Dude where's my tapas.

DAY ONE

So although this trip isn't really a fun trip, as OH said, I should try and enjoy it a bit and at least squeeze some tapas in somewhere along the line, and some nice coffees. Oh I wish. That was the plan, but the path somehow leads me to:

1) Visiting the official Most Depressing Residential Areas in Madrid.
2) Not eating anything remotely tasty.
3) Tears before bedtime.

As I make my way towards the metro in the airport (it's surprisingly easy to find), so going well so far. Get to the ticket machines. Huge queues at the manned desk, so I try the machines. Doesn't accept my note. Doesn't accept my bank card, or the emergancy credit card (although it says it takes cards). I don't have enough change. This is going well. So I join the humungous queue and get my 10 journey ticket. Here commences my quest to see how many tube journeys I can squeeze into less than 2 days...and it's a lot. I spend the 36 hours on the metro pretty much...and it's really hot....and it sucks!

I'm not slagging off the Madrid metro here, it's actually very efficient and organised, and not as crowded as the London underground (but that could be because it's August and everyone's on hols). It's just not fun for me because I'm lugging a rucksack round half the time, and it's really hot and sweaty, and half the time I have to stand up. So this is not fun, and not really the sitting in street cafés eating tapas that I envisioned BUT I am here on a mission, so let it commence.

I get to the sleazy 2-star hotel in Sol that the budget stretched to (I thought who cares, it's only for 1 night). The room is yellow and brown, literally I'm in a haze of yellow and brown. There's no AC, just a really slow ceiling fan that clunks and creaks, it's actually so noisy I think I'll sleep without it on, but then all I can hear is the lift clunking outside my window, so I decide to leave it on. The door doesn't shut properly (there's a couple of inches gap at the bottom. When I put the ceiling fan on, it casts a weird flickering light round the room from the overhead strip light which makes my eyelids twitch. I actually feel like I've taken acid right now. I'm also really thirsty as haven't drunk anything for hours (except a take-out coffee, the remainders of which sit on the bedside table). So I down my nice cold coffee, and with a few more eye-twitches, I'm off back out.

I think I might die in that room. It's getting bolted when I get back in :)

1st flat: Tiny, no bath, 2 tiny rooms leading onto the tiny living room-so if you put the kids to bed, you'd be right next to them and couldn't make any noise. Drab area, nothing around, no sign of life, loads of graffiti, I feel like I'm in the Mexican wild west....back on the tube.

2nd flat: Chamartin, ahh the lovely Chamartin I've heard so much about. A really nice, lively area. I come out the train station, cross over a car-park and some wasteland, and walk through an industrial/office block area, nice. Get to the blocks of flats (which although the flats look nice, there's literally nothing around). No shops, no cafés, no life, no nothing. What if I need to pop out for a pint of milk. The thought of that crappy walk over wasteland when my classes finish at 9.30 at night isn't really appealing either. I decide not to even bother seeing it, and as I'm an hour early, I text the guy to cancel.

3rd flat: It's in a really posh area. I'm feeling suspicious already. I know for a fact we can't afford anything in this area so why is it a reasonable price. It is only 2-beds, but still, I'm suspicious. I pass Chanel, Louis Vuitton etc. This doesn't feel right. I actually don't even want to live here. I want to live in a normal area, with corner shops and nice, normal people. Not yuppies getting out of chauffered cars in sunglasses with little dogs in their pockets.

I'm stupidly early as usual, but there's nothing around. I'm sorted if I want a Prada handbag, but really I just want a coffee. It's getting clammy and cloudy, my feet are killing. Hoorah I spot an empty, overpriced sandwich shop. Get a coffee and doughnut and sit for an hour. Leave the shop and it starts raining. How can it rain in Madrid in August?! See the flat. It's tiny, dark, and weirdly you go up steps, then down steps to get to the front door (I again feel like I'm on acid, or in the cat in the hat book). 1 tiny bedroom. But wait I say, I thought this was 2 beds (but in my bad Spanish it goes something more like this: 'dos habitaciones?'. Si vale she says, and pulls out a stepladder from the ceiling leading to a prisoner-style bunk/room. Er ok probably not good for a family of 4 and I think a tad dangerous for the little ones, hey ho.

Time to go home, yes home sweet home. I can't find the nearest metro. Ask in the sandwich shop again and he directs me the wrong way, ask someone else and eventually I find it but not before I've got totally drenched in my not-very-suitable summer dress and flip-flops. Sit like a drowned rat on the metro, get back to my luxury apartment, bolt the door, remember I forgot to buy a bottle of water and pass out in a dehydrated, belly-rumbling, headachey yellow and brown haze.

Get woken up by a text from the Chamartin flat guy: 'Don't worry, we already rented it this morning anyway'.



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