Madrid!!

So this past thursday, I skipped a couple of classes and headed off to Madrid instead! I flew out on a 9:45am flight, getting into Madrid by around 3. After checking into my hostel, I headed off to the Prado while Fiona finished off an essay she had to write.
That's the Prado. It was pretty exciting. I got to see a lot of really awesome famous art, including all sorts of pieces that I'd been studying in past classes, so it was really good.
After the Prado we mostly just walked around. Fiona took me to where they do the bull fights, so I could see the outside of the building. It was pretty impressive, although I apologize for the dark picture. It was after dark.
So, like a lot of cities around the world, Madrid was doing that whole 'let local artists decorate the themed object' thing. (Places have had cows, guitars, globes, etc etc.) Madrid was doing cows, so I took a picture next to the lego cow! It was good that I did this because when I walked past the next day, the cow was knocked over and broken. :( Anyway, I then headed off to the hostel to get some sleep because I was pretty tired.
So Friday was a beautiful day. Bright, sunny, and probably around 70 degrees. Absolutely wonderful. We decided to spend a lot of the day going to various parks because they were pretty and the weather was so nice. There were even some flowers!!

We even headed out to see the Palace in Madrid. We didn't go in because there was a line and I was more in the mood to go see more parks, but we got to see the outside of the Palace.
This is a park. That's the palace in the background. This is the park that doesn't allow you to walk on the grass and has all sorts of birds walking around including copious numbers of peacocks!!

Yes, that's a peacock in a tree. We got to see lots of peacocks which was just very very exciting. :)
We then walked up to see the Egyptian temple that was given to Madrid. I don't really remember why though. :(

There were some nice views from the Temple though because we were way up on a hill. It was nice to get a bigger view of the city. That night we met up with a couple other people and did some drinking outside with every intention of hitting up a discotecca. We never got to the discotecca sadly, but it was fun anyway.
On Saturday, we went out and I finally got a picture of the bear eating the strawberry tree, which is the symbol of Madrid. It was right near my hostel. :) We then headed out to the Thyssen-Bornemisza to see more exciting art and then to the Reina Sofia to see Guernica. (Picasso) After that, Fiona and I had a cup of coffee.
We then went to look inside the train station. It practically has a jungle in the middle of it. It's really pretty. We then walked around some more, sat around talking for a while, had a couple of guys ask us where to buy marijuana (why he decided to ask the two very not spanish american girls speaking english pretty loudly instead of any of the other groups of slightly sketchy looking men smoking their cigarettes is beyond me), and then got churros with chocolate. Then I headed to sleep for a few hours before heading back to Edinburgh on my 7:30 am flight.

Overall it was a really nice time and I'm glad I went.