Euro Trip (Spain) - Day 2 - discovering the real Royal Mint of Spain

The legacy of free food continued from my motorbike trip days & this time, it was a German lady who sponsored my food.

The day started with a long chat with fellow hostel-mates whom I met on the breakfast table. One was Eva from Netherlands (we were in the same room) & another was Froggi from Germany. Eva was vacationing for like 2.5 months now & Froggi was heading back from a a sustainable agriculture rural internship to her place, a countryside in Germany close to Netherlands border.

I wanted to visit Royal Mint of Spain. Told the same to Froggi & she was enthu to come over. She has her bus to Lille (a town in France) in afternoon & it was a 20 hour gruelling bus ride for her. I thought, only Indians do such things. Plus, buses outside India dont have sleeper coach. I felt pity for her but then we decided to head out to see the place Money Heist was shot.

Froggi was carrying a huge backpack as she decided to go to the bus pickup point directly. I asked if we should take local bus but she said she is fine walking. It was a 3 km+ walk.

On the way, we crossed some nice places & I took a few pictures before reaching Royal Mint of Spain. We entered briefly into Parque de El Retiro as well. I remember because some lady came offering Rosemary which she was insisting to buy. Being from India, the first instinct was to ignore these kind of people & move on. But Froggi actually bought & paid 1 Euro. She explained that it is worthwhile getting blessing from these people. I was not sure if it was a German culture thing but it did got me thinking for a bit.

We reached Royal Mint of Spain & spotted two security guard standing outside. I was like, I think taking picture isnt a good idea. It is natural in India to be shooed away by security if you end up doing hanky panky stuff.

So I retreated back a bit before taking a picture.

I quickly looked up Google Map to figure out that there is a museum & entrance to it is from the side. We decided to go in. Froggi could speak & understand Spanish & I soon realized what kind of a great advantage that is. The security personal insisted on seeing our Passports & then issued us free tickets. I asked Froggi if she can ask the person if we can take pictures & then came a real long explanation from the person to her which made me think, why did I push a poor girl into it. I immediately apologized to her & that is when, she explained what the guy was saying .

This is not the place where Money Heist was shot, there is no printing of Euros that happen here.

Froggi could have clearly seen the astonishment on my face. I was like - so I walked 3 kms for this .. not only me, Froggi was carrying her large backpack & walking with me as well .. I made the poor girl walk too. Anyway, we were there & we had nothing to do, so we decided to go in.

Apparently, it is museum that talks about history of coin minting in Spain. You could also pay 3 Euros & push a minting machine handle to mint a coin & keep it. It wasn’t even remotely interesting to me & after watching a documentary, we just hurriedly went out of the place. The only interesting thing that I saw was this

It reminded me of the model of Royal Mint of Spain that Professor kept during his heist planning. Well, that was it & we were out in no time.

We were now hunting for a place to eat & after skipping a cafe (which seemed good but Froggi does not want to eat meat), we settled at a fine dining place where the waiting person there convinced Froggi of the 3 course meal. Knowing that I am an Indian, he offered me a chicken dish. The dishes turned out to be lot more than what we could potentially eat & I decided to skip my dessert. I went to the rest room & when I was back, I saw Froggi has done the payment. Inspite of repeatedly asking me to pay my share, Froggi did not relent. I did not feel very great about it but guess I was not left with much of a choice.

Thats her before we started on the long meal. The karma came back to bite me real soon. The food did not felt right & later in the evening, I did messaged Froggi asking if she is fine. Looked like her good karma took away the badness of the food.

Fairly disappointed with Royal Mint of Spain, I desperately tried searching for places where Money Heist was shot. It showed up another building but a comment clearly said, this is not the place.

I realized I was fairly close to Parque de El Retiro & I decided to explore the place itself. That was the original plan as well. The park was pretty nice.

But the food in my stomach wasn’t . I soon reached a place where there was sun & people were lying around. I decided to take a nap there.

I think I was asleep for like an hour. After getting up, I was now deciding what should I do next. The thought of visiting Real Madrid stadium crossed my mind but then some of the reviews indicated that the stadium tour from inside is disappointing. I was like - what is the point seeing it from outside & I decided to skip.

