Living in Madrid | Part 1

I have been living in Madrid for over a month now and have yet to blog about…anything, really! Like how I ended up here, what I am doing here, and all the cool stuff that I have done and seen. Here goes!

I decided that I wanted to be an au pair less than a month before I knew I was moving to Europe. One of my friends turned me on to aupairworld.com and I decided to make a profile during my off time on a Monday night at camp. I woke up the next morning with a lot of messages from potential au pair families, one of which I really liked the looks of. We exchanged emails and a Skype interview date was set up for Thursday night. The interview went amazing, and I was offered the job on the spot. It all happened so quickly it seemed too good to be true. But it wasn’t. It is even more amazing now that I am living here and working with them. I work as an English aid au pair. My job is spend a few hours each day with the three daughters in the family and talk, play, and hang out in English. It really doesn’t even feel like a job. In my spare time during the week, I get to explore Madrid and surrounding areas, and on weekends I can venture out even further into the country.

In Madrid:

Puerta del Sol: This is where you have to start when you first visit this city. It is the absolute center, literally—in the Plaza there is a plaque on the ground that marks kilmetre 0. This area is always full of life, and a bunch of the city’s must-see sites are within walking distance.

Plaza Mayor: This is the first thing that I saw when I first started exploring Madrid, and that is because it is so close to Puerta del Sol. It is beautiful (though the first time I saw it, one of the sides was under construction). You can visit one of the several restaurants inside the plaza, or just sit on a bench and enjoy the view.

Mercado de San Miguel: This very popular market is within walking distance from Puerta del Sol and the Plaza Mayor. When I say very popular, I mean very popular. Among tourists, mostly. It has a very cool set up that plenty of gourmet grocery stores have tried to mimic in the States: a host of several different kiosks with a range of great stuff from fresh produce to fresh meat to coffee to wine to cheese. When I went there, every square inch of the place was being inhabited by a human body. My final verdict: cool in theory, overrated in reality. There is a market very close to the Tribunal metro stop called Mercado de San Delfonso that is very, very similar but MUCH less crowded. You can get a seat inside without elbowing an old guy because he’s looking at the same table.

Royal Palace: I actually stumbled upon this for the first time without knowing what it was. I was in search of the Almudena Cathedral, which is right next to the palace. They are both beautiful. They are right next to the Plaza de Oriente, which was adorable. That’s the best word I can use to describe it. A stroll through that area will really give you a feel for Madrid.

Templo de Debod: This is probably my favorite attraction in Madrid. It has such a cool backstory! It is an ancient Egyptian temple! The Egyptian government (paired with UNESCO) realized that they needed to move the temple from its original location in the 1960’s due to a breaking dam, and decided to GIFT the entire temple to the Spanish government. They brought the entire temple over stone by stone and reassembled it in Madrid near-ish to the Royal Palace. How cool is that?! It’s free to visit (though impossible to take a photo of without getting a hundred tourists in the shot), and has a park attached to it that locals and foreigners frequent. The view of the city from this area is spectacular. I loved the whole experience!

Gran Via: One of the most notable and popular streets in Madrid. It’s here that you can do all of your shopping, if that is what you’re into. I only really liked it because it connects to the Chueca area of Madrid.

Chueca: The gayborhood of Madrid! Not only are the bars and restaurants colorful and alive on the weekends, this is also a fun neighborhood to pop in and out of cute little local shops. Very gay. Very hipster. I loved it. There are a lot of Senegalese shopkeepers in this area for some reason. I made a lot of friends the day I walked around speaking Wolof to them. I love this neighborhood. It is a must for anyone visiting.

Paseo del Prado: This street is REALLY pretty. It is a two way separated by what is basically a long, narrow park. It is spectacular. And to the east of this street, you can find the building where the stock market operates (snooze, I know, but the building is beautiful), Museo del Prado, and the Botanical Gardens.

Real Jardin Botanico (Botanical Gardens): This was so cute. With a student discount it was (I think?) 3 euro for an all-day pass. The whole garden is pretty huge, and separated into several different small gardens that are either populated by flowers or vegetables or herbs or trees from all over the world. There was literally no one else in the entire place that was my age. Everyone was over the age of 75 and strolling through those gardens without a care in the world. I am pretty used to that, though. Most of the things I like to do and see while traveling are the same things that old people like to do and see. Go figure!

