Police in Madrid and the Beginnings of Beautiful Barcelona

We got our flight to Madrid, not without an unusual trip through security where you had to carry your stuff with you before putting it on the conveyor belt, thus the picture. After finally finding our hostel, we set out on the streets of our neighborhood to buy some groceries. We thought it would be cheaper than eating out, which it would have been if we had actually made the food we bought. For dinner that night, we got stuff for chips and salsa, because when in Spain, one must eat such foods, no? But as far as the other food we bought, instead of eating it, we kept finding more exciting, cultural things to eat for dinner, like paella and churros, and the pasta and corn we bought followed us to Barcelona, and then back to Geneva, where we ate it a couple of nights after our return.


Unfortunately, we hardly had any time in Madrid, so we took advantage of the time we did have and decided to do a free walking tour. We met up with the tour and off we went, only to be met soon after by the police and some workers from the Spanish government of tourism. Apparently this happens quite frequently; the gov. workers were claiming that our tour was illegal, called the police on us, who checked the
tour guide’s papers- which checked out, and we continued on, but followed by the gov. people the entire time, who were really immature and mocked our tour guide and flashed their badges in his face. It was really ridiculous. Except for that, good tour. Afterwards, we walked around some more, found some great markets and cheap prices, (bought some great scarves for 5 Euros), and took pictures with some artsy bulls. You know how Spain is known for its bulls? Well right now there is an art exhibit in the city with huge bulls all painted differently. My colleague was telling me a few months ago someone got four of his friends and tried to steal one of the cows. Got it all the way up several flights of stairs to their apartment before the police caught them the next day.



We flew out early the next morning to Barcelona, when I say early I mean as the sun was rising : ) We saw the beach as we flew in, and immediately fell in love with Barcelona, which would soon develop into a longstanding affair we would have with the city which, to this day, has now unfortunately developed into a long-distance relationship. We got in that day and found our hostel and then launched into the city to discover, yet again, endless shopping. Barcelona and Spain in general has lovely prices; much better than France or Switzerland. I ended up finding a lovely shirt for 2 Euros.
It got to the point where there was SO much shopping Leah and I would only enter a store if they had AMAZING sales flashing from the windows to lure us in. Don’t get me wrong, we did now spend the entire trip shopping. That is not me. We also went to the Barcelona Cathedral, went up to the top and took pictures and saw an amazing view of the city, the beach, and the Mediterranean, and were even going to stay for mass, but it was in Spanish.