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So on Day 2 of Madrid I started out the morning with a free city tour. I've come to learn that whether they are entertaining or not doesn't matter... it's a great way to meet people. Sure enough I met some Canadians and a lady from Maine that I hung out with for the rest of the day which was nice. The 3 Canadians were all visiting for a short while and moving onto Barcelona and the young lady from Maine actually has been teaching in France and is moving to Germany very soon.
During the tour I got to learn a bit about the city and if you look at my photos you will see Madrids "Eiffel Tower" along with some other fountains and such that are sights to see in Madrid. I wasn't hugely impressed with Madrid personally but it still was nice to see it all. I did enjoy a few facts and quotes about the city; such as "When you think of Madrid, think of intoxicated ani mals." This was a quote from the tour guide because apparently the symbol of the city (the "Eiffel Tower" of Madrid) is a bear eating fruit from a tree. The fruit apparently would ferment on the tree and thus Madrid used to be full of intoxicated bears. They'd wake up.. eat fruit..get drunk..sleep..wake up..eat fruit.. get drunk.. etc. etc. much like the people do now. In fact I also learned that at one point in Madrids history, before they learned about sanitation, everyone in Madrid would drink wine. This was because they believed the water was polluted so everyone, from the age old to the newborn drank nothing but wine. One more fun fact. I got to see were Ernest Hemingway lived which was cool and funny because it's now an Alcoholics Anonymous building...which is funny because Hemingway was an alcoholic.

So after the tour me and my newfound friends decided to head to the modern art museum and then to the Opera. Sadly we rushed the modern art museum because we were afraid we wouldn't have enough time, and then we ended up not getting tickets to the Opera anyway. See the Opera in Madrid does this special thing were starting an hour and a half before the show if you can prove you are under 26 and they still have tickets they sell them to you at 90% discount. So we all showed up around an hour and 45 minutes before and literally ... right as we got to the front of the line they put up signs saying they were sold out. Drat. So we went shopping. Haha. That was fun. Shopping with 4 random strangers, still it was something to do before my 1am bus ride to Barcelona. After shopping we headed to a restaurant/bar for something to eat or for me drink since I'd already had dinner. We talked and shared stories about life and travels before the Canadians headed out and me and Aaron (the one from Maine but living in France) headed to another restaurant to just sit and talk until she headed to her hotel and I headed to the bus station.
The bus ride was rather uneventful short of the fact that half the bus was filled with high school students from Berlin who were on an Orchestra trip. I didn't get much sleep since the girl behind me kept putting her knees up so I couldn't lean my chair back but... whatever...that's the bus... and now....I'm in ... Barcelona!