Again I had to send my rucksack through the security scanners, but being no more a threat or a terrorist than I was coming into Valencia, there was no problems and they let me board the train without further delay.
The train journey from Valencia to Madrid was just over three hours long and although it was far from boring, the route cannot compare in beauty to that of Barcelona to Valencia, as Madrid being a central city, the route does not have the coastline and along with it all the wonderful colours that made that first journey so magical.
However after the first hour they did show a movie to relieve the boredom, a slightly unusual choice being the Christmas of a few years ago, called 'Deck the Halls' and staring Danny Devito, in Castilian and with Castilian subtitles of course. As per usual, I enjoyed the film and still managed to grasp the storyline, only really missing out on the clever wordplay jokes that rely on your being able to understand every word that is being said, when of course I could barley make sense of parts of any individual sentence.
Arriving in Madrid I was not really able to remember much about the city from my last visit, being so many years ago, but I did find that it easy to get to the correct metro stop that I needed to reach my hostel.
At this point I realised that like many other cities in Europe, the reason that their metro system has better ventilation than in London's is for a few reasons. One, their metro coaches themselves are a fraction taller, a fraction wider and are often the bendy design with open ends allowing vastly more space to accommodate more passengers.
Next you have to remember that just in numbers of commuters alone, London tube network has that many more frequent passengers than any other European city and with more bodies there is more heat and thus more is need to be ventilated.
And lastly is that in the rest of the European cities all their stations, tunnels and entrances seem to be again that much bigger, wider and taller than ours, some even with air fans, which greatly increase their ability to regulate the air temperature and all in all it just makes the whole experience that much more bearable than a London tube journey.
I also want to say that I owe a big debt of thanks to Google Earth and to all the folks back at my former work, as between them I have used Google earth to search for the locations of my hostels and then taken a digital image with my camera so that even when I could not get a phone signal, find an internet hotspot or obtain a local map I have been able to have a good idea of where I have needed to go, and it is a method that I strongly advice to anyone who is planning to travel.
I also say that every night the last thing that you should do before bed is to recharge the batteries of any electronic device that you are taking with you, as you never know when you will be without power or in an area when you want to take so many photos that a half charged battery will only run out before the most breathtaking opportunity presents itself, and you will spend the next week cursing yourself for not charging your battery full when you had the chance.
After a minor misunderstanding with the Madrid Metro station that I needed having multiple entrances in different directions and roads, I finally managed to find my hostel in a northern part of Madrid and I was sharing with five other people in a dorm, but at least it had free wifi access.
I booted up my laptop to check messages, as I had been unable to do so since about 9am that morning, and I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to find that my Peruvian friend who now lives in Alcala De Henares was more than happy for me to meet her today and not tomorrow as planned, and not having much to do in Madrid after 4pm I chose to forgo the night there and skip straight to her city without further ado. So after less than an hour of checking in, I had repacked and checked out again and was back on my way to the same train station that I had only recently left in order to catch a train out again.
It is the first time that I have made a change from my preplanned route in terms of what city I am in on what day, and the second change only in terms of where I was meant to be staying, the first being in Prague when the hostel I had booked chose to close its reception for more than three hours during the middle of the day which pissed me off more than a small amount I can tell you.
However this change was good twofold, the first being that it meant that I am now able to spend more time with my friend, and less time alone as I have no friend who lives in Madrid, and the second that it meant that I was able to time and practice my route to and from Alcala de Henares, as my flight to Brazil leaves Madrid airport at a little after 1pm and I would be kicking myself for a month if I messed things up at this stage being the first real test of my advanced planning.
Once I met up with my friend we went back to her house, which she shares with a friend, caught up with a lot of gossip and news that we never thought to share via emails and it was not long before we were as close and chummy as we were all those years ago when I was here last time. Having already met her mother a couple of times in the past, once where I had the opportunity of returning a favour when she came to visit England, she took came to meet me and we all chatted and walked around the city for awhile before we went to have a meal in a nearby restaurant.
With all the travelling I had done I did not have much energy left for staying up late and chatting, so after the meal we just came walked back and both crashed out almost as soon as we got in the front door.
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