First Real Day in Spain: Marking Our Territory!

The Palacio Real.

Outside the San Fransisco el Grande
(before we snuck inside! :))

Baby Jojo.

A break from our 73963412 mile walk at a garden.

Puerta de Toledo.

JNelly outisde the Lavapies Metro stop.

Janelle and Joel had an early rise today i.e. a little before 8am because our hostelmates woke us up since they were leaving/Janelle was up earlier than that because of the music outside. But, we took advantage of the early morning and beautiful sunrise by taking a walk throughout the city. We had lots of energy after our "Americanized breakfast" of toast and cereal which we took advantage of and ate a lot of. Not many of the stores were open because it was so early, but we learned that a lot of stores didn't open up anyways(we still don't know why). Janelle's handy book says a lot of July is a "break time" for Spainards. We started off with no particular rhyme or reason however we began to find our ground and start adventures toward Madrid's "top ten" locations. We went to the Catedral de la Almudena and the San Franciso el Grande which were both great for amazing pictures-attached. Then, we went to the Palacio Real which was the top place to visit in Madrid. Janelle and Joel aren't too knowledagble in the art and history arena, but nevertheless, there were amazing displays of art on the cielings and such. No pictures were allowed even though Joel tried to take one and got attacked right away by security(it was frightening). The rooms were lined with silver and gold a lot of the time and it was a great deal of fun. We got some nice pictures of the amazing buildings though with Janelle's "expert" photography. After our art adventure, we finally figured out how to work the metro-it was a lot easier than we could have expected(read panic story from yesterday). We rode the metro to Ventas to see if there was a bull fight going on because Joel is dying to go see one. Little did we know, the bull fights are only held on Sundays so Janelle and Joel will be returning to see one at 8:30pm on Sunday. After that, we went to the grocery store and had a delicious time buying pizza and drinks for dinner tonight-the pizza turned out to be...interesting haha. Then we decided to take a siesta from four to eight. When we awoke, Janelle thought that it was the next day and even told the new hostelmate "good morning!" with a response of "long night?" Janelle said "No we went to bed really early." Little did she realize, it was the same day and Joel had an exasperated explanation of telling Janelle that if it was the next day then we would have had to have slept for 20 hours! Janelle's time clock has been a little off and both are still a little confused with time, but we're getting there. NOTE FROM JANELLE: Okay! It is a little difficult to get used to the time change! I have been catering to my baby brother and it is exhausting so we'll throw that in there...trying to come up with excuses for my repeated "blonde" remarks...Tomorrow is gonna be awesome! We are going to the Kings Island of Spain called Parque de Attracciones. The park is filled with roller coasters, water rides, American food!, etc. It should be a good time. We are also looking into trying to make it out to Paris and/or Barcelona before we move on to Rome. We'll keep ya posted. Janelle has been doing research on the internet in our down time. Hasta luego for now!

PS Janelle wants to note that although our hostel is shady, we have the best showerhead I have ever experienced in my life! Love, JJ