Modern Madrid

After spending a day and a half in madrid I find myself with relatively little to say about it. Although it has its share of interesting buildings and nice parks, it is first and foremost a modern city, and, at least visually, not as distinctive as most of the smaller cities and towns I have seen until now. Of course, had I known someone in Madrid to show me around, I probably would have gotten a much different sense of the city, but I mostly walked alone and therefore missed most of the city´s hidden treasures.

I found myself enjoying Madrid´s busy night-time streets more than its daytime charms. I stayed at a centrally located backpacker hostel with a friendly social atmosphere, so finding a group for evening outings was easy. My second night in Madrid was a Friday night, so it was the natural time to venture into the streets. Our group kept growing in size as we made our way out of the hostel, and we snaked our way slowly through the busy evening streets doing our best not to lose anyone, which made for very slow progress.

Eventually, two French girls, a Canadian guy and I separated from the main group in search of some food. After a snack, we made our way to one of the pub/club hotspots and spent a couple of hours chatting at a bar. Unfortunately, my companions were too tired to go dancing, so we ended up getting back to the hostel around 2 am, a time when the local discos were still empty because it was too early by Spanish standards.