I was thinking for the next day as well. Earlier while talking with Eva & Froggi, they told me about the free walking tour every hostel offers. I checked it with my hostel reception & I was told I was late for the day. So one of the plan was to do the walking trip the next day. But then I felt, I have walked enough around the central/Sol part of Madrid anyway.

I wanted to visit Barcelona & Froggi had told me about BlaBlaCar. So I started looking for buses on Trainline & rides on BlaBlaCar. I dont know how but I saw some very cheap flight ticket from Barcelona to London for Sunday (Dec 19). I ended up booking that. I did have a flight from Madrid to London Dec 21 but then I dont think I am going to stay in Madrid for so long.

I started looking for rides to Barcelona. BlaBlaCar is kind of weird app. blablacar.com did not show any rides but blablacar.es did. The challenge with the latter site was that all content was in Spanish & I had tough time even to login on it. I messaged few ride creators if they would be ok traveling with a non Spanish speaking person & that is when I figured the hack. For discovering rides, you need to be on blablacar.es but once you have messaged the person, it would start showing up on blablacar.com account as well. For other things, I was using translate.google.com & copy pasting content from the website to translate there.

When I looked at some of the Barcelona ride routes on BlaBlaCar, they seem to pass by closer to Valencia. It is like Bangalore to Pondicherry route passes by Vellore from the side. I remember the person at the hostel desk, Mar who had helped me checkin & passed on suggestion for a good restaurant, she had mentioned about her home being towards Valencia. I was like - why dont I go to Valencia. It seems like midway between Madrid & Spain & also just 3 hours from Madrid. So then I started looking for Valencia rides. I think I messaged a few folks & also paid to one rider as well. BlaBlaCar said, she has time till 8:15 AM the next day to accept. The ride was at 11:00 AM next day.

I got up & took a bus back to hostel. I felt waiting till next day for confirmation could be too late. I also remember Froggi telling that some ride creators also cancel at the last moment. So I ended up booking another ride. This was instant confirmation & I had messaged the guy same thing - if he is ok traveling with a non Spanish guy. I also cancelled my first reservation. Soon I saw that the 2nd guy cancelled my ride request. Wow, the karma is really coming back hard today - is what I thought to myself.

I also got revert from another ride creator with her Whatsapp number. She asked me to do payment at a different link saying that she is unable to see any riders when they do payment at the regular place. I was about to do the payment & stopped right at the last moment. I figured I was very close to getting scammed. I was pretty desperate (& vulnerable) at that moment.

I took a deep breath & booked another (instance confirmation) ride & this time, I was like - if this guy gonna cancel, I am just gonna go with the free walking tour tomorrow. I dropped a few messages to the guy both on BlaBlaCar & on Whatsapp (BlaBlaCar shares the phone number post booking). But I did not hear back from him. I said - screw this, I am gonna explore more of Madrid & headed out to see some Christmas lights.

I think I was anxious & did not take a lot of pictures. But overall, it was a good walk.

I came back to hostel & met Fran (I did not take a pic with him). Fran looked like someone from India & the previous day, he lent me 2 Euros because the machine dispensing beer only took in coins :). I have not withdrawn any cash in Madrid & wasn’t carrying any Euros either. I thought of paying back by sponsoring his beer & he said he would be free by 11:30 PM.

I also ended up meeting Edurado, the Pub Crawl guy at the bar & he ended up paying me back 10 Euros (the Pub Crawl was of 20 Euros for 4 pub visit & free shot at every place). I gave back Fran the 2 Euros I borrowed from it but then I said that the meeting at 11:30 PM is still on to which Fran agreed.

I came back later & we chatted for some time. Fran asked if we could do our conversation later & when he got to know that I am leaving Madrid tomorrow, he agreed to stay back for the conversation. Fran is from Argentina & he told about his experience visiting various different countries, especially with cyclists or he riding a cycle. Fran spoke pretty good English & he mentioned that he has done some course in London as well. It was my first time interacting with someone from a South American country & I enjoyed that experience. I was pretty tired & after like an hour of chatting, said goodbye to Fran.

I quickly checked my phone & there was no message from the BlaBlaCar driver whose ride I had booked. With an anxious mind, I retried to bed. Little did I know that Mar, the other person on the hostel desk, is going to come for a very crucial bit of help the next day with respect to my Valencia ride. More in the next post.