The Story of How I Got Lost on a Bus.

Madrid is a lovely place.  I highly recommend it.  Here are some tips if you do travel there.

1) Have enough euros with you FIRST.

2) Know the street names of where you are going.

3) Know exact directions about your bus stop.

and (possibly most important)

4) Listen to your brother, he has a better sense of direction than you do, even if he is younger and you feel responsible.

We got to Madrid.  On a bus!  Whoo-Hoo!  We even got on the Metro (and changed Metros, can you imagine?).  It was much easier with only a purse instead two suitcases and a carry-on.  We even got to the stop where the Prado Museum is...but we couldn't find it for a while.  Turns out we didn't walk nearly far enough.  That turned out to be fine; the day was beautiful and the area was amazing.  Musicians played and nothing could be finer.  Eventually we spotted the Prado and a Starbucks on the way, so we grabbed something to drink and made our way to the museum.

The Prado is amazing, we spent several hours, walking its entire span, admiring it Spanish paintings.  Perhaps it is cliche, but I was very excited to see Las Meninas  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas), a painting I'd read about, seen classmates present on, but never seen in reality until that moment.   It made being in Spain so very real.  I was finally accomplishing a dream five years in the making.

About four in the afternoon, footsore and perhaps a bit jet lagged, we made our way back towards the bus station.  We got on the bus.  Getting off was the problem.  See...we got off several stops too early...resulting in being stranded by a highway at the entrance of town in a Madrid suburb...

I panicked, thinking the bus wasn't actually going into town at all and was going to continue going down the highway, so I (dragging my unconvinced brother with me) hopped off the bus.  At this point, our hosts proceeded to not answer home or cell phones.  We were tired.  We were hungry.  We had little money because we hadn't found an ATM yet.  And worst of all, we were stranded.  So I did what any freaking out teenager does.  Call Mom.  (And what can Mom do from the US?  nothing.  Its just calming).  Eventually one of our hosts answered their phones and crisis was averted, but never had I felt more ashamed and scared than sitting at that dusty bus stop in Las Matas, telling Mom that I had gotten my brother stranded, with little money, next to a highway.  IN SPAIN.  Thank goodness I can speak Spanish.  Not that he could.

Regardless...we managed to pull through, yet again!  And I came to the decision that I hated buses.