One of my favourite cities: Madrid

In 1998 a young new player jumped to the goal of Spain because of an injury. I looked at this man and suddenly knew what my type was: Iker Casillas. Wrote the name down on a piece of paper and ever since I’ve been a big fan. Obviously when I was younger, I got a bit obsessed with the idea of one day heading to Madrid and seeing Iker play. “Somehow he’ll see me and the rest is history.” Well up to this day, I have never seen him play (I’ve tried 3 times) and I’m pretty sure this love story is never going to happen. But it did inspire me to want to head out to Madrid. Actually I was pretty obsessed: When living in Tarragona, I kept on telling everyone that I’m a madrista. So I had high hopes and expectations on Madrid, but lucky for me, I absolutely loved the city.

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After working for 6 months in Port Aventura, I convinced my Swedish room mate to head to Madrid with me before going back to home. Our plan was pretty simple: We were young and wanted mainly to shop and party. I have way too many photos of bars on this trip but that was the life back then. I had one mission only and that was see Iker Casillas play. Unfortunately I rather learnt a valuable life lesson: If you made it all the way there: Just do it! My room mate wasn’t feeling like paying 60€s for the game and for some reason I decided not to go on my own. I thought I would be back soon enough. But I was wrong and now the man has retired from football and I haven’t seen him play. When you have a chance in life to do something: Don’t hesitate!

I used to have a lot of pen pals and I was learning Spanish with my pen pal, Luis, from Madrid for years before heading out to Spain. Meeting up with Luis was one of the best decisions we made and he made sure to take us around to some of the must sees of Madrid. He gave us valuable information and helped us with our little city break. Plus he was awesome company and we had so much fun! He deserves a major acknowledgement and a thank you for this holiday. Unfortunately the angsty young girl in me didn’t take many great photos on this holiday so I don’t have so much to show you. But here’s what I could gather:

Chocolateria San Gines

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Markets

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Parque del Buen Retiro & Palacio Real de Madrid

Overall Madrid was not a disappointment to me. The feel of the city is very different than it’s touristy rival city’s Barcelona’s feel. I loved the shopping areas and we had great fun partying around. One thing I always always always recommend to taste and try in Madrid is CALIMOCHO. A coke & red wine mix that they have in taps in bars. So yummy! And I’m totally hooked! Got to visit one of the Universities of Madrid too but obviously don’t have any photos of that day. This is how I travel. I experience and later on I’m bummed out that I don’t have enough photos. Maybe I need to start thinking about hiring a photographer?