Oooh where do I even start about this weekend….
Thursday night, in short, consisted of going out with the new roommates Since one of them studied in Sevilla 5 years ago, she had a Sevilliano friend who came and met us. We restricted our conversation to almost all Spanish, which I really enjoyed.
Friday we had an afternoon train to Madrid. We arrived and went out to sightsee by around 6:30, so we had a few minutes of daylight and then it turned into a freezing cold night tour.
My impression of Madrid was that it was similar to most other metropolitan cities that I’d been to, walking down the streets you could easily forget you were in Spain and think you were in New York – Madrid even has its own “broadway.” I liked seeing the Plaza Mayor and the historical parts of the city – but I felt that compared to Sevilla, it was lacking, but then maybe I’m just spoiled. I just know that Madrid has a lot of banks and that its several degrees colder than I care to be, but again, I'm spoiled.
Friday night, Candice, Christin and I went out to look for food in Chueca, the “alternative” district of Madrid that our wonderful tour guide, Paco, recommended. We stumbled upon an awesome pizza place nearby and had one of the best pizzas in my life, it was perfect.
I just want to take a detour now and explain for a moment how freaking good the hotel breakfast buffet was. In Spain, they don’t really care about breakfast much, which makes me really sad, because this country does so much right as far as food goes, if they would only realize that breakfast is the best meal ever, the potential would be unlimited. Luckily, this hotel had everything from croissants and pastries, eggs, every kind of fresh fruit, coffee, orange juice, cereal, it was a smorgasbord, basically. They even had random things like meats and cheeses. Few things have inspired such joy in me as this buffet did.
But anyways. We had some trouble getting everyone out of the hotel on time, as usually happens with groups of people, so we were late getting to the train station. Our walk to the train station (which was a considerable distance away) consisted of Olympic pace speed walking…followed by jogging…leading to a full on sprint to our train. We literally hopped on the train as it said “Leaving immediately,” and we were in such a hurry we just jumped in the first open door we saw, not even paying attention to whether it was the right car. The train was moving by the time we found our seats.
But we got to Toledo. And I’m glad we did, because it is an absolutely gorgeous city that I wish everyone could visit. It’s up on a hill surrounded by a river, which explains why it was developed as much as it was, it used to be the capital of Spain.
Paco gave us a full tour of the city, and we saw a cathedral, a mosque, and a synagogue.In learning about Spanish history its so interesting to go to all of these towns and see examples of these buildings and the history behind how the religions interacted with each other and how thats reflected in the architecture.
We also saw the painting by El Greco and his grave that are in Toledo. We couldn’t take pictures of the painting, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, but that’s probably best, since I don’t think a picture could have done this thing justice, it was truly fantastic.
Now, I’ll go ahead and admit that I’m a broke college student studying abroad, and my lunch consisted of things I had stashed from the breakfast buffet. Those of us who hoarded were able to explore with our free time rather than going to eat at a restaurant, and we got to look in a lot of the shops and see the products Toledo is most famous for: Gold, Swords, and Marzipan. In fact, Toledo was where they made the swords used in the Lord of the Rings movie. Enjoy that trivia.
The walk back to the train station was so much better than the sprint to it, and we were back in Madrid around 4. Sybil, Candace, Christin, and I decided to go exploring instead of going back to take a nap. We found the Jardines de los Retiros, and it is quite massive, and contains things like the "Crystal Palace" and the Estanque.
As it started to get later we made the decision to have an earlier dinner, rest, and then spend some time going out tonight. Unfortunately, Madrid conspired against us. We wandered for a while and picked the restaurant we wanted to eat at, but of course it wasn’t open yet, because Spaniards don’t eat dinner until late, and these restaurants weren’t opening until 9. So we killed time until then with a little shopping and wandering, but my legs were killing me and at this point I was starving. Highlights of this period of the night include unknowingly walking into a gay sex store and being pinned against a wall by a small child on the street.
Finally, it reaches 9, and the restaurant opens. There’s a line outside it, but we’re near the front, and we’ve already picked out what we want, we are ready for this food. Once we get inside (it’s still freezing outside, by the way, and I should also point out that at this point I’ve had to pee for the past 2 hours), we tell the host a table for 4, and he tells us he’s full. At this point, we begin to laugh, because EVERY TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT IS UNOCCUPIED. But as we laugh, we notice he’s not laughing. Apparantly they completely filled up on reservations, which restaurants aren’t supposed to do. After some heckling from the people in the line, we realized that we weren’t actually going to get to eat here. At this point, I’m near bladder-infection desperate for a bathroom, pissed off, and starving. So where does one find themselves in that kind of mood? McDonald’s. It’s sad but it’s the truth.
Honestly after the dinner ordeal I was beyond tired and could not even consider going out. My legs hurt so badly I thought they were going to snap off in the streets of Madrid. I had been walking for literally 12 hours straight and it began with a train station sprint. So I went back and took a glorious shower, put on my pajamas, and we stayed in and watched Up on Candace’s computer.
Sunday morning included a tour of the Prado, which I really liked. Having a guided tour by Paco was really great, we got the background and meaning and details of all of the paintings, and I really got to appreciate them more. I’m a big fan of El Greco, I’ve decided. I also have come to realize that these paintings in person are so much more impressive than seeing it on paper.
We left with plenty of time to get back to the train station – I will never put myself in the position for sprinting to catch a train ever again, and I’m happy to be back in Sevilla. I liked Madrid, but I’m really glad to be studying here instead, I just find it to be such a prettier place and not as fast moving - but I guess I am biased. Toledo, however, was completely impressive and absolutely gorgeous.
Sorry for the long winded recap but this weekend felt like a century.
And now to rest my legs before I leave on Thursday to do this all over again in Barca…
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