Madrid

Madrid is a weird, weird place. But I´m not complaining because it is the first place I´ve seen a cat in almost 2 weeks!
There are so many strange street "performers"- I use that term very loosely- everywhere. The only ones who qualify as performers are the musicians who have been pretty good for the most part, even with the cheesy, repeating back tracks that seem to accompany them everywhere. Maybe it´s just me, but I can only hear Pachelbel´s Cannon so many times. Down the street from our hostel, we have a classical violinist, a harpist and an African Drummer. On the metro ride from the airport to our hostel a really great guitar player serenaded our caboose with a popular Spanish song to which the young kids were singing along. I was SO sad when we saw a lady setting up her portable microphone just as we stepped off the train.
We got lost for about 2 hours when we got off the metro. It turns out our hostel was relocated to another part of town, but no one bothered to communicate this to us or to the tourist ambassadors at the airport. So we wandered around, and I finally stopped in the street to sit and cry for a bit. Jack spotted a Best Western and we were finally able to sort things out there.
Our hostel was not as dirty as the generator but was also not very secure. Our doors did not lock nor did our lockers. We did however luck out with the only room with a private shower. The price we paid for this was the roomates we had on the second night, two bratty American girls who came home very drunk at 3 am, one of whom burped and vomited in her sleep and later snored too violently for any sober person to sleep.
We did meet some helpful, normal, nice people at this hostel, or as they call it in Spain "Roommate Hotel." A British guy gave us a great website for cheap bus travel throughout Spain as an alternative to the trains. This was helpful as London was so expensive and we are trying to even things out here.
The Meseu de Prado is HUGE and we didn´t quite finish the whole thing. We visited the Classical Sculptures which I thought had much better Roman sculpture than the British Museum and saw the two Goyas we were anticipating. We then cut over to the Royal Botanical Gardens, where we strolled around for a few hours and I was able to pet and sort of hold a kitty who lived near the Olive Trees :) :) :)
Most of the time spent in Madrid was done walking and people watching. There is always something happening, and as we´re approaching Easter weekend, we saw an elaborate procession in front of the Palaccio Real, complete with praying men in robes and crucified, gold Jesus, being carried by the crowd. The Palace itself is overwhelmingly huge but I was happy to see later that evening that the palace fountain now serves as a wading pool for local dogs who come to run around and play.
Sorry for the super long post, I´m trying to make up for a few days of unpredictable travel and internet connection. We´re in Barcelona now, we arrived last night after a 7 hour bus ride during which we were pulled over by the Policia! Our Spanish isn´t too great so I´m not sure exactly what happened, but in the end, our bus driver came back in the bus and we were on our way again. Oh how I would appreciate a universal language like music or math or even karate right now.
Adios,
Cyn