So we left the night of Thursday, February 17th for Madrid, but missed our change in Barcelona because our train was late, so we were stuck there for a few extra hours on the way. We finally got to Madrid Friday evening and some of the group went to a big club, but I stayed at our hostel and slept since I hadn't slept much on the train.
Saturday it rained pretty much all day so I didn't take any pictures, but we really just walked around all day. We went to a museum or two and had lunch at a neat place with 1 euro mini sandwiches and beer. We left that night for Lisbon. Madrid was definitely my least favorite place we went to over Spring Break, between not really planning what to do there and it raining the whole time.
We got to Lisbon (known there as "Lisboa," much cooler) Sunday morning, dropped off our stuff at our hostel, and walked around for a while. This is the street our hostel was on:
Literally nothing is open on a Sunday morning in Lisbon. Maybe because they party so hard Saturday nights? I think we got there around 7am and we didn't find anything that opened until 10, a museum we went to just to kill some time. We found a restaurant right outside the museum and waited for that to open, and it was pretty good. The highlight of the restaurant was meeting the bartender, who used to work for the local soccer stadium and got us tickets to a game, Sporting vs Benfica. More on that later. After lunch we headed back to our hostel so that four of us could get ready for the Katy Perry concert that night. The concert was awesome. It was actually held inside a bullfighting arena, which was pretty neat. We met some Portuguese girls in line and hung out with them during the concert since they spoke English pretty well. And we were really close to Katy Perry. :)
Monday we took a train to Cascais, where there was a nice beach.
We hung out there for a while and then headed back to get ready for the soccer match. Francisco, the bartender, had told us we'd meet up and get a few drinks together before the game, so we met him around 4pm, after decking out in Sporting shirts and scarfs. We had thought "getting a few drinks" meant going to a bar or something, but we actually ended up tailgating with a ton of Portuguese guys. It was awesome, they were singing and cheering all night, and we tried to learn some of the cheers (not with much luck though, haha). Sporting lost 0-2, but it was still a fun night.
Tuesday we walked around some more and went shopping. Then we left for Valencia that evening. We got to Valencia Wednesday early afternoon and decided to go on a pub crawl that night. We just hung out at the hostel and explored the city a little until the pub crawl, which was pretty cool.
Thursday we didn't have a lot of time before leaving for Barcelona, but we went to a market and then took a bus over to see the outsides of some cool museums.
But we almost didn't make it back. We couldn't figure out the bus back, and we had no time, so we had to get a taxi. We met back up with other people who hadn't come to the museums and rushed to the train station, getting there with very little time to spare.
We got to Barcelona Thursday night, explored the major street our hostel was off of, and got dinner at a really expensive restaurant. I had Paella, which I'd heard you pretty much have to try if you go to Spain. We didn't do much else that night. Friday we took a free walking tour, went shopping, and the guys in our group got haircuts. Some people went to a casino that night, but I'd been sick and was really tired, so I just crashed.
Saturday we rented bikes for the day, which ended up being a really good idea. We biked all over the city and saw Parc de la Ciutadella, La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's famous unfinished cathedral) and the Castell de Montjuic.
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