Well, that was a bit good! That was my first trip to Madrid and had such a good time!
My memory of Friday is a bit vague, it seems like a long time ago now. 3 hours sleep then leaving my flat at 2am ensured it'd be a long day. We had people travelling from all over but all managed to get all 17 of us together within a couple of hours or arriving in Madrid. Hotel Muralto near the Arguellas metro stop (only 3 stops from the centre of town) was absolutely spot on and had a decent cocktail bar and restaurant downstairs. We spent the afternoon/evening exploring (bar crawling) around the city and getting our bearings. 3 of us slipped away at about 1.30am to head to La Riviera. Was impressed with the club, but it was still fairly empty with Davide Squillace not due on until 4am. Andrea Oliva was on when we arrived but it really was too empty to be any good. That, combined with Ibiza pricing on the drinks and the fact that the 2 lads I'd gone with being much more into House than Techno, an all nighter was never on the cards. It started to fill up after about 3am and I wanted to stay a bit, but I'd been up 25 hours already and we still had a big weekend ahead, so we did the sensible thing and headed back to the hotel for about 4am. A very long day but a good time.
Saturday was to be a day of sport, lager, breasts, Mojitos and House music. Up and out for breakfast at midday, then into Central to start the drinking and find a pub to watch the football and rugby. We sat and watched the Everton game, then got the metro out towards the Bernabeu, where we found a pub called the Irish Rover to watch the rugby. Met a cool group of girls from Northampton who have all moved out to Madrid for work, was a good boozy afternoon in the pub (ignoring the rugby). Then to the Bernabeu for Real Madrid vs Real Mallorca, who I'd backed at 18/1. They led twice but got battered 5-2 which was a shame. Great experience to witness a game there though from up in the gods in the 5th tier. We went back to the pub then off to other bars then a strip club with the rest of the group, before 2 of us slipped away to a club called Mondo. This was much more like it! Little sweatbox of a club, rammed, house music, reasonably priced drinks. 2 English(I think) guys were DJing - Luke Abbott was on when we arrived, and a guy called James Holden was on from 5-7am(I think). Either way, we were there til the lights came up and had a lot of fun. Cracking set from James, and we met some cool people and got sweaty. Good stuff!
I got awoken at midday and was in a bad way. Forced myself to get up though as the lads were heading back to the Bernabeu for the stadium tour. Glad I went though, was impressed. We stumbled into Fridays afterwards for muchos cerveza grandes and some decent food for the first time that weekend. Also managed to catch the Chelsea game there before heading back to the hotel for showers. Then into the cocktail bar to rack up a several hundred euro bar bill. The majority of the lads headed in early as they had an 8.15am pick up to head back to the airport. My flight back to Edinburgh wasn't until 7.30pm so I wasn't in such a rush to end the night. Myself, Spanish Dave (lives in Madrid) and a barmaid from the cocktail bar (absolute stunner) headed out into town at 3am when she finished work to carry on the party at a place where her friends would be. My Spanish isn't great so it got a bit frustrating after a while with Dave having to switch between English and Spanish for the 3 of us to talk, so I left them to it. Hope he was successful!
My flight back to Edinburgh wasn't until Monday evening so I was pleased to have arranged a date with one of the girls we'd met in the Irish Rover before the Real Madrid game. Plan was to go sightseeing, but we ended up just sitting in one of the squares I can't remember the name of to sit in the sun and have drinks, then wandered over to the Palace as it was close. Very nice afternoon, maybe that won't be my only trip to Madrid this year 8)
The 24 hours after leaving the palace were awful. Hangover well and truly kicked in, long metro ride, boring airport wait, crowded flight, late landing, ****loads of snow, couldn't find car, couldn't get out of the carpark, couldn't do over 30mph on parts of the drive home, several accidents, 165 miles home took nearly 5 hours, got in at 3am, got up at 6am, 12 hour day at work. I feel like I've just done a weekend in Ibiza! Ah well, I had a cracking weekend and would do it all over again. Madrid has got my seal of approval!
sound like you had a great time.