So our fully planned and prepared day did not go at all to plan. In fact it was overall a terrifying and awful day. 10/10 if repeated would stay in bed.
We had our whole day planned out days in advance: Fairtrade festival, explore Sol, KFC, park, boat ride then home and not a single part of it went to plan.
For starters the bus was over 40mins late just to get into sol and then line 3 from Moncloa on the Metro had been moved as one side was closed which led to much confusion on our part as we didn't understand the Spanish sign.
Moving on from there we arrived at Sol just a bit late for the Spanish dancing performance but with still enough time to see it only to be harassed. This part might sounds slightly ridiculous and stupid of us but bear in mind that to us this was genuinely terrifying and you can't really know how you'll react to something until you experience it for yourself.
But moving onto the trauma, Shiane was grabbed from behind by two costumed men (Freddy Krueger and Chucky to make things worse) and had (what we didn't know at the time) their plastic knifes held to her throat whilst they ignored us saying no and demanded us to take a picture, so I seeing how they weren't taking no for an answer and realising how easily a fake knife at Shi:s neck could turn to a hand on her throat took the picture immediately only for myself to also be grabbed rather firmly. Even after the pictures were taken with the two of us seperated and a man beside each of us they began to demand money and wouldn't leave us until we threw all the change we had at them.
Afterwards we sat at a fountain trying calm ourselves down as we had started to panic, this was the first time the two of us had felt unsafe our entire trip and we realised quite how vulnerable we both were. After looking for Eva and not finding her we quickly left Sol as we were incredibly nervous around the costumed people after this. We proceeded to somehow find Callao in our panicked state and hid out in Penney's (thank god for familiar safe places) until we had calmed down enough to head to Retirio Park.
Continuing onto the Park we were going in through a different entrance than we knew and ended up finding an Irish pub! Which honestly some alcohol and little taste of home? Exactly what we needed after our day
So it looked like things were back on track, yes? No. We got lost. Very lost. We took one wrong turn in the park and somehow ended up in a dog park?? No clue how. Everything that could've gone wrong that day went wrong. After eventually finding our way to KFC (where they spelt our names wrong hence Yasmin and Shayan, and also got Shiane's order completely wrong, yay bad luck continued) we realised it was after 5 and mostly likely a) boat riding would be closed and b) we did not want to risk trying to find it again after getting lost in the park so recently and c) after our bad day we just wanted to go home and drink.
So we left the area and waking through Atochi to get back to Callao (we bravely, in my opinion ,crossed Sol square again) where we broke some cash in Penney's (funnily enough the same one from our mental breakdowns five hours beforehand) and got the metro to Moncloa.
After getting to Moncloa and going right to our bus stop ( because again we had everything figured out) we waited for the 682 instead of the 681 because it was in half an hour rather than an hour anyways right? Wrong. By the time we boarded the bus it was 8:00, by the time we got off it was 9:00 and we were in Guadarama. The bus never stopped in Alpedrete despite it saying so on several different timetables and maps that we had checked before even boarding and whilst panicking on the bus. Luckily we were able to communicate with the driver via Google translate passed back and forth on my phone about what to do. For another €2 each she took up back to Villalba where we could get the 681 home. It was 9:27 when we got there, the 681 was meant to show at 9:30 but of course knowing our luck that day it showed at 10 instead. We eventually made it home after our awful day at 10:30 where we proceeded to have copious amounts of whiskey and popcorn in an attempt to comfort ourselves. Here's hoping tomorrow will be a better day
We had our whole day planned out days in advance: Fairtrade festival, explore Sol, KFC, park, boat ride then home and not a single part of it went to plan.
For starters the bus was over 40mins late just to get into sol and then line 3 from Moncloa on the Metro had been moved as one side was closed which led to much confusion on our part as we didn't understand the Spanish sign.
Moving on from there we arrived at Sol just a bit late for the Spanish dancing performance but with still enough time to see it only to be harassed. This part might sounds slightly ridiculous and stupid of us but bear in mind that to us this was genuinely terrifying and you can't really know how you'll react to something until you experience it for yourself.
But moving onto the trauma, Shiane was grabbed from behind by two costumed men (Freddy Krueger and Chucky to make things worse) and had (what we didn't know at the time) their plastic knifes held to her throat whilst they ignored us saying no and demanded us to take a picture, so I seeing how they weren't taking no for an answer and realising how easily a fake knife at Shi:s neck could turn to a hand on her throat took the picture immediately only for myself to also be grabbed rather firmly. Even after the pictures were taken with the two of us seperated and a man beside each of us they began to demand money and wouldn't leave us until we threw all the change we had at them.
Afterwards we sat at a fountain trying calm ourselves down as we had started to panic, this was the first time the two of us had felt unsafe our entire trip and we realised quite how vulnerable we both were. After looking for Eva and not finding her we quickly left Sol as we were incredibly nervous around the costumed people after this. We proceeded to somehow find Callao in our panicked state and hid out in Penney's (thank god for familiar safe places) until we had calmed down enough to head to Retirio Park.
Continuing onto the Park we were going in through a different entrance than we knew and ended up finding an Irish pub! Which honestly some alcohol and little taste of home? Exactly what we needed after our day
So we left the area and waking through Atochi to get back to Callao (we bravely, in my opinion ,crossed Sol square again) where we broke some cash in Penney's (funnily enough the same one from our mental breakdowns five hours beforehand) and got the metro to Moncloa.
After getting to Moncloa and going right to our bus stop ( because again we had everything figured out) we waited for the 682 instead of the 681 because it was in half an hour rather than an hour anyways right? Wrong. By the time we boarded the bus it was 8:00, by the time we got off it was 9:00 and we were in Guadarama. The bus never stopped in Alpedrete despite it saying so on several different timetables and maps that we had checked before even boarding and whilst panicking on the bus. Luckily we were able to communicate with the driver via Google translate passed back and forth on my phone about what to do. For another €2 each she took up back to Villalba where we could get the 681 home. It was 9:27 when we got there, the 681 was meant to show at 9:30 but of course knowing our luck that day it showed at 10 instead. We eventually made it home after our awful day at 10:30 where we proceeded to have copious amounts of whiskey and popcorn in an attempt to comfort ourselves. Here's hoping tomorrow will be a better day
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