Retiro Park: I would call this a tiny, Spanish Central Park. It is beautiful. Like, absolutely amazing. There are geese and flowers and accordion players and fountains and anything else you could want from a park. It’s a must. Sitting in this park at an outdoor café with a smoothie and a book in the fall. How much nicer can a day get?

Plaza de Cibeles: I was instructed by my host mother that this plaza was the most beautiful plaza in all of Madrid. Which is saying a lot, because there are hundreds of them in this city alone. So I was intrigued. And it lived up to expectations, undoubtedly. Cibeles fountain in right in the middle of the plaza, which has a Greek goddess and a chariot and lions and a bunch of other powerful imagery kind of stuff. I thought it was cool to learn that that fountain actually used to be in a different spot in Madrid, and was used as an actual source of water until the 19^th century! The plaza itself has a bunch of beautiful buildings, including my personal favorite, Madrid’s City Hall. The first time I saw this building, the “Refugees Welcome” sign hanging from the top of the building took me by surprised. It was in that moment, looking at that beautiful building, I knew I would adore Spain.

El Rastro: The city’s largest market! It is a weekly pop-up market near the Puerta de Toledo metro stop. It happens every Sunday from 9 to 3 and has quite the set-up. It is a huge flea market with everything from antiques to books to really cool clothes to pots and pans. And a million people—every week. I loved it. I bought nothing (because I have no room to expand my list of possessions whilst a nomad), but I still had a great time walking around and watching everyone else haggle and laugh and roam.

“Tras Julia”, on one side of the building for Escuela Superior de Canto: This is probably my favorite thing that I have found while discovering the city. It is a life-size statue of a woman found in the Malasana district of Madrid. She is a myth, a legend. She is said to represent a woman from the eighteenth century that cross-dressed in order to get into the university (because back then, only men were allowed to attend). How cool is that? And how cool is it that that feat is commemorated in a statue? I’ll answer for you. It is SUPER cool.

Outside of Madrid:

Monasterio del Escorial: An hour’s train ride out of Marid, the town of Escorial is adorable. I only spent a few hours here, but I think that was enough to get a feel for the town. The Monasterio itself was very cool. You can pay to walk around inside of the building and get a tour for just a few euro more! If you are into that sort of thing, I say it is worth it. There is a tomb room where all of the past kings’ bodies are preserved (not that you can see the bodies, but seeing the room is cool!). The architecture of the building itself is very cool, and there is park just off of the grounds that is silent and smelled like autumn. It was a very interesting and pretty day trip!!

Toledo: This is my most recent trip as of posting this blog. Toledo is a very well-known, STUNNING town outside of Madrid. About 70km outside, to be exact. I visited the town on what was probably one of the last sunny, decently warm days of the year here in Spain. I just knew when I woke up that I needed to cease the fact it wasn’t freezing. Toledo is great. It’s small and surrounded by a river. I took the train for 10 euro and got there in a half hour. My host family had told me that it was the perfect place to just wander around and take pictures, so I did just that. The whole town in a UNESCO Heritage Site; it is one of the only places in Spain where Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures co-existed peacefully. It was really cool to walk through the town and see a plaque on the ground reading “Jewish Quarter,” and looking up to see a synagogue, and then walking a few more minutes and ending up at the cathedral. All of the streets of the town are narrow and winding—it felt like a really beautiful, stressless maze. There’s also a zipline you can do across the river for like 5 euro! SO FUN. When you initially get off the train, you are about a 15 minute walk from the city in one direction, and a 15 minute walk from the vista point in the other direction. I think the vista point was my favorite part. You could see the whole town—the cathedral, the synagogue, the monastery, the town hall, EVERYTHING—and it was spectacular to watch the sun set from this vantage point. Great day trip. Amazing day trip.

That’s the gist of what I’ve been doing in my spare time here! I’ve really slowed down my lifestyle to try and get my leg all healed up, but nothing can really stop me from exploring the place that I am in! Oops. I am taking it easy though, I promise. I hope you all are doing great! See you soon!