Madrid, Spain!! (Part I)

As everyone probably knows, this past week my friend from home, Ali, came to visit me.  The first weekend she was here, we went to Madrid, Spain together.  It was very cool.  The weather was a bit cloudy but it was nothing that stopped us from getting around and the temperature was perfect, staying in the 60s for the most-part. 

I'm a little burnt-out on writing so I will probably try to keep the commentary to a minimum.
After we got to Madrid on Friday morning, spent several lost hours in the rain trying to find our hostel (all the while being just a block away from it), and ordered something we didn't know off a Spanish menu (I ended up with a tuna sandwich :-(  ), we finally got settled in and headed out in search of attractions.  
The first place we went was the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which is the official residence of the Spanish royal family, but I don't think that anybody actually lives there.  Here's the view as we walked up to it:

Ali and I stopped to take pictures in front of it:

We wandered over to the visitor entrance to find that it was already closed for the day so we peered through the gates in an attempt to see what we could of the courtyard and view from it.  Here I am in front of it:

Across from the Palacio Real was a church called Santa María la Real de La Almudena.  It was pretty, but we didn't go inside:

After that, we wandered around for a bit and then headed to Plaza Mayor to see what was going on there.  I thought that Plaza Mayor was a really fun atmosphere.  The square is very cute and colorful and there are people and restaurants and street entertainers everywhere.

It should also be noted that there are statues of men on horseback everywhere in Madrid:

The sun finally came out and it made Ali and me very happy!

This is the start of my street entertainment section.  Street entertainment was huge in Madrid.  People did all sorts of crazy things and other people pay to watch:
This is a man posing as a statue, you can see that he moved between the two pictures; Ali even got a picture of him taking a water break.  People posing as statues was probably the most common form of street entertainment that we saw.  Imagine getting paid to sit very very still...

photo courtesy of Ali:

Pietà!

A big spiderman guy who was kind of creepy but amused me:

A guy who was making giant bubbles:

After a bit, we ventured out of Plaza Mayor back towards our hostel in order to find dinner.  On the way there, we found ourselves at the Puerta del Sol:

As you can see in some of our pictures, the sun really draws people out.  All of a sudden, there were people everywhere:

On the way back to our hostel, we saw even more street entertainment:

As I said, this was all on our way to find dinner.  It should be noted, and I alluded to it earlier, that being in Madrid and not knowing any Spanish (except hola, uno, dos, and tres) is somewhat problematic, especially when it comes to ordering food.  Surprisingly, there are not many people that speak English, not even in areas that could be considered more touristy.  The other important note about food on our trip:  When you are hungry, there is no good food to be found, whereas after you've just eaten, delicious, well-priced food is everywhere; that is the way it seemed for the entirety of our trip unfortunately.

Well that is the end of our first day in Madrid.  Check back later for more posts.

Also, for another perspective on these events check out Ali's blog at http://aliontheloose.blogspot.com/ I don't think she has anything much posted yet but keep checking back and you'll find something :)