A Few Days in Madrid

I´ve been in Madrid now for several days and while it´s quite a big city, I´ve come to enjoy it. My hostel is located down a side street, away from the crazyness of Puerta del Sol (which is in essence the heart of Madrid) but even down the side streets, partying is going on at all hours of the night... thankfully I have ear plugs and a sleep mask so I´m out cold every night.
I was very suprised to learn the underground subway is quite possibly the easiest mass transit system I´ve ever used, I took from the airport to my hostel without a single problem. I ended up meeting a fellow American traveler on my quest to find Hostel Posada de Huerta (i.e. my hostel), she had been working in Dublin since the beginning of May and was taking one last trip before she headed back to the states. We met up for dinner later that night and ate at a traditional Spanish restraunt just outside the Plaza Mayor (the plaza featured in the movie Vantage Point, where the President gets shot). I spent the next day doing the tourist thing, riding around on the "hop on/hop off" tour bus... definitely a great way to see the city and figure out where everything is!
I decided to go and have my first solo cafe lunch... what an experience!!! As I walked around trying to find a place to eat, I heard a loud comotion ahead of me. Just then a group of guys go running by me holding huge sacks over their shoulders, come to find out they had just robbed all the street merchants on the road. There were wallets, purses, DVD´s, spralwed everywhere and once everyone realized what had happened they went running into the streets to take what was left. The biggest suprise to me was that security guards and police just stood by and watched this whole ordeal without doing anything. To add to my interesting day, I was then harassed by a homeless man while I tried to eat my lunch. I had finally found a good outdoor cafe to eat at, and after accepting the fact that outside dining=smoking section, I sat back and tried to enjoy my lunch. Out of nowhere a homeless man comes up to the cafe and starts beginning for food and money from everyone eating outside, when he first came to me I politely told him no and he went on to another table but once no one would give him food he came back to me. I´m was completely thrown off by this since in the States if someone came into a cafe doing this a manager would be right there and would escort the individual out... that´s not the case in Spain. I tried to be nice again, saying I was going to eat it all but he would not give up, I ended up losing my temper and yelling at him... he finally got the hint and moved on to another table. Apparantly I handled the situation all wrong cause everyone proceeded to stare at me, turns out you´re just suppose to sit there and ignore him and hope that he leaves (I learned that by watching the other customers deal with him)... I´m definitely not in the States anymore!!!
The next 2 days were spent wandering around Madrid, looking at all the different Plaza´s and Cathedrals.
Last night I was invited to dinner by a couple of my french hostelmates, after spending a couple hours playing cards in the common area our dinner group turned into the "dinner of cultures" (as we nicknamed it... 1 guy from the UK, 2 guys from Virginia, 2 girls from Washington DC, 6 guys from France, and myself). The french guys knew of this tiny little restraunt on one of the side streets... we were quite a sight to see!!! After several long debates and using my translation book we finally ordered. While there was major communication difficulties (only one of the french guys spoke english and it was very little) it was really cool to have such different people all eating dinner together!
I spent most of today in Parque del Retiro (a massive park just outside the city centre) trying to escape all the honking and yelling that takes place on every street. I´ll be catching a night train tomorrow to go to Lisbon, Portugal and have scheduled to stay there for atleast 3 nights. I´ve been taking note of all the cultural differences I´ve experienced and will soon make a post of them... it´s amazing everything that I´ve been able to experience in such a short time.

Adios!