Railing thru Europe: Stop 2.1 Spain – Madrid | Travel Blog

Railing thru Europe: Stop 2.1 Spain – Madrid

Posted by ourjotterbook on Thursday, June 10, 2010 · 1 Comment

After Egypt, this is gonna be our 2nd night train experience. Taking the night train is great for going long distances as you get to sleep and arrive at your destination in the morning thus saving you travelling time and on lodging for that extra night!

Ticket machine for the metro

Estacion de Atocha (Atocha Train Station)

Why not visit the Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu Stadium since we are in town.

How i missed watching Ronaldo and his trademark free kick in Man United Colours...

Saw this 2 ads in the tunnel of the metro leading up to the stadium

We felt kinda disappointed with the atmosphere of the stadium as we had the impression that since Real Madrid is one of the top teams there should be a certain level of expectations, hype and excitement… unfortunately we didn’t feel anything like that. Another thing to note is, unlike football clubs in England, i feel that there is no sense of identity or branding for the supporters. Maybe thats why we didn’t feel like doing the stadium and museum tour. Maybe we might regret later? Only time will tell haha…

We finally chanced upon a Real Madrid shop in the city

Went in to this buffet place to try the spanish food!

Plaza Mayor

Many street performers like this fat spiderman could be found in the Plaza Mayor

South east view of the Catedral de La Almudena

Palacio Real

North facade of the Catedral de La Almudena

Plaza de Oriente

us grapping the butt of a bronze statue! haha...

seems like some riot going on...

The Metropolis building

Plaza de Cibeles

Fuente de Neptuno

Statue of Goya at the Museo del Prado

Posing with a statue by the Iglesia de los Jeronimos

Statue of Diego Velazquez at the Museo del Prado

Entrance to the Parque del Buen Retiro

Weird looking trees...what comes into your mind when you look at them?

Just when we were walking pass these trees and commenting about how they resembles sh*t, something splattered on our backs. We looked at each other’s behinds and to our horror our hair, clothes and backpacks were full of what looks like greenish bird craps! I mean what kind of bird sh*t so much? Oh man…. we just did our laundry and yee had her hair nicely plaited in the morning…grr… Still in a state of shock, a couple pops up and was so very kind to offer tissue and water to help us clean. Our minds are still trying to contemplate what really happened in those split moments…Was it a bird having diarrhoea or a group of birds who decide to “mass bomb” at the same time or was it from those shitty looking trees? and why is this couple over zealous in helping us clean bird crap? All these thoughts while trying to clean off those bird craps while keeping alert of our belongings. We told the couple several times that we can clean off ourselves but they keep wanting to help.

When they finally left us alone, we continued trying to clean off most of the crap as we dragged feeling yucky throughout our night train that day and have already checked out our hostel there is no place to take a shower. We both felt the ordeal very fishy as the “bird poop” didn’t really stink and ain’t bird poop suppose to feel warm? We felt as if the splats were from behind and not dropping from mid air so for all we know it could be a scam but we felt a little guilty doubting other people’s kindness.

Subsequently, we checked our bags but couldn’t really remember if our 20 euros spare note was used or missing but we chose to forget about the incident and continue with our day and think that they might be genuine nice people and maybe we might have spent the 20 euros. Furthermore, we had been uptight about our belongings. While waiting for our night train, out of curiosity, we decide to google “bird poop scam” and indeed there were many results of travelers sharing their bird poop scam experiences, some suffered greater loss than others. It’s said to be the classic trick that has been used by thieves over decades! We found this blogger to be most descriptive and animated in his storytelling of his unfortunate incident. Really worth the read -> http://blog.nonword.com/2009/02/pajaro-de-cuenta/

Moral of the story?

If the bird poop is cold…it is not bird poo…