October 29th, 2013

If you ever opt to book a hostal in Madrid, here´s how to get to your hostal:  First,  follow your directions to where you understand your hostal to be located.  When you get to the correct address, you´ll most likely be at a big wooden door  next to which are four or five door bells, one for each floor of the building, and one of which will have the name of your hostal written next to it.  Ring that bell, tell whoever answers the intercom what you want, and then you´ll be buzzed in. Next, take the elevator or climb the kind-of-but-not-quite-as-Hogwartsy--as-the-one-in-Santiago staircase to your floor where you´ll see another door.  Ring the bell for that door, too, and the hospitaliero of your hostal will greet you with a big smile and welcome you into the  hostal lobby, check you in at the desk, and give you the key to your room and all the other doors that you need to get through.. Then he or she will point you down a  hallway that will look just like a hotel hallway,  to your room, which will look just like a hotel room. And that´s how it´s done!  In other words, a hostal is just like a mini-hotel all on one floor but where you first have to go through a bunch of doors to get there.  And, just as there are hotels and there are hotels, I imagine there are hostals and there are hostals, but ours, the THC Bergantin Hostal, for which we´re paying 45 euros per night, is a modern, very attractive place with friendly, helpful hospitlieros.  As soon as we´d checked in we were given a map of Old Madrid (the area we´re staying in) and the hospitaliero asked us if we had any plans for the rest of the day or if we´d like him to help us plan something to do or somewhere to go.  So, even though we were a little freaked by the modus operandi of getting up to the hostal (though we shouldn´t have been, considering the resemblance to the M.O. of getting up to our pension in Santiago!) we really like the place and now consider ourselves old hands at hostaling! Anyway, since we only had one day in Madrid we figured we might as spend it looking around Old Madrid, so we did spend our day in that way.  The highlight of our day in Madrid has been our tour of the Palacio Real - the Royal Palace,  The Palacio Real  is immense, incredible, indescriblable (though I will say there seemed to be  a room, salon, or hall  for about every color of the rainbow!) and all I could keep imagining was the king waking up every morning, looking out over the two-story staircase of the grand entrance hallway and thinking, "Dang, I´m good!"  But now that our day is  almost over I think I´m going to change my mind and say that the real highlight of our visit to Madrid has been the people of Madrid, who´ve been as friendly and helpful as all the rest of the  people we´ve met everywhere in this beautiful country.  From the first day of our arrival in Spain to this our last, it´s been about the people.  Every experience in life is about the people, always about the people.  May every day of your life be crossed by at least one kind, wonderful person.  Good-bye and love, Patti 8)