Madrid day #2

Ciao everyone!
Ok so we had a wonderful day in Madrid here. First it was supposed to rain all day, and it didn't start raining until 4ish, which was great.
So we slept in and then went out at about 11ish to find breakfast. We ended up going to this indoor market thing, and talked with this great lady from mexico who gave us discount on orange juice, we also got churros con chocolate, which were delicious!
Then we wanted to find this park that we read was really nice, but on the way we saw this grand cathedral, so we decided to check it out. Called the Catedral de la Almudena. It was so amazing, I'll post pictures on facebook.
So after the Catedral, we continued on to find the park, but on the way this time we found La Palacia Real--the Royal Palace of the Spanish Monarchy. So of course we went inside. We went to buy tickets (it said it was supposed to be about 8E) but the guy at the entrance said, "lo ciento, only EU citizens today, where are you from?" we said "los estados unidos" and he said" no, only EU citizens today, where are you from?" so finally we said "Roma" and he gave us free tickets to the Palace! It was so cool!!! (we made sure not to speak english around any of the guards, so we wouldn't get in trouble), but it was great 1800 furnishing and decorations, so pretty. Another good find. After the state rooms, we went to the armory, which had guns over 10 feel long! Then we saw the official Farmacia. Which had jars of herbs and old medicines. It was really interesting, I had never seen something like that before.
Ok so after that we went and got 1E baguette for lunch, and headed off first to El Museo Thyssen, an art museum. They were having a Monet Exhibit, It wasn't that amazing, and not worth the money.
BUT THEN we went to El Museo del Prado, which is the most famous art museum in most of Spain, It has all the famous spanish artists, Goya, Titan, and Valazquez. Our favorite was the painting Las Meninas (I think). But El Prado was amazing! If you go to Madrid, you HAVE TO GO!!!
Ok, so by this point we were all dead tired, but we had to go to the train station to buy our tickets for barcelona. We are taking the overnight train tomorrow night, we so get one more day in Madrid than we originally thought, which is nice.
We then came back to our hostel and got tostadas, which were very yummy, and now we are just relaxing in our hostel resting before we go out tonight! So overall a great day! I probably won't write on this before I get to Barcelona, but ill try my best.
Ciao tutti!
~Alyson~
:-)