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September 13th 2009 Spain - Capital City: Madrid
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I boarded the train at Alicante, and I found a fat Spanish lady sat in my seat. As my Spanish is very basic, I pointed to the seat she was sat in and my ticket, to indicate that it was my seat, she was having none of it and just removed her bag from the seat next to her and I had to take that. Three and half hours squashed on the inside sat the next to the lady with the longest toenails to date.
The train station in Madrid was amazing, with massive trees in it and water, you could sit and people watch all day. I had learnt the basic phrase in Spanish 'I have photograph with you'. That night I went out and passed quite a lot of Policemen, but they all looked quite scary and busy, and I didn't think that I could explain I wanted a photograph with them without them looking scarier.
Train Station in Madrid
I stayed out for awhile drinking, so that night I returned back to the hotel (Ayre Grande Hotel Colon) drunk and photo-less.
In the morning I left the hotel to go back to the train station; back to Alicante, on the look out for photo opportunities. Whilst walking through the park, I remembered a park attendant working there yesterday, we got to the entrance and to my joy there he was.
Whilst pretending to take photo's of the park I went up to him and with my much practised phrase asked him for a photo with me. He didn't seem that enthusiastic, so I slipped my arm round him and yelled to my boyfriend at the time, 'take the picture, take the picture'. He doesn't that happy on the picture; me - I was ecstatic. I could finally relax - I had gotten my photo.
Except that I couldn't relax because; we got to the train station to travel back to Alicante, only to be told that all the trains were full that day, all SIX of them. I was stuck. I enquired about going to Valencia then onto Alicante but there would be no train to Alicante from Valencia till the next day at 7.20am. My mind whirled with ideas, whilst the queue behind me grew. I settled on a bus option. Just needed to find the bus station. I got into a taxi to take me there but was told it was just round the corner so he wouldn't take me - walking over forty minutes to it - round the corner my ass!!
Arriving at the bus station before 5pm, there was a bus going, I read the tickets and it was leaving at 5.55pm stand 49. That was okay I had time to get food. I then queued for the bus, getting to the front of the queue, the bus driver looked at my ticket and refused me on and speaking to me in Spanish, my face met his with a blank stare - I didn't understand him. I left the queue and ended up googling what it read on the ticket.
That would be not stand 49 but ticket number 49. It wasn't departing at 5.55pm but it was the time 5.05pm in when I got my ticket, the printer wasn't very clear and the middle zero looked like a 5.
Back into the main bus station to look for times, in a bit of a hurry as there was a lot of buses about to leave, I found the bus times. The bus I was booked on wasn't leaving until 12 midnight. Six hours to kill. I headed back into Madrid city centre, what can you do to kill time on a Sunday evening - eat and drink!
Heading back to the bus station I caught the metro accidentally instead of the train, I say accidentally, it was my fault thinking it was the way back, I realised after one stop, that no it wasn't the way, so I got off running, to get the metro back.
I finally got back to the bus station and boarded the bus, I ended back in Alicante at 6.30am.
The train station in Madrid was amazing, with massive trees in it and water, you could sit and people watch all day. I had learnt the basic phrase in Spanish 'I have photograph with you'. That night I went out and passed quite a lot of Policemen, but they all looked quite scary and busy, and I didn't think that I could explain I wanted a photograph with them without them looking scarier.
I stayed out for awhile drinking, so that night I returned back to the hotel (Ayre Grande Hotel Colon) drunk and photo-less.
In the morning I left the hotel to go back to the train station; back to Alicante, on the look out for photo opportunities. Whilst walking through the park, I remembered a park attendant working there yesterday, we got to the entrance and to my joy there he was.
Whilst pretending to take photo's of the park I went up to him and with my much practised phrase asked him for a photo with me. He didn't seem that enthusiastic, so I slipped my arm round him and yelled to my boyfriend at the time, 'take the picture, take the picture'. He doesn't that happy on the picture; me - I was ecstatic. I could finally relax - I had gotten my photo.
Except that I couldn't relax because; we got to the train station to travel back to Alicante, only to be told that all the trains were full that day, all SIX of them. I was stuck. I enquired about going to Valencia then onto Alicante but there would be no train to Alicante from Valencia till the next day at 7.20am. My mind whirled with ideas, whilst the queue behind me grew. I settled on a bus option. Just needed to find the bus station. I got into a taxi to take me there but was told it was just round the corner so he wouldn't take me - walking over forty minutes to it - round the corner my ass!!
Arriving at the bus station before 5pm, there was a bus going, I read the tickets and it was leaving at 5.55pm stand 49. That was okay I had time to get food. I then queued for the bus, getting to the front of the queue, the bus driver looked at my ticket and refused me on and speaking to me in Spanish, my face met his with a blank stare - I didn't understand him. I left the queue and ended up googling what it read on the ticket.
That would be not stand 49 but ticket number 49. It wasn't departing at 5.55pm but it was the time 5.05pm in when I got my ticket, the printer wasn't very clear and the middle zero looked like a 5.
Back into the main bus station to look for times, in a bit of a hurry as there was a lot of buses about to leave, I found the bus times. The bus I was booked on wasn't leaving until 12 midnight. Six hours to kill. I headed back into Madrid city centre, what can you do to kill time on a Sunday evening - eat and drink!
Heading back to the bus station I caught the metro accidentally instead of the train, I say accidentally, it was my fault thinking it was the way back, I realised after one stop, that no it wasn't the way, so I got off running, to get the metro back.
I finally got back to the bus station and boarded the bus, I ended back in Alicante at 6.30am.
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