Spain - Madrid

This is my introduction to Madrid and why I hate RyanAir blog post.

Did you know... did you KNOW that failure to check in 4 hours prior to boarding results in a SEVENTY EURO PENALTY?! Here I was, being that guy, minding my own business thinking it`d be a simple matter of handing over a passport or whatever and having some pleasant person with an accent hand me a boarding pass. No sir. Not Ryan Air. I`ve actually spent some time researching why other people hate RyanAir to make me feel better. There are websites.

That`s god damned ridiculous.

(Artist's interpretation)

I got my luggage on just fine though. That part was easy. Had to hide a small backpack under my jumper as they only allow one carry on so for a while I was a fat guy!

Anyway Madrid is nice. I met a nice German girl on the plane and we had a nice chat. She showed me how to use the Metro system in Madrid (which is . Amazing) then we parted ways. It was almost refreshing not doing the whole Facebook thing - I've been thinking about it a lot and I daresay I'll make another blog about it - but at what point do people become friends enough to add each other on Facebook?

The day before arriving in Madrid I was in Guimaraes which is supposedly the birthplace of Portugal and was declared Europe's City of Culture for 2012. It was ok but I mean it was just ok. I had 5 hours there and I feel like 2 hours would have sufficed. There was a large castle and stuff but the real highlight was the lunch. Found a nice restaurant where the only guy who spoke English was the chef and had some octopus rice. Which for those curious, was literally just octopus and rice. The rice had flavour though and the guy suggested some wine which was pretty amazing and it was actually super cheap. Nice place.

(They're actually going for the European city of sport in 2013. Calm down guys)

So today I'm sitting in the youth hostel waiting for some guys to wake up so we can go get some tapas. Ordinarily I think I'd do the walking tour but this tapas sounds like fun so I'll just do the tour tomorrow. I've got something like 4 or 5 days here in Madrid so I'm in no rush. Due to the exorbitant punch in the face from RyanAir I've opted to take the bus to Seville which is 6 hours. blerg. ha.