6.30am

Woke up for the Subuh prayer brrr... the water was cold. Finished and snuggled back under the blanket... another hour please...

9.30am

Checked out as there was no more room available for us until Monday. Decided to look for another room nearby. So once we checked out, we lugged our bag downstair and just rang any hostel's bell. We finally decided on Gaudy Hotel. Clean, got TV and hotshower for EUR 40.

Decided to do our laundry today. I've been wearing the same jeans for the past four days and it started to smell already.. urgh! Plus I almost ran out of undies and socks. So we compiled our stuff into plastic bags and started hunting for the laundreatte. The hostel owner gave us one sticker of a laundreatte not far away from the place last nite, so we decided to check the place out.

Brrrr... the temperature did not improved. Its colder, I can see vapors when Im just breathing.. brrrr. Clutching our plastic bags, we walked along the walkways searching for the laundreatte. Found the place and it was about 1km away from Hostel Gaudy.

It was a coin operated laundreatte and have instruction in several languages including English. They have machines for washing, detergent and drying. There are also a table for folding clothes and seating area to spend time while waiting for the laundry. There was a also a stack of magazine to browse through.

I thought it was funny that the laundreatte has a stack of magazines with half-naked men posters at almost every page but it did not stopped us for oogling though. But why ya? These men looked a bit like queers? Hehehehe.. why? Because we were browsing homo's magazine. Actually this road is famous for prostitutions and cross dressers and homosexuals so "naturally" they would have special magazine for them.. rite? hehehe. Whatever the reason, although we could not understand most words, the magazine still entertaining, educational while waiting for the laundry!

Once we done the laundry, we sent them back to hostel and the first agenda was sightseeing. So we purchased the Vision Bus for city tour. Boarded the bus at the red double-decker bus at Gran Via. There were not many people in the bus but its okay.

While the bus driver was manuvering into small lane, we saw our hockey team. Aik? There were here? Ohh they were participating in the World Hockey Games. Waved at the players, hehehe.. I guess they did not know that we are Malaysians kot. One of them looked sombong, probably thought that we are ngurating him? (duh!)

First stop, the El Prado Museum considered the largest art gallery in the world. It also exhibits sculptures, drawings, coins and other works of arts, but it is undoubtedly its large collection of paintings which has given it fame worldwide. It houses more than 8,600 paintings, of which they exhibit less than 2,000 because of lack of space available. Many museums throughout the world have less artistic riches in their halls than the Prado Museum has in storage.

The present day art gallery comes from the royal collections of the old Trinidad Museum, as well as acquisitions, donations and bequests.

Its history began during the reign of Charles III, when he tried to create a single art collection under one roof. But it was not until the reign of Fernando VII when the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture was created, on 19th November 1819. The kings death caused inheritance problems and endangered the unity of the collection, but with the disappearance of the monarchy in Spain the museum became national property and became known as the Prado National Museum.

From then to this date, the works of art have survived several challenges and were transferred several times during the Spanish Civil War, ending up in the Swiss city of Geneva and being returned to Madrid during the Second World War.

Nowadays, its treasures are exhibited in two adjacent buildings : the Villanueva Building where the majority of the works are housed, and the Cason del Buen Retiro.

The multiple origins of the paintings of the Prado Museum allow us to classify its works according to the nationality of the original school;

The Italian school has among others, works by Andrea Mantenga, Sandro Botticelli, Rafael, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, Lorenzo Lotte, Tintoretto, Verones, Tiepolo and above all, Tiziano.

Early Flemish, with works by Rogier van der Veyden, Flemish master Hans Memling, Jochim Patinir, Quentin Metsys, Bernard van Orley, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Brueghel and the Flemish school with Rubens, Jordaens and Anton van Dyck.

The German, French and Dutch schools with works by Lucas Cranach, Albert Dürer, Nicolas Poussin, Claudio de Lorena and Rembrandt (Alias hehehe)

The Spanish school is represented with works by Spanish grand masters Bartolomé Bermejo, Pedro Berruguete, Luis de Morales, El Greco, Juan B. Maino, José de Ribera, Alonso Cano, Caudio Coello, Zurbarán, Velázquez, Murillo, Luis Meléndez,Goya ..... and a long list of great artists.

After spending about three hours inside the museum, we headed to Santiaga Bernebeu, for another round of tickets hunting for football match. This time, we approached one of the ulats and Jules studied the location of the seats in the stadium offered by the man. Not satisfied, we approached another ulat.

This time, Jules was happy with the seat and the row but the price EUR80 for EUR50 seat.
"Do you wanna take it?" I asked.
"Yeah, why not. This the reason why I came here," she said.
"OK. But I guess you have to watch alone. I don't have that much money to spare," I told her. She said ok.

So, we bought the tickets and proceed to the AreaMadrid at the nearby shopping arcade to buy some souvenirs. We just browse and bought some small things.

My First Snow

By the time we went out the complex, it was snowing. Wooweeee! It was windy and the snow flakes flew helter skelter. I got very excited although it was very cold. Told Jules that we have to walk in the snow "storm". Jules looked at me.
"Gila! Sejuk tau tak. Tunggu jer la salji habis turun."
"Please la hehehehe.. jom aaaa," I pleaded at her.
Fed-up with my childish antiques, she agreed and off we walked in my snow "storm" to the stadium again.
Ahh... the joy of being me. Such simple things that really can make me happy.

From the Stadium, we took metro back to Gran Via and decided to just walk and browse the shops there. We were hungry and this time we decided to sop at Jamaican Cafe and tried the pasta. I tried the Marinara.. urgh! It was a bad choice I guess. The shrimps were salty, but other than that, the meals were superb. There was a shop selling sundry so we stopped and bought bottle drinks.

From there we walked back to the hostel and stopped abain at Pizzeria. This time we bought pizza for breakfast tomorrow. I tried the Atun y pemiento. So what's the pamiento?
"Pamiento?" the shop owner said.. "wait!" He showed us a plastic container with chilies in it..
We grinned. "Okay, uno atun y pamiento pizza!" And Jules bought herself egg pizza.. yuck! (ok ok she loves eggs!)

Happily we carted our food up to the hostel room and after freshen up and solat, we dug into the food. Erkh! Can you imagine eating tuna pizza with chillies? I don't think I can swallow it down if I ever bought one here in Malaysia but in Madrid, everything tastes good.