madrid, isn't teaching and just came to see his friends while they were in Madrid and get some free food. Fair enough.

The next day was all in Spanish, nobody spoke English the whole day which was exhausting! I understood most of what was going on anyway! I didn't realise how much of a big deal this programme is too, there were various Secretaries of State there and ambassadors and representatives from all European countries. Very overwhelming but it did make me feel very proud for signing up to do this. That night everyone went to the bar and had some drinks, which was filled with some very very heated discussions about all kinds of political and economical topics. There was a girl from Glasgow there and when asked what she voted, caused an uproar of debate. She was very calm about it all though I'm sure there were some things she wanted to say! 

Today, we left the hotel early to go into Madrid and be a tourist. I haven't actually had the chance to be a tourist yet so to do touristy things was nice. We went to see the Palacio Real de Madrid which was really nice, saw a few more sights like the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and of course the Buen Retiro Parque. This literally blew my mind walking through it, it was absolutely incredible. And huge, too! Unfortunately my phone died and I stupidly forgot my charger so I couldn't take any pictures :( but there are loads on the internet if you're wondering what they look like, I'm sure!

After a tiring walk around Madrid and various metros, we went to the main train station - Puerta Atocha. When I went to buy my ticket back to Seville, there were no seats left on any train other than the premium class which was 150€. I had no phone and was stuck in the centre of Madrid, not ideal. After a huge panic and a very stressful hour or so, I booked myself into a hotel which I didn't realise was about 20 minutes on the cercanias from Madrid centre itself. The place seems to be really nice though and its very quiet as its not in the centre. Such a shame, I have to spend another night in the capital of Spain. Damn.

A very wise person once told me 'Every bad decision makes a great story'. Couldn't be more correct.

I went to look what I could get for dinner and walked past somewhere that I just couldn't walk away from - Pizza Hut. Surprisingly cheap yet so good! So here I am, sat in my hotel room, eating pizza, letting you all know what I got up to these last few days in Madrid.

#LaVidaLoca

David