Madrid Misadventures & Maladies

Greetings to you all!

It is now March! Many of you are now on spring break (if you're at Valpo), coming up on spring break, or wishing that you were still a student so that you got a spring break...

I'm writing mid-week a bit under-the-weather as I seem to have caught an not-so-fun bug that has been going around. So, to get the reality of this post, just hear a raw cough every couple sentences and it'll be just like I'm there telling you the story.

So, this past weekend was a great adventure! I and Aileen (one of the girls here in Morocco with me) took the train up to Casablanca Thursday night so that we could catch our flight out the next day to Madrid, Spain where we were both meeting friends.

Taking the train in Morocco is an adventure in and of itself, as it is not well-marked so foreigners are never quite sure when to get off, where they are, etc. It's a good time. But we got first class tickets on the way up (you're not assured a seat in 2nd class which I experience on the way back) and had a good time talking. Once we arrived in Casa we found our way to Hotel Metropole which had been recommended to us and had ourselves a good laugh.

I'm afraid even this picture does not do the room justice...peachish sponge painted walls, maroon velvet bed coverings, pillows, oh and heavy drapes of the same color covering the windows. With that bright red part on various parts...the doors were pink, fake flowers on the table and various evidence that the room hadn't been cleaned too recently. Awesome. The sink dripped, the toilet had this awesome pulley flush...but it started flushing randomly in the middle of the night, oh and we woke up to this terrible sound of construction/rolling dead bodies around/throwing trash cans around...but hey for about 150 dirhams each, which is less than $20 (and the price I paid for a hostel in Spain) I guess I can deal with anything for a night.

We found Casablanca to be fairly sketchy and not that enjoyable...note for all those Casablanca movie fans. It was filmed on a lot in Hollywood. And the only thing reminisicent of the movie is a bar recreated for American tourists, which we didn't find it necessary to experience.

Anyway, so we got up and caught yet another confusing train to the airport and made it with time enough to get utterly frustrated with the Casa airport because of its lack of food, high prices, and just annoyingness. But we finally made it on our Easyjet flight which was suprisingly nice for a discount airline. I swear I had more legroom than I did on my 9 hour flight from New York to Morocco! Arrived in Spain in time to see the sunset over the mountains outside of Madrid via our airplane windows...

Pause. (This is the problematic moment in the trip. When excitement and lack of attention could have caused a serious problem.)

We went through customs and baggage claim with no problem, and I exchanged money to get some euros for the weekend...the guy asked for my passport which had happened like 5-6 times in the space of 3 hours so I was fairly used to handing it over and having them hand it right back....a few metro stops and hostel desk later, I realized that the last part of that equation had not occurred.

For those of you who have not experienced the moment you realize that you're in a foreign country without your passport, I hope you don't. I like to think I took it rather well however, and we quickly made plans to go and retrieve it the next morning while the hostel owner (a kind man sent from God I swear) called the airport multiple times to no avail (basically because i was mistaken about which terminal I came in...). Anyway, we had made it to our hostel, which was lovely, and met up with my dear friend Nicole who had a long journey via trains from Germany where she is studying this semester. It was so good to see a friendly face from home!

So our first evening in Madrid was a bit nervewracking, but we still managed to have a nice meal in a little Spanish cafe, fall in love with the Spanish architecture walking around, and learn that Madrilenos enjoy being outside in the evenings...and in the wee hours of the morning, as we learned staying in a hostel right by one of the main plazas, Puerto de Sol. So, after a first nice evening we fell asleep exhausted.

Saturday morning we woke up and set off for the airport with a dual mission: find my passport and meet up with Aileen's friends so that they could travel south to Seville together. By 11:00 both were completed with success! [We sent lots of thanks to the big guy upstairs this weekend]

With that done, and Aileen off on another train, Nicole and I began our trek around Madrid to see what we could see! And what a day we had! We had brunch at Cafe Comercial, walked around the Palacio Real, took in the sights of the Plaza Mayor and enjoyed seeing the street artists paint them as well, the Catedral De San Isidro, walked down the Paseo de Recoletos and had Starbucks (I know its Western but it was SO GOOD to have a Chai Latte! You never know what you're gonna miss...), and spent some time in the Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia...long name for an art musuem, where we saw works by Salvador Dali and Picasso, even Guernica! Sadly, by the time we hit the museum which was an utterly confusing maze of hallways and galleries, I was beginning to feel very achy and tired (foreshadowing the coming week), so we took a little break.

We ended our day at Casa Alberto where we had the Spanish signature tapas...basically like little appetizers that you share...which was a lot of fun. Our waiter was hilarious and the food was warm and yummy and much needed!

Nicole's train left late that night and I went back to the hostel and slept, got up the next morning and nursed my sickness with more Starbucks before toughing it out and going to a Spanish street market which was very fun and full of fun things to buy before I went back to the airport for the 3rd time that weekend to catch my flight back to Casablanca, followed by train, taxi, train, grande taxi...home in Ifrane by 11!

Quite the whirlwind weekend, but totally worth it to get a little taste of Spain and to spend time with Nicole which was a wonderful blessing!

Back this week I've descended into utter sickness, which I at first determined to tough through in favor of getting through a project due yesterday but when that project sank because of my sickness I abandoned that notion. So today was a sick-in-bed day with the hopes to avoid feeling bad for future days. Otherwise I have a paper due Saturday, which if I can get through I will have a weekend of much needed rest after traveling virtually every weekend since I've been here!

Hope all is well wherever you are!