While I could have spent endless days walking around this city, I decided to make my time shorter here so that I could see some friends down south.
The city was a stark contrast to Barcelona – it was certainly more clean, and there was a buzz in the air that I couldn’t quite understand. I didn’t try to because I simply liked it.
I took a 3 hour train into Madrid. The Atocha train station was one of the coolest I’ve seen in years due to the massive indoor garden tucked inside the train depot. I walked less than fifteen minutes to my hostel, Latroupe, and immediately walked back out into the young night.
I found myself at the largest palace in all of Europe, the Palace of Real Madrid. While in line I met a new friend, Manuela from Belgium. She was Italian, spoke multiple languages and worked in the sports industry in Brussels. Meeting her in the que really flipped my not so great morning around. I accidentally went to the wrong location for my 40€ tour – for the record I despise group tours but I thought the palace had limited tickets per day and it was my only way of getting in last minute. Turns out all I had to do was pay for another palace ticket in person on the spot. Honestly really grateful for her refreshing change of pace.
We carried on past the Palace and into wine and tapas. Of course I had to get my new Australian friends to join since they were around the area. It turned into a fun last minute party. Manuela, Louis and I had coffee together afterwards. It was a cute lil girls night out. Then she had to catch a business dinner and Lou and I carried onto more wine. I promised myself I would stop taking advantage of all the red wine once I leave Spain.
Ended the night feeling incredibly grateful for solid female company and the ability to talk freely about the future and some of the more scary things regarding it. We said our goodbyes and I headed back to my hostel where I would grab my backpack and take the late night train into Seville. Spain has felt so lively each night that I felt perfectly safe roaming the streets after midnight.