Day 1: We Walk, Walk, and Walk Some More Around Madrid and Celebrate With Spain

The first morning camping is truly when you realize how hard the earth really is and why beds were invented. The main problem with sleeping on the ground are all the body parts that go numb, especially the parts you never realized could go numb. 

We started with our whirlwind walking tour of Madrid with finding the Metro station near the campground and buying a bargain day pass, very good investment for 8 euro.

We found the Puerta de Sol and made pictures with the famous statue of the bear climbing a tree.

One of the goals of our day was to find place to watch the Spain vs. Italy European Championship match. So we walked to Madrid’s most famous square, Plaza Mayor and took not-so-sneaky photos of the life sized Ninja turtles, Smurf couple and Mighty Mouse who were wandering around.

We then wandered over to Palacio Real and walked around the gardens, taking photos with the amazing blue sky that you never see in Africa. We managed to make it to all the important plazas in Madrid and walked along Gran Via. In Plaza de Espana we found the remnants of a party, assumably having to do with the start of Gay Pride week in Madrid. If we hadn’t known Gay Pride week was going on, we may have been slightly surprised at the number of male couples wandering around in tight shorts and tank tops.

We stopped in at least one cathedral, the first of many according to the Austrian in our group. We even managed to see the Plaza a Colon, which has the largest flag any of us had ever seen and a random statue of a penguin. This combined with finding a penguin purse and another statue of a penguin gave us a small small penguin theme for the day. 

Our next order of business was finding a place to watch the football (soccer) match. We found a huge screen at a couple of the main squares, but no one seemed to know if it was going to be shown or not. It certainly appeared it was, all the fences were ready to block the road and speakers were being put up. So we figured we would wander around until closer to the game. 

We tried to do something educational ({cough} homeschooler) and see some of the famous museums in Madrid. Unfortunately of the two in our price range (free) one was closed for renovations and the other was bombarded by Gay Pride week and football fans, primarily by the former. 

As Miriam would say we then pissed around until the game started and it was then we realized it wasn’t being shown anywhere we thought it was going to be. Panic! We had just enough juice on the iPod to get the bright idea that it might be showing at the stadium. We ran to the metro, trying not to get our hopes up too much and followed the other football fans to the red and yellow clad crowds outside the stadium watching the match on giant screens. 

Fortunately Spain won and after the game was when the fun really started. Lots of flag waving, singing "We Are The Champions" and running in the streets ensued. 

We followed the crowds into another part of the city and saw people jumping in fountains, on cars, in front of cars, everyone was excited. 

We managed to make it onto the metro while our day pass still worked and stopped by the Donor Kebab again. So in conclusion, we walked, walked and walked some more in Madrid, celebrated with Spain saw and we saw the Madrid bus tour everywhere we went so we’re assuming we saw everything we should have.