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Lado positivo y lado oscuro d’Espana

PROLOGUE day of backpacking across Europe with "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+]

We will be in Madrid until Aug. 4th then we are onto Barcelona, then Montpelier, Monaco, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris ending in London.

Your first prompt is packing your backpack and familiarizing yourself with staying at hostels. Have you ever done this before? What do you think they are like? Have you traveled in Europe before, what was it like if you have? If you haven't what are you hoping to explore?

Wow, I am so excited: traveling in my backyard with a group of awesome writers for a whole month. I am going to pack my rucksack immediately and get myself familiarized with our first stay in Madrid, 1434 kilometers (892 miles) from here.

What a great hostel you picked to accommodate us all Lyn's a Witchy Woman . I have never stayed in hostels before, only hotels and bed & breakfasts. I always think of hostels as only for the very young, with small (dirty?) sleeping accommodation in large dorm like facilities. But these rooms look great and fresh in Las Musas. Which means ‘the Muses’, and is so very appropriate for our group. Ahhh, I am going to love this month.

Sleeping with four or five in one room is going to be a challenge. But ofcorse we will not stay in the rooms other than to sleep. I for one am snoring a little bit. I think I prefer the down bunk if it’s going to be a bunk high sleeper, uno cama en alto in Spanish. I’ve got myself one mini dictionary Spanish-Dutch, Dutch-Spanish I will bring along. There is WIFI, so auntie Google is not far away.

When I think of Madrid, I think of museums, history and great art. The temperature will be great too, low 16 (61) degrees, high 33 (91) degrees in August.

I have been to Spain once before when I was twenty-five. I went with a girlfriend by bus to the coast. I had an incident with a young hotel guard there.

What happened? I was in my hotel room listening to music on my headphone, dancing on “Road to nowhere”of the Talking Heads on the balcony, while my friend took a shower. I was totally into that music and lyrics. “We're on a road to nowhere, Come on inside,Taking that ride to nowhere,We'll take that ride, I'm feeling okay this morning, And you know, We're on the road to paradise, Here we go, here we go…” When suddenly I saw down under near the hotel entrance this young hotel guard chasing a stray dog AND KICKING IT several times!

I was furious, steam coming out of my ears; I stumped out of the room, down to meet this young man. Ofcorse I didn’t speak Spanish and I didn’t want to start a fight or anything so the only thing I could come up with was sitting in front of the hotel lobby watching that hotel guard and staring him down for half an hour shouting : Anarchy, anarchy, since this young man’s uniform was in my face. I was so mad he was cruel to that dog, I could spit. At the end of our stay, I picked some flowers and put it near the entrance as a token of peace towards the guard. I think he never understood what that was all about.

Cruelty to animals is something I cannot bear. I know there are many strays in Spain and they are neglected or abused there. There are people who take those Spanish strays back to their country to sell them to dog lovers so they will have a good home, neutered and all. I totally support that.

Day NINE "Give It 100!" 

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