I couldn’t believe I’m going to all these destinations. This was going to be one heck of a trip and I’m going to capture every moment! Tim, Jason and myself caught an early morning flight via continental airlines out of sunny San Diego and head to Madrid, Spain. The flight starts off with a 6 hour trip to New Jersey then to our destination, Madrid. We arrived and went through the security checkpoint no problem. Oh except Jason who was frisked down immediately. We board the plane to set off for our new adventure through Europe.
The skies looked so peaceful and calm like little puffs of icecream or cotton. I can certaily understand the idea of a castle in the cloud. The whole flight over I was thinking how beautiful it was to be so high up in the sky.
When I first got off the plane, I could not believe that I was in a whole new country. I’m in Spain! It was a warm 76 degrees and an obviously beautiful day. We grab the metro and head to our hostel, HostelOne Centro.
The hostel was quaint and homey. The walls were of earthy tone and felt right at home. The staff was friendly and I was excited to stay at my first hostel. Hopefully it will be a good first impression.
We settled in and packed our valuables in the locker and head out to get some errands done.
Afterwords we grab some bites to eat and take a cruise over to Tolbert to see the ancient castle. It was a nice little day trip and very relaxing. It’s funny being with two other photographers as we spent the day taking beautiful photos and capturing some great film rather than going on site seeing tours.
The streets were small and deserted. Small birds and what we thought were day bats were flying overhead. We’d turn a corner to find a small dog staring at us from the windowsill.
Sometimes I think it’s better to just get lost and explore wherever your heart tells you to go. You might end up with quite a journey!
Finishing our day, we decide to head back to the hostel and head out into the town. We grab some pizza and sangria at a local restaurant by our hostel and talked about how crazy it is to be in Spain. One thing I noticed is that customer services in Spain wasn’t very good. We always had to ask how or where to do something (such as paying) and it took forever to get anything.
I can’t believe we will be running with bulls in a couple days.
We head back to our hostel and deposit all our valuables in a locker and decide to head out and meet some locals.
We head out and visit some local bars in which we meet some cool locals and foreigners and of course I try my hand at speaking french again. We met some nice individuals from all around the world. Everywhere from Iraq, Portugal, Brazil and France. One guy even said he worked for Bin Ladin’s brother.
I must say it is a nice change of pace being in a different country where there are a lot of different cultures. It’s always fascinating hearing the cultural differences and similarities. Whatever the case may be, I didn’t expect the bar to be playing a song from Grease.
After a great night, we head back to our hostel and rest for the night.
Date: 7/11/11
[…] Day 1 – We Are In Madrid, Spain! […]