El Palacio Real de Madrid

After class and lunch, a big group met up at the train station to go into Madrid again. At first it was only supposed to be a small group of us to finish our Madrid walk from the day before, but that’s ok! It’s always fun to be with everyone. The only problem is, we tend to get very loud on the train, and people get extremely annoyed. I always feel guilty, even though it’s not me being loud. Thos darn Americans! Once in Madrid, we finally made our way over to the Palacio, but a lot of people decided they didn’t want to pay the 5 Euro to go in. I didn’t mind! This was a palace, for crying out loud! It was either a piece of history or a scoop of helado (ice cream). I chose the former! The rest of the group, maybe 10 or so people, chose the latter! Ha! To each their own, as I always like to say. I enjoy hanging out with the group who likes to learn the history and see the sights rather than just shop, sit around and eat ice cream all the time. Those things definitely have their place, but I prefer to have a fine mix, but with more of the history and sightseeing. Anyways, after my little rant, back to the Palacio! I couldn’t take pictures, like all of the palaces, but man oh man, this place was rich. My jaw always drops to the floor when I see these monstrosities! When I use that word, it’s always in a good way. Grand staircases with marble everywhere and beautiful chandeliers, thrones literally fit for a king, ballrooms, exquisite rooms and dressing rooms filled with personalized paintings and gold leafing everywhere you look, tables for banquets that could fit at least a hundred people… You name it! This would be my choice of life, for sure. They also had a little area where your carriage could come right to the bottom of the grand staircase to pick you up and take you to the ball. Oh man. Jealous. I wanted to be a princess so bad in that moment! It brings all of the Disney stories right to life. I most definitely felt like a 5 year old again. After our tour of the inside of the palace, we went back out to the courtyard and walked over to the armory. So super cool! I felt like a princess inside, but I think this place made the guys feel like they wanted to be the knights who went off to war, fought for the ladies, and also dueled or jousted. It was so cool! They had walls and walls full of ancient full body armor, swords, first model guns, horse armor, crossbows, lances, etc. It was great! I really enjoyed seeing that part. This palace also had an apothecary exhibit. So super cool! There were hundreds and hundreds of jars of all different sizes lining the walls. Each one was labeled on the front and perfectly faced. There was also a kitchen where brews were cooked up (of course the royal family had their own personal apothecary with everything supplement they could ever need). Next on the list of things to do: got get Madrid’s best and most famous churros and chocolate, of course! What else? We’ve found that it’s best to split things like this, so Logan and I bought an order together and each ate half. I don’t think I could have done any more than that! The churros are freshly made, so they’re still hot, and the chocolate is so extremely rich. It’s kind of a mix between a chocolate sauce and a mug of hot chocolate. The Madrid guide said that if it’s really high quality chocolate, the spoon will stand up in the middle of the glass of chocolate. Ours didn’t quite to do that, but that might have been because it wasn’t completely cooled yet. Ooh, this stuff was good. So extremely rich, but definitely worth it. Of course there was a ton of chocolate left over, so of course Logan drank the rest. I had a couple of spoonfuls, but that’s all I could manage! I’m just not one for a lot of sweet. I still enjoyed it though, and it was an overall great day!