Madrid, Spain

1st day

The first day was quite a busy day. We arrived by airplane early in the morning. I was so tired. I couldn't sleep. We took a metro to a metro station named Gran Via. This was the station near our hotel. We went in to our hotel and dropped of our luggages since we could not check in and get to the room.

Moving on, we went to a palace in Madrid formerly ruled by King Carlos. We saw lots of beautiful crafts, arts, and designs. We were amazed by how the royal people ruled in the olden days. Their culture was extremely different from our modern day culture in America. I would not like to live in a palace. I thought these palaces were creepy because there were so many statues of kings. The art was even somewhat scary. We even bought a few models for memories of this olden palace. Next to this Palace was a huge cathedral. We checked inside and saw many pictures of Jesus and his family. We even saw many people praying and worshiping to God.

Then we went to the Old town of Madrid where we saw lots of olden days culture and architecture. We were extremely hungry and went to Mcdonalds to eat and rest. The Mcdonalds in Spain was different from the Mcdonalds in America. Spain's Mcdonalds had chicken wings and cheescakes. America's Mcdonald did not have those kinds of foods. Personally, I like Spain's Mcdonalds better. Then we walked down to a plaza where it was filled with people. And man was it hard to breathe. Almost every European was smoking cigars. The plaza was also filled with little stores selling winter toys. Soon we found out that the main food of Spain was Paella(Spain's "special" rice) or Calamari(Fried squid). Since we were so tired we went back to our hotel to nap a little.

After the nap we felt much better. We then walked the streets near our own hotel. There were many stores that we didn't know in America. My dad and I enjoyed how the olden streets looked like. Like plazas, these streets were also filled with people and stores. I also bought a Madrid soccer ball.

Then we went to the art museum. My sister and I were very bored and did not really like the arts or sculptures. I only knew that my legs were really aching. After we watched the museum, we went to eat dinner at Vips. On the way to Vips, we bought a Madrid hat for me. When we arrived at Vips, I ate BBQ ribs and enjoyed an oreo smoothie with my sister, Christie. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel. Man this was a tiring but exciting day. I thought it was cool to see how olden day architecture and culture was like.

2nd day

The second day, I thought was the most exciting day. I will explain why in a moment. First, we got up early in the morning and walked to Pans, a restaurant providing bread. I ate a butterfly cookie while my other family members were eating a chocolate crossant. Then we tried to find avanza a name for our bus that was going to bring us to Valencia. We looked for a long time but couldn't find it. So finally we got advice from a metro guide and took a metro to the ticket place.After we bought our tickets from avanza, we looked ahead and got our tickets from Valencia to Barcelona. As you can see, we were not just going to one city in Madrid but three.

After getting, rid of that worry we took metro to our, well .... "my" favorite place, the Real Madrid Soccer Stadium

We first went to the very top floor. It took a lot of time and we had to ride at least 10 escalators. We got a pretty good view of the whole stadium. The grass on the stadium looked so smooth that I didn't know if it was real or not.

Finally, I figured out how they made the grass so smooth and fine. Every day, they put huge lamps and spread the light evenly on the whole field. We went down all the way to the grass level. We got an extremely good view.

Then we went to the trophy room. Wow! There were hundreds and hundreds of trophies. By the way, my favorite player is Christiano Ronaldo 7.

I even took a picture with Ronaldo. Then we went to the Mega store of the Real Madrid Stadium. I was going crazy. On the first floor, I saw books of famous players. I also saw scarves, robes, and many other form of clothing. On the second floor, I saw many different types of soccer balls and other clothes. After looking at the whole store, I bought a Madrid soccer t-shirt. As you can see I extremely like soccer.

Then we went out of the store to go to eat lunch. We went to a small mall and ate Spanish food. We all shared one Paella and one glass of water. It was extremely expensive. They charged the bread "they" gave you. The Paella was also expensive at the average price of forty dollars. When we were full, we decided to take the metro to the bull fighting stadium.

When we arrived at the stadium, we saw many bull fighting pictures. The bull fighting stadium was very old and was no longer running. We walked a circle around the stadium. It was kind of depressing for me. We could not go inside and see the place where they fought, we were only able to see the outside. We bought some drinks and yogurt in case we were ever hungry or thirsty. We walked the streets near the bull stadium.

Then we went back to the streets near our hotel. We were walking and my mom found a store she wanted to go to. It was called Mango outlet. After shopping for an hour, we decided it was time to eat dinner. Our legs were aching and our stomachs were growling. We went to a Spanish restaurant where I ate calamari. That dinner filled me up. We went back to the hotel for the night.

3rd day

On the third day, We again went to Pans to eat breakfast. This time I ate a donut. Then we took a metro to a park. The park was very peaceful. It had a lake and had less smoking. There were people playing music and people watching puppet shows. There were people just tapping pots to make music. That was amazing. There were also stores selling popcorn and snacks. We saw lots of birds and fish there.

After we walked the whole park, we went to eat lunch. On the way to finding a place to eat lunch. We saw many stores selling books. I seemed interested but all of the books were unfortunately in Spanish. We saw many restaurants. Knowing, that Spanish food wasn't that good, I suggested eating Mcdonalds. But my family was sick of eating Mcdonalds and we ate a Spanish restaurant. I ate pizza, my sister ate pasta. It was extremely expensive. They also charged the bread. You could not choose whether or not you wanted the bread.

We went back to the art museum we went to on day 1.

We didn't know it was the art museum until my sister reminded me. we walked down the streets.There were a lot of old buildings that were very beautiful. When we arrived near a huge department store, I need to go badly to the restroom. We asked security guards but they said that the only public restroom was fifteen minutes from the department store. We instead went to a close by starbucks and used the restroom.

We went under a bridge and up to the cathedral again. My dad who is very cautious, thought it was dangerous. so we took a different route and went back to Sol a metro station where the huge plaza was located. Even in the nights, the plaza was crowded. It was christmas eve and almost all the stores were closed. we did not find any place that was open until we went near our hotel.

There was only one little store that had food and was open. I again ate a ham pizza while my other family members en panatas. We also had oranges. That was the only food we had.

This day was crazy. Out of all four days I think this day was the day where we walked the most. To express my feelings of tired I will tell you this. When I got on my bed I quickly fell asleep.

4rth day

On, the fourth day, we got up early in the morning and ate our breakfast in our hotel. We ate our left over oranges from last night. We went out of our hotel and went back to the old town we went to on day 1. We went circles and circles around. Then we went back to the palace we went to on day 1. We went to the northern part of the garden on day 3 that was connected to the palace. In the garden of the palace, we walked a lot. And when I mean a lot I mean a lot. We spent almost more than two hours.

We were extremely tired. We took no metro anywhere. We went to Mcdonald to rest and wait. Today was the day when we took our bus to Valencia at 11:00 pm. That day, we didn't really have anywhere to go. We weren't even eager to see a new place. We just roamed circles and circles around the same place. I was looking at the clock the whole time. Finally, the time came.

We took a metro to the avanza station again. There in the station, we waited in the restaurant for our bus to come. We drank orange juice and played cards. We were watching tv and watching for our time to board. When it was time, we went to the bus and rode to Valencia. It was a three hour trip over night.

I was extremely tired an immediately fell asleep ...... zzzzz .......... zzzzzzz.