Day 1 (12th of jan)
We arrived in Madrid airport this morning at about 7:30 am, flying into the city everything was pitch black and look as if it were midnight. By the time we were able to disembark from the plane at around 8 we could just see the sun peaking over the distant mountains.
Stepping off the plane we were greeted by a rush of freezing cold air signalling the end of the Australian summer.
We passed border control without any issues and I got to utter my first few words in Spanish, "si, si, Gracias" I'm not 100% what the border policeman had asked exactly, except I had heard the word student in there somewhere. We then made our way to baggage claim and still freezing collected our luggage. Now came the part I had been dreading most 'CUSTOMS', there were two open doors in front of us, one titled 'nothing to declare' and the other I don't really remember. I asked the other which door they were going through and we all made the decision to walk through 'nothing to declare' and see if anyone stopped us. To my complete surprise, they didn't.
behind the door was practically empty except for another door and we went through that and found ourselves in the arrivals terminal and free to leave the airport completely. (very odd in my opinion)
After a few hours of waiting around the airport till we could check into our accommodation, we all parted ways. Another student and I made our way to the taxi rank (which has a strange hierarchy system) and managed to find a taxi large enough to transport our almost 90 kilos of luggage to the street of our apartment.
We gave the driver the address and managed to explain that it was near the Museo de Reina Sofia (which is an absolutely massive museum) and then he sped off. literally. I am not kidding, it's almost like Spain has no road rules and everyone driving there knows this and instinctively manages not to run up the backside of a fellow car or collide as they both merge into the same lane. While bracing myself against the back seat and watching the road in front of us I caught a glimpse of mountains way in the distance that seemed to be covered by a red haze and possibly also snow-capped.
The strange thing about Madrid is that everything seems to look so familiar yet so different at the same time. For instance, the roads we were driving on you could almost mistake for the M4 or M7 as the overpasses we drove under looked similar to the light horse interchange (nowhere near as high) though) or the bridges that you drive under along our motorways, complete with graffiti!
Our apartment is up 4 flights of stairs which a lift that manages to do 3 of the 4 thank goodness. It's quite small but suitable for the two of to stay in for the first 6 days of this trip.
Advised to sleep later in the evening we spent the remainder of the afternoon walking for about 2 hours checking out places that could sell us a SIM card. Eventually, we came to Atocha station (pretty much like central station) an absolutely massive building and in there found a news agent. we explained to her that we were after a sim from a particular company (lebara) because all we had seen on the streets was lycamobile. She moved out from behind the desk said what roughly translates to hang on a sec came to the door of the shop and pointed. Assuming she was pointing at a rack or something where the sim cards were hanging we peered around and started laughing as she had pointed across the corridor to a lebara sales stand that we had completely missed, we thanked her and then made our way over and purchased our sim cards.
Dinner was early by Spanish standards and noticeable by the fact that pretty much nothing was open, purchasing strongly flavoured kebabs we ate quickly and made our way back to the apartment running into an Italian woman from New York who had just arrived in Madrid today as well. We sat down on the couch and watched a bit of TV during which I appeared to fall asleep from exhaustion. at this point, I think I had been awake for 43 hours because I found the plane trip too uncomfortable and stressful to sleep. I woke up about 10 minutes later and decided that perhaps it was time to get to bed... probably a bad idea as I woke up at 11:30pm spent the next 2 hours going in and out of sleep and then the 5 afterwards a mix of tossing and turning, listening to music looking up stuff and now writing this post.
I still feel pretty exhausted, however, the mission for today is for the 4 of us to meet up and hopefully get our residency cards from a local police station... let's hope they're open on a Saturday.
Words of wisdom: It appears as though the garbage is collected at 3am Saturday mornings here, and that the local people don't go to bed until 2:30 am.
Stepping off the plane we were greeted by a rush of freezing cold air signalling the end of the Australian summer.
We passed border control without any issues and I got to utter my first few words in Spanish, "si, si, Gracias" I'm not 100% what the border policeman had asked exactly, except I had heard the word student in there somewhere. We then made our way to baggage claim and still freezing collected our luggage. Now came the part I had been dreading most 'CUSTOMS', there were two open doors in front of us, one titled 'nothing to declare' and the other I don't really remember. I asked the other which door they were going through and we all made the decision to walk through 'nothing to declare' and see if anyone stopped us. To my complete surprise, they didn't.
behind the door was practically empty except for another door and we went through that and found ourselves in the arrivals terminal and free to leave the airport completely. (very odd in my opinion)
After a few hours of waiting around the airport till we could check into our accommodation, we all parted ways. Another student and I made our way to the taxi rank (which has a strange hierarchy system) and managed to find a taxi large enough to transport our almost 90 kilos of luggage to the street of our apartment.
We gave the driver the address and managed to explain that it was near the Museo de Reina Sofia (which is an absolutely massive museum) and then he sped off. literally. I am not kidding, it's almost like Spain has no road rules and everyone driving there knows this and instinctively manages not to run up the backside of a fellow car or collide as they both merge into the same lane. While bracing myself against the back seat and watching the road in front of us I caught a glimpse of mountains way in the distance that seemed to be covered by a red haze and possibly also snow-capped.
The strange thing about Madrid is that everything seems to look so familiar yet so different at the same time. For instance, the roads we were driving on you could almost mistake for the M4 or M7 as the overpasses we drove under looked similar to the light horse interchange (nowhere near as high) though) or the bridges that you drive under along our motorways, complete with graffiti!
Our apartment is up 4 flights of stairs which a lift that manages to do 3 of the 4 thank goodness. It's quite small but suitable for the two of to stay in for the first 6 days of this trip.
Advised to sleep later in the evening we spent the remainder of the afternoon walking for about 2 hours checking out places that could sell us a SIM card. Eventually, we came to Atocha station (pretty much like central station) an absolutely massive building and in there found a news agent. we explained to her that we were after a sim from a particular company (lebara) because all we had seen on the streets was lycamobile. She moved out from behind the desk said what roughly translates to hang on a sec came to the door of the shop and pointed. Assuming she was pointing at a rack or something where the sim cards were hanging we peered around and started laughing as she had pointed across the corridor to a lebara sales stand that we had completely missed, we thanked her and then made our way over and purchased our sim cards.
Dinner was early by Spanish standards and noticeable by the fact that pretty much nothing was open, purchasing strongly flavoured kebabs we ate quickly and made our way back to the apartment running into an Italian woman from New York who had just arrived in Madrid today as well. We sat down on the couch and watched a bit of TV during which I appeared to fall asleep from exhaustion. at this point, I think I had been awake for 43 hours because I found the plane trip too uncomfortable and stressful to sleep. I woke up about 10 minutes later and decided that perhaps it was time to get to bed... probably a bad idea as I woke up at 11:30pm spent the next 2 hours going in and out of sleep and then the 5 afterwards a mix of tossing and turning, listening to music looking up stuff and now writing this post.
I still feel pretty exhausted, however, the mission for today is for the 4 of us to meet up and hopefully get our residency cards from a local police station... let's hope they're open on a Saturday.
Words of wisdom: It appears as though the garbage is collected at 3am Saturday mornings here, and that the local people don't go to bed until 2:30 am.
Atocha station
some apartment pictures
Jamon (prosciutto) and brie roll from the airport
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