I wrote an article about the perfect way to spend 2 days in Madrid, find it here. But of course, having a plan and sticking to it are two VERY different things.

I flew into Madrid with my boyfriend Kevin arriving at 7 a.m., Kevin’s cousin Andres was supposed to arrive an hour later, but because his plane was delayed we had to head over to receive our airb&b without him. Our friend Tyler that lives in Madrid met us at the airport so we had no trouble finding where we were going.

We sent a text to Andres giving detailed directions on how to get to the right metro exit and told him to text when he was leaving the airport. We knew how long the metro ride would be so we were going to meet him outside of the stop. We waited at a cafe, and waited, and waited. His plane had arrived, and no text! About an hour and a half after his plane arrived we were getting close to calling him a goner. But then we get an “I’m at the airb&b” text.

Okay cool, we head over to the airb&b. Nothing. We’re walking up and down the street looking for him. Our airb&b was on San Bernardino and Tyler remembered there was also a San Bernardo so we figured maybe he had gone to the wrong street. We made our way over there to search.

He had been there, but of course Andres didn’t have data, so when we were there he was off searching for wifi. After looking for each other in the way that you think only happens in cheesy sitcoms, for about 3 hours, we finally found each other.

Plaza Mayor

A little behind schedule, and hungry, we went to 100 Montaditos! Definitely a spirit lifter. From there we headed over to Templo de Debod, and Palacio Real. The Eurotrip was on! We checked out Plaza Mayor and Puerta de Sol while we were at it. So we were actually ended up being ahead of schedule.

I had to meet up with my cousin (that I haven’t seen in about 10 years). And eager to show us around she asked what we hadn’t seen and then gave us a walking tour of the entire city and checked off tourist attraction after tourist attraction. She did keep reminding us to let her know if we were too tired, because she’s accustomed to walking a lot. Three boys however, were not about to tell my 7 month pregnant cousin that they can’t keep up with her. Andres fell asleep at dinner. This ended up being an early night.

Our second day was much more relaxed since we had squeezed in pretty much everything except Reina Sofia into our first day. We also headed back to parque del Retiro to do the row boats. And we decided to use a little more public transportation because everyone’s feet were killing after all the walking on our first day.

But, we still managed to make it out that night to a festival in Lavapies. In my head I expected some food and some music. And I mean that wasn’t wrong, but also it was like a giant party in the middle of the street. Such a fun way to meet people from every country you can think of. So much fun that we didn’t get back to the airb&b until 5:30 a.m. Having to be at the airport at 7:00 a.m. made for a pretty terrible morning.

Madrid was awesome.

Lessons I Learned

1. Get a Data Plan
2. Sleep on the plane or take a nap, jet lag is real (fall asleep at dinner real)
3. Do not walk 13 miles in Jack Rogers
4. Early flights seem like a good idea, until you’re hungover.

Find a video version of our trip here.