“Suns out, Guns out”

Madrid

When we arrived in Madrid, we were greeted by unhelpful staff at the bus/train station that informed us that our hostel was 250km away from the town centre… to our relief, she was incorrect, but offered no help as to how to get to our hostel. Her little English, and lack of maps, trying, interest and care, left us to asking a taxi driver how far, and how much to get us there… luckily it was quite close, yet quite far from civilisation and he happily took us to… hell. We were taken to a distant suburb, much like Doonside, full of factories, and little life and arrived at our … hostel. We walked in to find a hospital like foyer, and hesitantly checked in. We then walked the mile long hospital hallway, past multiple rooms, each with their doors slightly ajar, with a peering eye checking out us and our luggage as we walked past, and arrived at our door…  We walked in and were greeted by 3 fold out beds, which we would be sharing with a stranger the following night…

After locking our luggage and tying it to any secure surface we could find, we decided to check out the surrounding area… We sat in the adjacent café which overlooked a hotel opposite us… after much discussion as to whether or not we would survive the night, let alone the other 4 nights, we decided to inquire the price of the hotel. While Sara went across to confirm the details I had already found out, I was approached by a Russian lady who wrote down on her paper “I’m deaf, are you Australian?” … While I was unsure how she would know that, if she were deaf, but remembered that she had hovered around us during check in, it was possible she had read our luggage tags, I obliged and replied “yes”.

We then began a discussion, on paper, how she had come to Spain to marry a rich man who had cheated on her and later changed his mind. She told us that she wanted to remain in Spain as a refugee as she was scared to go home, because her family worked for the Russian military, and she was bisexual. She also told us that she did not have enough money to go home, but had paid for her trip to Spain to meet her new husband-to-be…  We informed her that we had no money and could not help her, though offered many suggestions as to how she could find work. When I asked if she could perhaps clean in the hostel in exchange for board, she looked disgusted at me, and claimed that “how could she come here to marry a rich man, to then become a cleaner” to which I replied “do you have any other choices”… She assured us that she did not want our money, only someone to talk to, as she had been living there for two weeks, and no one else spoke English, nor tried to talk to her, on paper. Eventually we had to wish her well and be on our way, to change to the hotel across the road to feel safer… we decided to spend 3 nights in the hotel before finding a hostel closer to the city which we knew would be vacant for the remaining 2 nights.

When we went and retrieved our things from our room, and checked out of the hostel, we noticed that the Russian girl was in the common dining area, in what looked like a conversation with her fellow guests… though when she noticed we were watching here, she conveniently had food in front of her mouth, so we could not confirm whether she was talking to others or not… we are still sceptical on whether she was actually deaf as her notebook was nowhere in sight…

Now in the comfortable safety of our ill-equipped, modest hotel across the road, we decided that venturing out at night was not an option. We then resided in the hotel for the next 3 nights, catching up on downloaded One Tree Hill episodes and sleep. We only ventured out once to mail some things home, which was an effort in itself, making sure to be back in daylight. Luckily we had found a supermarket to buy some things to get us through our three days… however, with no fridge we were left with cup-a-soup and had to beg the staff to give us some hot water… the only restaurant near us, served us salmonella chicken which we moved around the plate and four day old bread rolls. On our last day at the hotel we decided that we did not want to be in this position again, so thought we should look at booking accommodation in Italy. We found out that the tourist season had started with a vengeance and everything was getting booked out, and expensive very quickly… We spent 5 hours booking all accommodation, and trains for the following month to make sure we would be safe, prior to meeting Mum in Naples. It was a very long 5 hours, of “you do it, no you do it, this internet blows, I can’t look at this anymore, I hate you, Italy blows, I booked the last one it’s your turn, I’ll throw the computer at you if you don’t book the next place, let’s just go home, I hate booking shit, screw it mum can find us somewhere else, come on we’re almost there, just book the last one, you do it, no you do it, FINE, thank god that’s over”…

Finally our three days were up and we lugged our things into the city, happy to finally escape our near death experiences of the suburbs and arrived at a lovely hostel…

We quickly dropped our bags and went to meet our guide for yet another New Europe walking tour, our favourite company. We were taken around Madrid so see many monuments, churches, parks, squares and the palace and were told interesting facts about the city. With the summer fast on its way, we learnt the phrase “suns out guns out” from our guide which we have continued to follow… meaning when the sun is out, one must rolls up their sleeves so as not to get sleeve tan lines. However, it is not so effective, when one wears sunscreen at all times, like it is going out of fashion. Other beloved sayings of ours include “new city, new shirt” or “moving day is changing day”.

