Last day in Madrid

At the end of the day I was REALLY exhausted… Telefonica was supposed to come to the hostal to fix the internet, but they never showed up. SPAIN!!!!!! In any case, I got Tuesday morning and decided to seek out the Plaza de Espana with the memorial to Cervantes (featuring Don Quijote and Sancho Panza) before leaving Madrid that afternoon.

Me in front of a fountain at the Plaza de Espana

Cervantes memorial (with Don Quijote in front)




I returned to the hostal to pick up my bags and went to a nearby Vodafone store to add some extra money to my cell phone since I had run out and thought I might want to have the cell in case I got lost or something. Afterwards I hopped on the metro to go to the bus station, even though I had about 2 hours until the bus left… and thank goodness I did.

The day before while I was in a metro station I asked a metro worker (since it wasn’t busy) how I would get from the stop near my hostal to the south bus station. He drew me a route on a map and I was on my way. Well, I went to that stop and wandered around a bit to find the bus station and what appeared to be a bus station looked abandoned. I asked a nearby old man where the bus station was (remember my Things I Learned In Spain? ALWAYS ask the oldest person around, they usually know their way around the city and they are so happy that at young person is talking to them they will happily help you, that is, if you don’t mind getting half a life story while you are at it.) Sure enough I got a mini-history of the bus station and long story short this particular bus station had been closed for months. He then gave me directions to where the relocated station was and I was on my way.

I get to the station (which was actually attached to the metro station… how the other metro guy didn’t know this, I’m not sure, but whatever) and I look at the big board of arrivals/departures, and I didn’t see a listing for Oviedo. Oh boy, I thought maybe I was yet again, at the wrong station. I did however see a listing for Gijon, a city nearby (remember the pretty beach pictures I uploaded recently?) so I decided to ask the info desk if that’s my bus. Sure enough, it was, it turns out they changed the route name on me since it will continue on from Oviedo to Gijon. Whew. I ended up with about 15 minutes to spare, but man, what drama.
I promised Jay's mother I would take pictures from the window of the bus so here is one of about eleventy billion (Shhh it's a number if I say it is!) photos, so this is just one of them. I am pretty sure this is the Picos de Europa entering Asturias again.

All and all I am glad I visited Madrid, if nothing else to see all the statues and paintings that I’ve studied during my college career… it really is different in person. However, I am also glad that I chose not to study abroad in Madrid. The city itself is, I suppose like any other big city… trash and graffiti everywhere, everything seems dirty, and it overall doesn’t seem very friendly. It was most definitely a touristy place, even though this is not "peak season," and as a result, most people automatically wanted to talk to me in English which was a bit annoying for me. I always responded in Spanish and sometimes people switched when they realized that I could communicate perfectly well in Spanish, but others continued in English. Again, one of those places that is nice to visit, but I don’t think I’d really want to live there…. Sort of how I feel about D.C, haha.