The first thing I noticed about Madrid was how incredibly colorful everything is. The buildings range from cream, to pink, to green, to blue. The railings along the apartments are usually painted a bright color and some of the walls have decorated textures.
The first day we went to the Prado Museum which had paintings from all different time periods and regions throughout Europe. One of my favorite was the painting by Orazio Gentileschi ´The Finding of Moses.´ Orazio is the father of the female artist Artemisia who I have been studying for the past five weeks. It was really exciting for me to recognize a painter and be able to apply the things I have learned from my classes in Rome. This museum also had Raphael and Caravaggio, it took us around three hours to make our way through the entire thing.
Maeg, my roommate from Rome, also happened to be visiting her best friend in Madrid that Friday so that afternoon we all ended up meeting and going to what is called ´tapas´ which consists of a drink and little appetizers for a fixed price ranging around 3 euro. The appetizers we had were paia (the Spanish rice dish usually with a type of seafood) bread with ham on top, and potatoes. That night the five of us went to dinner then met up with two of our other good guy friends who also happened to be in Madrid that night. So the seven of us went to a cute little bar Maeg´s friend knew about. One thing about Madrid is the people here don´t go out until about 1 or 2 a.m. A little different from my sleep pattern in Rome. Around 4 a.m. we decided to go to a popular chocolateria that is open 24 hours. We ordered a large dish of churros that comes with hot chocolate that you dip it into. Finally around 5 a.m. we headed home, and needless to say that was the only night we went out that late because we were so exhausted the next day.
Saturday we went to the famous Royal Palace of Madrid. It is the official residence of the King of Spain in the city of Madrid, but it is only used for state ceremonies. Christina and I took a full tour of the palace which was absolutely breathtaking. As we walked in we were greeted by overwhelming architecture and intricate designs. Everything was designed perfectly in every room. One of the rooms had decadence corral cushions and gold outlining of every chair, painting, table, and mirror in the room. I was wondering what this amazing room could be. Possibly a room for formal meetings? A place only used for holidays? A guest room for highly esteemed guests? Well, it turned out that this was just an alternate lunch room available for the King. I mean don´t get me wrong food is a very important thing in my life, but I would´ve been happy as could be if this ´lunch room´ was where I lived.
Overall, the palace was amazing and right next to the palace was the Santa María la Real de La Almudena which is a Catholic cathedral that was built in 1870. A Mass had just gotten out right before I entered the cathedral and it must´ve been a special occassion because there were probably around 300 nuns running around after the service ended. I have never seen so many nuns in my life in one place, and every single one of them had to be either 5 foot or shorter. It was the funniest thing I´ve seen.
It was very interesting for me to see a Catholic church in camparison to Rome´s. It was very diferent in terms of both the art and architecture. The Cathedral had more of a gothic style and the walls were pure, plain white marble. But here comes the best part, there were numerous glass stained windows and because the walls were plain white, the light reflected the colors from the windows throughout the entire cathedral. We were extremely lucky with the weather and happened to be visiting the cathedral when it was midday, there wasn´t a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining as bright as could be. I sat down in the back of the cathedral and looked around as green, purple, blue, red, yellow and green rays of light lit up the walls surrounding me. As I looked forward over numerous rows of oak, brown altars a large cross stood at the front with a gold statue of Jesus. The image was so overpowering that I had to sit down for at least thirty minutes to take everything in.
Afterwards Claire Christina and I went to a Mexican restaurant that Maeg´s friend who studies abroad in Madrid recommended to us. It was hidden in the very back of a plaza and was incredibly crowded, we knew it had to be good. So all of you in California right now, please go eat a burrito for me because I have been going through Mexican food withdrawals since I´ve arrived in Rome. Its incredibly hard to find here and when you do its usually too expensive. Anyway, we found this amazing hole in the wall Mexican place and ordered a huge dish of nachos with cheese and guacamole. I also split fajitas with my friend and oh my goodness I was like a kid in a candy shop.
Sunday we went to the Rhea Sophia Museum which has numerous famous paintings such of those of Dali and Picasso. I was able to see three rooms full of Picasso´s work and one of his most famous paintings ´The Guernica.´ We also went to the park in Madrid which is enormous and has a little lake in the middle. In the lake there are a ton of little blue row boats that you can rent for a few euro, so obviously we had to try it. We rowed all around the little lake and ate our jelly sandwhiches we had packed for the day. On Sundays there are also all sorts of street performers in the park which was really fun to watch.
Last night I was able to meet up with of my good childhood friend Jenna who is studying abroad in Madrid. She had recently been in Morocco, Africa the past few days. We had a little sangria and caught up a little, it was really nice to see a familiar face in such a foreign place!
I have taken about 200 pictures so far, but unfortunately I can´t post them because these computers won´t connect to my computer but I will post a lot of them right when I get home!
Tomorrow I will leave for Paris around 7 a.m.! Christina and I will be staying there for three nights, and the last two nights two of my friends from Rome will also be staying in the same Hostel as us. Christina has a friend in Paris who we are meeting for dinner tomorrow night and who wull hopefully also give us some good tips for touring the city. Our plan is to see all of the main sites in Paris and to go to Versailles on Thursday. Paris was definitely my number one city I wanted to visit while in Europe and I cannot wait to try their crepes! Adios Spain and bonjour Paris!!
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