I really enjoyed staying in Cat’s Hostel. It was my first real youth hostel and it was nice to be surrounded by other travelers my age backpacking Europe as well. Fiona, Milly and I got breakfast downstairs where we’d been drinking liters of beer only hours before. These croissants weren’t as good as the croissants in Ibiza, but the company was infinitely better. After breakfast we left for the Royal Palace, got rained on, and returned to the hostel to get money and postcards. After the rain slowed, we restarted our day an hour later and bought an umbrella on the way to the Royal Palace, via the Plaza Major.
The palace was opulent and exquisitely furnished, each room more elaborately decadent than the last. There were thousands of rooms within the massive building but only fifty were open to the public. Pictures were not allowed inside the palace, but I took a couple outside the building, and one inside.
After the Palace, Milly, Fiona, and I had lunch on our way to the train station to get Milly and Fiona tickets to Lisbon, to join Kiana the next day. Once they’d bought their tickets, we went our separate ways, Fiona and Milly to the Reina Sofia, and me back to the hostel to edit pictures and pack for the trip.
We regrouped that night on the night train to Lisbon from Madrid, 10pm to 7am. This was my second long distance train trip and first night train anywhere. The cabin lights went off around midnight and I managed to get a little bit of sleep in two hour spurts.
