My last day in Spain. It is hard to believe how quickly the time flew. I must say that I definitely wasted my last day in Madrid. I go into the hotel at 5 am the night before so I slept in until 10 then I decided to get breakfast at the hotel buffet. Since its always a good ideas to get free food when you can.
At breakfast I was able to say a goodbye to a lot of my tour mates. It was weird knowing that these people who you have become super close to, you will probably never see again. Then I went back to bed. At around 3 pm Madrid time I woke up with the verges of a cold coming on. I pushed myself out of bed and made myself get dressed to explore Madrid one last time.
The first thing I did was go to the fanciest MacDonalds I have ever went to. They had fresh fruit smoothies and macaroons. Also the building was pretty cool and historic. I got a smoothie to try to rehydrate.
I decided that since I had already seen the outside of the palace, I would go to the other end of the city and see The Buen Retiro Park. The park belonged to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th century, when it became a public park. Its like the central park of Madrid.
On the way to the park I passed by a street that was filled with book vendors. It was like an open market for books. It was pretty cool.
Once at the park, I walked to the centre of the park to see the Palacio de Cristal (“Crystal Palace”). It is a glass and metal structure located in the park, built in 1887 to exhibit flora and fauna from the Philippines. When I was walking around the pond that the palace was on, it was fun to see all the turtles sunbathing.
Walking back to the city, I passed by The Monument to King Alfonso XII. n 1902, a national contest was held to design a monument for King Alfonso XII. The winning design consisted of a grand colonnade alongside a pond in El Retiro, with several sculptures surrounding an equestrian statue of the king, with everything constructed in bronze and marble. When I passed by people were rowing blue boats out on the pond.
After I left the pack I was excited to see that I finally found an ATM for my bank. No it was not very helpful since it was my last day. But it was nice to know that my banks ATM does exist in Madrid. Additionally I have learned that I am not very good at reading maps in Madrid. I got very lost in weirdly enough the little india section of Madrid. It was cute at first but as I kept seeing the same streets over and over again it got tiring very quickly. Eventually I found my way back to Sol square and walked to the palace section of the city to find a cafe for some dinner. I sat and watched the sun set over the palace eating my first and last Spanish pizza with Sangria to top it off. I finished off my day with some gelato and then head back to my hotel to pack and get ready to catch my 6 am flight.
