Madrid - Night 1 - Cat's Hostel

I got into town too late this day to catch any of the sights, so I mainly hung around the hostel. Of all of the hostels I stayed at, this one definately had the least amount of ameneties - no kitchen, no "ensuite" bathroom (it had community bathrooms and showers, glad I brought some flip flops), no individual lights for the beds (necessary because there are ALWAYS people sleeping at hostels at all hours of the day), and no power outlets to charge your camera and/or laptop. All that being said, it still definitely had cool vibes (thanks Kirk for the recommendation).

Cat's Hostel in Madrid is in an old converted palace (of what/of whom i'm not sure) complete with a beautiful stained glass roof, tiled walls, old wooden floors/staircases etc. It also had a basement they called "The Cave" that had a really cheap bar (1 litre of Sangria for 3,50 euro), chairs to hang out in, and music. People usually came down here at night to hang before going out to the bars or Pub Crawl, I never went on one of the pub crawls as I learned my lesson in Paris on that, but it was fun to have drinks with people down there before they went out. The average time people "go out on the town" in Madrid is 1:30am which is when the clubs start getting busy. I actually didn't visit a nightclub in Spain (something that I would like to do in the future) because I only had 3 full days in the city, and with so much to see, I didn't want to spend my days asleep or hungover. So back to the hostel, if you ever visit Madrid, I definately recommened Cat's Hostel - not the cleanest and not feature rich, but I think you meet way more people at these kind of hostels because people tend to hang out in the common areas versus retreating to their suites in their rooms.

-z!