We booked our hostel for Madrid somewhat in haste and on the train ride we realized that it was very central. As it turned out it was only about a 3 to 5 minute walk from kilometer 0 at Puerta del Sol, which is considered to be the centre of Spain and the times square of Madrid.
We were actually lucky to find our hostel because there was no sign on the building and all we had was the name and address. After checking in and being shown around, by fluke it appeared we got a pretty good hostel. It was really more of a group apartment. The smallest hostel we stayed at so far, there was a TV with movies playing all the time and computers you could use for free. All located on one small level, there was maybe only 20 people staying at the place which made it very easy to meet everyone.
We decided the first thing we should do Friday is go and pickup Scott's permanent passport from the embassy. This turned out to be fairly painless. Although, we where lucky. They where actually supposed to be closed, but the girl there was nice enough to help us anyways. Because this took so little time we ended up being right on time for the 3 pm walking tour.
Probably not the best walking tour we have been on, but it was still good. Highlights of the tour included seeing the Royal Palace of Madrid, a walk by the oldest running restaurant in the world and the stop at a tapas bar where we got to pick from a large selection of small sandwhiches.
That night we went on another pub crawl. This was probably the second best pub crawl we have been on, (after Berlin) but not by that much of a margin. As it turned out there where a few people that had been on our walking tour that were also on the pub crawl, some of which where some girls from Austrailia. (This is a notable fact because as it happened we ended up pseudo traveling with them for the next week.) Once again we got to the last bar on the crawl after 3am. However, (unlike in Valencia) when we left the club we where actually half a block away from our hostel. Definatly a good night.
On Sunday by fluke we found out that there where bull fights still gong on. This was somewhat of a surprise because we where told by our walking tour guide that they where done for the season (however, she was from San Diego and it was only the 5th tour she had led so she was bound to get something wrong). Before the bullfights we had time to visit the Museo del Prado and check out some famous pieces of art by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya and El Greco among others.
After the museum we got to the bullfights with lots of time to spare. (We realized later that night the reason for this was we had forgotten to change our watches for daylights savings, but better to be early than late.) The bullfights are quite the specticle. Basically it is an elaborate way to slaughter a bull, and some go down quicker than others. I would get into details, but for those of you who are as squeemish as the many tourists that left after a bull needed countless stabbings to the brian to be finished off, I will not elaborate anymore. We enjoyed it for the most part and made sure to get our whole 7€ worth by staying for all 6 bulls.