We loved our guide so much that we decided we would follow him to the pub crawl, but first we had to go back to the hostel to do some much-needed clothes washing… the dryer however did not agree with out schedule so we figured, we would leave our clothes in the dryer in hopes no one would want to steal everything we own… luckily we were right.

We were taken to different bars and clubs throughout the city and were given free drinks and free entry because we were part of a tour. When we stumbled into a cab we arrived back at the hostel asking the staff where we could find some food outlet that would be open… at 4am… he informed us that it was very late, but showed us on the map where we could find some pizza… we followed his directions and found the pizza place… and then realised it was the exact place we had got our taxi back to our hostel… we now realised our close proximity to the city and were glad the taxi had only cost us 5 euro, and no longer got the train from then on. Now with a full belly, we snuck into our hostel room, so as not to wake anyone and we passed  out in bed….

The next morning we were woken by fellow roommates, who politely collected their things and left us to sleep while they checked out…. However at midday, when we were clearly still sleeping, one of our roommates decided it was time for us to be awake, and continued to rattle a plastic bag, turn the light on, talk at full volume to his friend, take out everything in his metal locker, put everything back, take everything out, put everything back, talk loudly, continue rattling his plastic bag… until finally Sara asked “how long will you continue to make noise, as we are clearly trying to sleep” he replied with “but it is time to be awake, and other people had turned the light on hours ago so I thought it was light time now”…. Ummm noo you bastard they were checking out so it is understandable for them to make a slight noise, but you insist on rattling for no apparent reason other than to piss us off… so he bitched about us in French to his friend until finally retreating to the commonroom… just outside our window…

We were now clearly awake and there was no way of continuing our sleep, so we began getting up to face the shower… mmm…… the shower was in a row of 10, all of which with a shelf, outside the shower door so you had to lock yourself into the shower with all your belongings on the outside,  and the only way to get your belongings was to walk out naked or by wrapping your wet towel around you, which you have had to hang inside the shower for any chance of modesty… The shower itself was powered by a button, which was on a 30 seconds timer, so that you had to repress the button with shampoo in your hair, soap in your hand, and no chance of choosing the temperature as this was predetermined  by the shower fairy. The shower also had no pressure so you got to run around to get wet, and it took many, many 30 second intervals to get any of the soap out of your eyes/hair and so you were left with using your wet towel to remove the layer of soap in your eyes to then brace walking out dripping wet to collect your clothes in hopes of finding a free toilet stall to then stand on the toilet while trying to keep your new fresh clothes dry and dressing with no room to swing a cat…

Now refreshed, we were able to brace the day… we spent the day wandering the streets, looking at various shops and each bought matching sandals which claim to tone all muscles, and make us slim and beautiful… we were sold. By the end of the day it was apparent that they were working, we could now feel muscles we did not know existed. Later we read the brochure that warned us to wear in the sandals in half our stints to ease our bodies into our new workout.. thanks sketchers shape ups… I can’t wait to see the full effects of your magical shoes…

That night we went to a flamenco dancing show, after changing to normal shoes, as we could barely stand upright… it was an interesting show. I had never seen this style of dance before, and was amazed at their tapping ability. As I have taken tap lessons I understand the technique, strength and effort that goes into making such syncopated rhythms and was impressed at their ability to create complex patterns, not only with their feet, but by clapping in alternate rhythms to the band. However, I’m still unconvinced as to the need for their “stink” faces…

The next day we packed up our things, posted off a present to our new addition to the family, Miss Matilda Rose, who we are soooo excited about meeting, and headed to the airport for our flight to Milan…