Madrid pt 1

These 2 pics should have gone in the text somewhere, but hey, technology doesnt always do what it should, so the left is the madrid airport, the right is the almudena cathedral, notice the modern stained glass.

So we finally got on the plane and headed off for Madrid. Shortest flight of my life! We seriously waited in that chair-less, English-less airport (Lisbon) for like 10 times the amount of time we were actually on the plane. Inter-europe travel is great.

Interesting fact worth mentioning – I flew alone for the first time this last summer going to visit my brother in Nicaragua. Going from Chicago to France was only my second flight alone, yet I’m all over the place immediately after. It’s the same basic deal anywhere you go though. Even on a flight from Lisbon to Madrid where no one speaks English or French I can get the gist when they put the seatbelt buckle pieces together and point to the exits hehe.

The Madrid airport is gorgeous! It’s got this cool wavey wooden ceiling (see above photo) with tree-like poles supporting it that change colors down the line. And the organization is genius, it’s all in one building (as far as I could tell), and layered so everything gets a good amount of space and can be reached easily by the next section of the airport. The metro was right downstairs, and I spent a couple minutes with some Chinese kids my age trying to figure out just which ticket to buy before an older Spanish gentleman who spoke English helped me out.

Maybe I should explain why it is I’m in Madrid. First off, it’s awesome. But really, I knew I wanted to visit Margaret in Portugal, and I was going to head straight back to Paris from there. However, the plane company I found that had amazingly cheap flights (Vueling.com) was centered in Spain, so one had to fly to or from a Spanish city. I couldn’t get 2 flights on the same day, so I had to spend a night in Madrid. My brother, Owen, said “cool, Madrid!” and I thought, “why spend one night when I can spend three?” So I found a hostel, moved my second flight back a bit, and tried to find people I could meet up with in Madrid. Some time back my dad worked with a woman named Alicia in Chicago, and she now lives in Madrid. It didn’t work out that I could meet up with her, but when I was planning everything I had a great conversation with her about where to go and what to see. She also mentioned that the Metro was the best city subway she’d ever seen.

That brings us back up to speed, on the way to the hostel, I thought, “wow, Alicia had a point.” The Madrid metro is clean, quick, and easy to follow. I don’t know that it’s the best, but I definitely think all of the European subways would slaughter the CTA in competition.

So I get to the hostel, get my stuff to my room, and get settled for the night. The bunk beds at this hostel were TINY, I’ve never had to so literally crawl into bed. The next day I got up, checked out Alicia’s list of stuff, and headed off to find a museum. I got to the Riena Sofia, but it was closed, so I went to the Palacio Real (royal palace). Gorgeous, and gaudy, and similar to most other royal palaces. I tagged along behind an English-speaking tour group for a bit to hear about a few rooms. One was made entirely out of porcelain! All of the wall decorations of vines and idyllic scenes, etc. was all pieces of baked porcelain put together. Pretty ridiculous. One had a chandelier that looked just like a fountain. There’s one gaudy room for the king’s breakfast, another gaudy room for the king to be dressed in, gilt frames here, velvet wallpaper there, etc. It’s kinda cool to spend a day in a palace worth millions, that once was the center of a world-wide empire, and know I only spent 3 euros because of my student discount, woo hoo!

So after the palace I went to the Almudena cathedral across the street, which was awesome! It was absolutely massive, and had a cool compilation of artwork from different styles and periods of time. Apparently they started plans on the cathedral when the capital was moved from Toledo to Madrid way back in 1561, but they didn't get around to actually coming up with plans for a couple hundred years, then once they started construction, it got put on hold by the Spanish Civil War, so it didn't actually get finished until 1993. The design is old, and meant to replicate the palace just across from it, but the art inside is actually pretty new. After that, I went to check out some of the gardens around the castle, which were still gorgeous even in the rain.

Next I went to a big and popular street called the Gran Via. It’s kinda like the Mag Mile, big beautiful buildings, big street, lots of shopping and malls. I wandered around for a bit, and found my way to the Prado museum. I was trying to finagle my way in with a student discount, but they were more finicky than the other places and wanted the card from the European university, which I don’t have yet. But the lady said it’d be free after 6, so I waited at a café across the street and went back at quarter to.

They’re only open till 8, so I had a brief stint, but man was it AMAZING! They have soo much beautiful artwork there. You can track most of the history of art through that museum. Some classics – El Greco, Velasquez, El Goya

And some surprising ones - 2 about Joanna the Mad, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella I think, a queen who was famous for being crazy, a few by Corveggio, Botticelli, Rafael, and Mantegna (a bunch of Italians I didn't expect to see in Spain)

Ooh, but I was most pleased to come across Hieronymous Bosch! The garden of earthly delights is a weird and amazingly cool painting. I saw it once in a dark room in Venice, and that time my mom was through the roof to see it in person. This time I didn’t expect to see it, and it was well-lit in full glory! I spent my last 10 minutes or so just staring in awe, till the bell tolled and we were kicked out. I spent my next 10 minutes running around, avoiding security, trying to find the door I’d come in at, since I’d checked my coat.

I got back to the hostel, took the coldest shower of my life, and went to my room. I met a nice Brazilian guy who was staying in the bunk next to mine. He spoke Portuguese and a little Spanish, and I speak English, French, and a little Spanish. You can guess it was a challenge. He wanted me to join him to wander the street and look for a place to buy food. We went to some bar, and struggled through conversing. It was pretty interesting though. I’d try and say a sentence, then repeat some key words in different accents, or using different, more latin-centered words for the same idea, until finally it would come across. We chilled a bit in the hostel common room till he went to bed.

I started talking to a group of Irish girls sitting next to me in the common room. They went to the University College in Dublin (where my dad went to get his second masters!), and there was a group of like 60 in the hostel. They invited me to go out with them, so I got changed, got a little pre-game boozey and we left the hostel at like 2:30 for this club across town. I had a blast! We danced, we laughed, and I could understand everyone! For the most part… There’s a few colloquial differences in Irish that were interesting to learn. I’ll get into some of these later, but for now let’s just say it was “great craic!” (it was a good time).

The bar got out at like 5 I think, and as we were leaving one kid found out I Irish danced, so he made me dance outside while we were waiting for cabs. It turned out to be a good thing, because we were standing just off from the bulk of the crowd that had just spilled outa the bar. The crowd was pretty loud, and somebody from the apartment above threw a bucket of water on em which I narrowly dodged. Hilarious.