Couchsurf

Day 52
Al had to be up early for his flight and I was up with him. It was hard to say goodbye again. We had had such a great time traveling together. I was very sorry to see him leave. I could have spent most of the day in our fancy hotel room, but I just didn’t want to be there alone and got my act together as quickly as I could and left.

I mentioned a few days ago that I was having difficulties finding a reasonably priced place to stay. I didn´t know about the holiday until to late and everything was booked. I decided to turn to couchsurfing in hopes that someone would take me in. Couchsurfing is a web site that connects people who are willing to meet travelers for a drink, give them a tour, or even let them sleep on their couch. Susan and her boyfriend Alberto were kind enough to let me sleep on their couch for the night. I was a bit nervous as this was my first time couchsurfing, but both of them were wonderful. They gave me their living room with a pull out bed for the evening.

Susan gave me a nice tour of Madrid, taking me to the main squares and fountains. We even spent some time in the Retrio park. We had tried to go to the Renia Sofia museum, but the line was beyond long and we decided to ditch the idea.

After another Internet session (i´m getting close to catching up) I headed back to the apartment for a rest. Susan told me that they were going out to dinner and invited me to join them. A friend of theirs, Sergio, also joined us. We ate at a locals place, and shared everything we had. It turned out that Sergio was also on couchsurfing, but Susan had not known that. We had quite a lot of fun talking about cultural differences and languages. Everyone spoke good English and didn´t mind translating for me when I didn´t understand.

Dinner was followed by a couple of drinks at a nearby bar. I was very tired from the sun and waking up early. When we got back to Susan and Roberto´s apartment I fell asleep quickly.