charismatic megafauna since 1985

Madrid

(Sorry about the delay on these two posts…)

I’m writing this from the night train to Paris, my last real stop of the trip. I’ve also just found out that I’ve lost my cell phone (probably in the Cinque Terre, the last time I remember having it out). But I’m trying not to let that get me down, since I had a really good time in Madrid.

I had a good time in Madrid, despite two things which usually get me down: rain, and language barriers. It rained (or at least drizzled) for most of the 2.5 days I was in the city and its surroundings. Only today (Tuesday the 9th) was it bad enough that I really minded being outside, so I spent the whole day in the Prado museum. Madrid was also the first place that I really had trouble communicating with people. Most people don’t know English, and my Spanish isn’t really good enough to make up for that. However, a mix of bad Spanish and hand gestures seem to have done me well enough.

I got into Madrid and found my way to a really cheap hostel in the city; 12 Euro per night. That included breakfast, which was cool, but didn’t have internet or a kitchen. Actually, they do have a kitchen but it’s not one that residents can use. I didn’t check before I went out to buy dinner so I’m hauling a bit of pasta, sauce and mixed vegetables with me to Paris. I’m going to make sure that the hostel I’m at has a kitchen there; I don’t think I can eat 4 days of sandwiches (again).

That afternoon I just wandered around back to the downtown area, following landmark signs. I packed my map of the city, but I remember seeing the Senado (I think that’s the Senate, but I’m not sure), the Royal Palace and Gardens, the Opera, the Plaza Real, and a cool Christmas decoration-thing (not sure how to describe it) outside a department store.

I definitely noticed in Barcelona and Madrid that there’s none of the “Happy Holidays” equivocation that we’ve got in the States. Everything is very Christmas oriented.

Monday I went to El Escorial and El Valle de los Caidos on Tess’ recommendations. Now that I’ve been there, I’d heartily second them. I actually got lucky; normally they’re not open on Mondays but this Monday was some sort of public holiday so they were open for that. El Escorial was the royal dwelling in the summer(?) for the Spanish Hapsburgs (where aren’t those crazy Hapsburgs?). It also has a crypt, a monastery, a basilica and a garden. It’s got a fantastic art collection and very cool architecture, but unfortunately you can’t take pictures of any of that inside stuff so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I accidentally rushed through El Escorial because I misread my notebook. I know, you’re thinking to yourself “how can you accidentally rush something?” In my notebook, I have a note saying “make sure to go around back, there’s a monastery” underneath El Escorial. Since I was in a monastery, I figured that there was something even bigger around, and so I was a bit hurried in my audio tour of the facility. When I got out and checked with the tourist office I realized that I was mistaken, but at that point the line to get in was long enough that I doubted I’d actually get in before I had to go to the bus station to catch my bus to El Valle de los Caidos.

El Valle de los Caidos is the place that actually has a monastery around the back, which I did go and see. It’s a chapel that’s carved into a mountain along with a 150m tall granite cross at the top of the mountain. It’s a monument to those who died in the Spanish Civil Wars, as well as the burial place of Franco. The road up to the monument has some of the coolest terrain I’ve seen on my trip: giant boulders plus big evergreen trees. I was worried because when the bus dropped us off the clouds were so thick and so low that you couldn’t actually see the giant cross. After walking through the inside of the chapel, the clouds had cleared and I got what I hope are some nice photographs.

There aren’t signs for a monastery so I just followed the road around back until I ended up at a series of buildings on the other side of the mountain. It’s a little low-slug building complex with a wide garden in the middle and a giant cross in the background. There’s also a set of doors in the mountain which I imagine connect it to the chapel, but I’m not sure.

Today (Tuesday) it poured. It was just spitting a bit when I left my hostel around 9:30, but by the time I got out of the Metro near the Prado it was pouring. My pants got drenched just walking there. Originally I was going to wander around the Prado for a bit, then go out to the park but I nixed that plan with the rain. I ended up just staying at the Prado pretty much all day, from 10 to 4:30; there’s a lot to see. I got the audio guide, which gave lots of interesting description of the paintings as well as putting them in historical context and comparing them to other paintings around them. I think my favorites were the Goya paintings from his “black period” but maybe that’s just the rain talking.

There were two special exhibits, both of which I saw. The first was a collaboration with a sculpture museum in Dresden to show ancient sculptures of the gods and kings. It’s appropriately titled “Of Gods and Men”. The second is of Rembrandt paintings and etchings, mostly of stories from mythology and the bible. Through paintings of theses stories (as well as comparisons with other contemporary influences) they follow his career.

I didn’t really feel bored at the Prado the way that I have at some other art museums on my tour. I’m not sure why, but my guess is that it was the informative and interesting audio tour.

After finishing up with that, I made my way out to the train station. It took about an hour and change to get there, so I only had a half hour to kill before I needed to go find my train. Luckily, I didn’t have to look far for the last thing on my Spain to-do list: a tapas bar. I haven’t really been going out, just drinking at my hostels; if I’m going to drink by myself I might as well do it for cheap and save myself a walk home. However, I did want to hit up a place with tapas just to say that I had, and I did. I’m not really sure what they were, but I’m at least sure that the first set (I had two beers and two sets of tapas) were vegetable/cheese based. The second set, I’m not so sure. They didn’t look like they had meat in them, but I didn’t know how to ask. They were fried, and kind of spiral shaped. They were crunchy, almost hard to chew, but didn’t look like anything was inside (the way onion rings do).

I’ll be in Paris for 4 days, then I leave on Sunday for a long trip back to Amsterdam. Then it’s a long trip back to Washington, but a welcome trip. I’m definitely looking forward to having a stable existence where I don’t switch cities every few days and feel like I have to go exploring every day. I’m also looking forward to getting back to work. I’m really interested to see how Miro 2.0 and Guide 3.0 have been coming along while I’ve been away.