It was a but overwhelming when we arrived at Madrid after living in tiny Amsterdam for so long. The directions to our hostel from the airport involved a bus and a metro, while in Amsterdam almost everything is walkable from central station. The city center of Madrid was enormous. Our hostel was located in Puerta del Sol, which I guess is a good location. All we did was eat, but for me that is a good day. After dropping off our bags at the hostel, we looked for a lunch place. Having read my lonely planet guide, I remembered that a lot of places have good lunch deals. All the cafes that we walked by were cutely decorated, so it was hard to choose; ultimately, we went to the place that had the most people. Upon seeing us, the owner opened up the menu to the English page and gave it to us. I am excited to use my Spanish again, since it has gotten really rusty since I left Ecuador. We flipped through the menu and found the lunch special, which, for only 11 euros, was really great compared to Amsterdam. For that price I got paella mixto (rice flavored with saffron and cooked with assorted seafood and chicken, originally from Valencia), lomo a la plancha (grilled steak), and leche frita. The leche frita looked like a block of tofu to me, so I couldn't help but feel like I was eating tofu instead of dessert. While I have had paella before, this one was really amazing; I'll have to figure out how to cook it. The steak was mediocre, but very fatty, so it's hard for me to dislike fatty meat :p. After doing some shopping (not that we have any room in our luggage), we went back to the hostel. Note though, Madrid has much better shopping than Amsterdam, and a lot of cute boutiques. Our hostel was full of a bunch of Irish teenagers (I thought they were British at first), who blasted trashy europop and took shots all night. It was inconsiderately noisy, but I was so tired that I fell asleep immediately anyway. Now I am on a bus to Seville, which according to a book I was reading at the hostel, is famous for oranges, women, and flamenco.
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