Bienvenidos a MADRID!

Our first few days of Spain we stayed at Hotel Regina, a really nice hotel in Madrid. I was so jetlagged and tired because I didn't sleep at all on the plane. We met our director Kepa, he's really nice and from the Basque territory of Spain. He took us on a bunch of walking tours and we saw the Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol  and Palacio Real which took about 25 years to build and had something crazy like 1,000 rooms. There were dressing rooms, throne rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, all with marble, crystal and gold everywhere they were so pretty and reminded me of a fairytale. All of the ceilings were really detailed and had frescoes painted directly on the ceiling. While we were in Madrid I tried to eat authentic food and I sort of succeeded. The most authentic place we went was El Tigre, a tapas bar where you had to stand the whole time and if you ordered a drink (I got cider which tasted like a sweeter version of beer) you just got about four heaping plates of tapas for free. So I tried croquetas and a few other mysterious things...I still don't know what they were. While in Madrid a bunch of us got churros con chocolate  and paella and lots of sangria so I think I we did good enough on trying Spanish food. We went to El Escorial, a mountain town an hour outside of Madrid, where the summer palace is located. All in all the whole place is a palace, a monastery, a school and a cathedral, it was huge. There were a lot of tombs of important dead people that were really ornate and cool to see. After that we went to El Museo del Prado where we saw a lot of Goya and Velazquez paintings. My favorite was Las Meninas by Velazquez. Our guide was really energetic and knowledgeable and told us about alot of the aspects of each painting in Spanish and she was really easy to understand unlike some Spaniards who have hardcore lisps and talk really fast. We went out one night in Madrid when we were walking through Puerta del Sol and some guy came up to us, offered us free entrance and a free drink to a club and brought us down a side street. I was pretty sketched out and I don't think I would do that at home but we were in a big group and apparently this type of club promotion is pretty common in Spain. It ended up being awesome and they played the weirdest music including Cotton Eyed Joe, Spice Girls, Destinys Child and some other pretty weird stuff with some fun American music mixed in like Teach Me How to Dougie. All in all I loved Madrid but it made me even more excited to get to Sevilla!!