Hola!!!

Hola from Madrid! After a couple of average days in a crappy hotel in Bordeaux and after much confusion at the train station we boarded a train to Irun, a wee town just on the border between France and Spain. It was a nice train actually, one of those ones with cabins for you to sit in and spread out a bit. Just before we got into Irun a French man with a huge yellow balloon visited us to play hit the balloon around the cabin. Random. He seemed really nice thoug, kept trying to make us understand his French, we didnt. We decided to have a walk around Irun since it was a friday night and we had a couple of hours to spend. We soon found out the locals didnt seem to keen to have us there, lots of weird looks and crossing the street so as not to pass us.
We had booked a ´couchette´ for our trip to Madrid so that we could sleep. It was amazing to see 6 people and all our luggage fit into this tiny cabin. About half an hour into our trip there was a bit of a halla ballo outside our cabin, most of it was in a tounge we didnt understand but we could hear over and over ´we are the police you must give us your passport´. After a while a plain clothes cop came into our cabin to see our passports too. I made sure I checked out his badge and we gave him our passports. They carried on for some time outside the cabin with the passport check resistors and eventually it all calmed down. Drama!
We got here to Madrid this morning and its awesome. It seems the further south we go the less english is spoken. We are making good use of our phrase book here. It feels a bit silly talking Spanish though, you kinda have to lisp some sounds. Andrew learnt the word for beer pretty quick though. We went to the Royal Palace thismorning. I have never seen such opulence and extravagence before. It was amazing, one room was entirely covered in porcelin.
Our hostel seems fun but maybe not as much as the flying pig. All the rooms face onto a communal courtyard which we are hoping is where the party is at tonight.
Tomorrow we have been promised a tour by a spanish guy we meet on the subway today. He was on his way home from a party at 8 when we were arriving.