Bye-bye Granada, Hello Madrid. Bye-bye Madrid, Hello Portugal.

Plaza Mayor, Madrid

Sadly, after two and a half weeks of working at Itinere Hostel (highly recommended!) in Granada, the time came to pack up my overstuffed REI backpack and hit the road again for a new adventure. However, I couldn't leave Spain without experiencing Madrid — and I couldn't really get to Portugal without flying through Madrid anyway so it all worked out!

The bus got into Madrid around 7pm and I proudly navigated the metro system directly to my hostel without issue. Then, in search of a bite to eat, I followed one interesting street after another, letting my curiosity get the better of me until I was completely and utterly lost...I'm not even sure I was in Madrid at one point. One full month of travel and this was the first time I had to flag down a taxi. Despite my 7 euro mistake, I made one of the best discoveries of my life to date.

Dunkbucks!

Now, if you know anything about me, you know that my coffee consumption is a little out of hand. I will most certainly have heart palpitations by the time I'm 30; no amount of meditation will undo the damage already done. But I really don't care and that is certainly not the point. The point is that I found a two-storey Starbucks in Madrid located right next to AND beneath a THREE-STOREY Dunkin Donuts.

I just didn't know what to do. My dual-loyalty instincts wanted me to buy coffee from both and then befriend all of the Americans that were surely sipping their over-sized coffees inside. But it was already night-time and I didn't sleep very well the night before so I restrained myself and vowed to return the next day. To be sure that I wasn't just hallucinating, I frantically started taking pictures. All the Spanish people started looking around trying to see what all the fuss was about... Justin Bieber? Tom Cruise? Oprah?!? Nope...my two favorite coffee shops all up in each other's business. Oprah would have been pretty great though. (*NOTE: Again, Oprah, if you ever read this, I love you and I would like to be employed by you in pretty much whatever capacity you see fit.)

Shortly after this dizzying Dunkbucks (Dunkin-Starbucks...obvi) discovery, I got lost, found a very sweet cab driver who dropped me off dangerously close to my hostel door, and proceeded to pass out in one of the best hostel beds I've ever experienced.

The next morning I got up early to just completely nerd out and spend the entire day at the Prado Museum and the Reina Sofia. Essentially, I spent my whole day looking at paintings by Picasso, Dalí, Goya, and El Greco and pretended to be artistically inclined. Occasionally I picked a painting to stare at, threw in a little twist of the head and a nodded in a pensive fashion, and basically looked like an artistic GENIUS...especially in my mesh shorts and flip-flops. Let's be real though, I took one week of Art History and then dropped it like it was hot (#seniorspringproblems).

Royal Palace, Madrid

After a strenuous day of cultural enrichment, I ventured back over to my beloved Dunkbucks and faced the heart-wrenching task of choosing between the two. As I stood there slightly panicked and weighing my options, a young couple walked out of Dunkin' and a faint sound of country music snuck out with them. I died of happiness. "Small Town USA" playing in big town Spain...now that's what I call exporting culture.


Now I know for some of you, the sweet sounds of Nashville would have swayed you toward the Starbucks, but I do love me some country so I settled in for a few hours of coffee drinking, people watching, and journaling.

Definitely gave them a euro...
have no idea how they did this!

My trip to Madrid was a quick one — just three nights and then I had to venture off to the Madrid Airport (again, successfully navigated the metro) to experience my first European budget airline flight with RyanAir. Along my travels I've run into people with some horror stories about RyanAir: exorbitant charges for bags that are overweight, charging you to print out your boarding pass if you lose it, not stamping your boarding pass and then rejecting you at the security line, etc. So to continue with the nerdy nature of my Madrid trip, I showed up to the airport THREE hours early. Of course, my bag was the perfect weight, I had absolutely no problems, and I walked directly through security. So I had three hours to kill and drink some overpriced coffee and eat an overpriced sandwich. While these inflated airport prices would normally have thrown me into a bit of a hissy fit, I've had some amazing luck recently finding money in the most random of places so I don't feel as bad having to pay the inflated prices.


I found 3 euro in the SINK at my hostel in Madrid when I came back after an afternoon cafe jaunt. Then, the very next day, in the Madrid Airport, I found 4 euro in the bins for the security line. It's the little things in life. 


Anyway, the plane in Madrid arrived late. So we boarded late. And then the Spanish military (I know, I know...they actually have one of those...) was performing some flight operation so all flights were delayed. And then, when we finally arrived at the Faro Airport, the bus from the airport to the city center was late. When it finally arrived, it was packed full. So then I caught a taxi with a bunch of other frustrated travelers. Just when I was sure that I would miss the last bus from Faro to Portimao (where I was being picked up by the nudist resort owner), the bus from Faro to Portimao was also late so it all worked out. OH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE PORTUGAL.

Long story, but now I'm at the nudist lodge, which we shall turn to in the next posting. Good thing I'm all caught up because tomorrow begins my first two days off of work here in Portugal and I'm heading into Lagos for a night out...the Portuguese haven for dancing on bars and lighting shots on fire.