Nightmare trip to Madrid

I went on a school excursion with Years 5 and 6 to Madrid last week from Wednesday to Friday, and basically everything that could go wrong did.

It started at about 9.30 am, half an hour into the trip, on the bus, when a girl threw up from carsickness. Then, at the albergue, all the teachers were in one room and it turned out we had to share a bathroom with another room, of four boys. And none of the girls knew how to make their beds. The boys were actually pretty good. We broke a student's bottle of medicine and one of the teachers had to go to the pharmacy to convince them to sell her another one without a script and in the meantime, we went to the Planetarium. About five minutes after we arrived, we realised we'd left the diabetic girl's food on the bus, so another teacher had to go and buy some more. Then the other remaining teacher was playing with the kids and dislocated her shoulder.

We were supposed to see two films at Imax after the Planetarium but the albergue said they closed the kitchen and dining area at 9.30 pm sharp, so it was a choice between dinner and the film and the teachers decided dinner was probably slightly more important.

After dinner, one of the girls started coming out in hives. She checked her antibiotics and realised it had some ingredient she was allergic to. And the next morning, when we woke up, one of the boys had vomited in the sink from all the junk food he'd been eating all day, and he hadn't even bothered to clean it up. I'll never understand why he didn't throw up in the toilet. SO much more hygienic.

In the morning, the teacher's dislocated shoulder was killing her so when the kids went to the zoo, I went with her to Emergency. We all walked to the zoo together, and apparently where the albergue was is the most infamous red-light district in Madrid. At 9 am, we passed quite a few hookers. The kids flipped out and wanted to talk to them but the teachers threatened to torture and behead them if they went anywhere near them.

Spent 5 hours in Emergency, waiting. Seems like Sydney isn't the only place with hospital issues. Missed going to the Prado as well, but it was actually very relaxing being without 28 hyperactive students. And the weather was fantastic so while I was waiting, I walked around the area a bit and sat on a bench in the sun. I was so re-energised when we met up with everyone again but all the kids were buggered from walking around all day. And the diabetic girl had very low blood sugar levels. Went on a short tour around central Madrid to learn about the Austrias, then back at the albergue after dinner, we played camp games with the kids.

Friday morning, we went to the mountains north of Madrid for a bushwalk. It wasn't too difficult but all the kids were going 'I'm tired, my legs hurt, I'm hot, can we stop for food now? I need to pee, are we almost there? When can we head back, when's lunch?' It was hilarious. And one girl was hypoglycaemic and nearly fainted.

I left them at about 3 pm because they were heading home without passing Madrid while I was spending the weekend there. It was an awesome trip, and I had insane fun, what with all the unfortunate events, so was a bit sorry not to be going back with them on the bus.

Met up with Iñigo, whose place I was crashing at, and Diego at about 6 pm and started drinking straight away. They took me to a student bar with some students who'd started drinking at 3 pm. Ahhh, uni life. Beza was catching the bus down from Logroño after work and arrived at about 9 pm, then we had dinner and went out. But I was pretty buggered after 3 days with the students, so came home pretty early while Iñigo and Diego stayed longer. At about 5 am, when they came home, Diego thought it would be hilarious to sit on my head.

Beza and I spent Saturday just walking around. There was a second hand bookshop I wanted to check out, and ended up spending two hours and 40 euros there. Had pinchos of bacalao, calamares, jamon, bacon and lots and lots of beer. Also went to my beloved Asian supermarket and stocked up. Diego was supposed to catch a plane to Lyon for work that evening, but for some reason missed his flight so came back to the flat. He's hilarious.

On Sunday, went to the Rastro, then a Bacon exhibition at the Prado which was FANtabulous. All in all, was a great week.