But back to spring break, and the first country on my itinerary: Spain. I got into Madrid on the night of Thursday, April 7 (my friends met me there the next day), and spent a bit of time chatting with our rather disenchanted Irish hostel mates Karen and Jonathan - and Hector the proprietor - at Hostal Miralva. We were right off the main drag Gran Via, as well as a 10-minute walk from Sol, one of the main plazas. Unfortunately the passage between Gran Via and Sol was lined with a shocking number of prostitutes as early as 9am, something we were really not expecting! In any event, I spent Friday visiting the city of Toledo, not far from Madrid by train, with my friend Allison. Theme? Monotheism. We walked from the train station, which is sort of in the countryside, up a hill into the old walled city - offering lots of beautiful panoramas. Winding cobbled streets, tranquility, and an amazing mosque from ~999AD (Mezquita de Christo de la Luz, since it later became a church), were highlights. The mosque was fascinating because it is built on the ruins of an old Roman road, retains its characteristic Islamic architecture and even some calligraphy on the inside, and also has medieval Christian painting visible in some parts -- a sort of palimpsest (that one's for you dad). The cathedral of Toledo was impressionable as well - and historically very important, since Toledo was the capital of Castile until the 16th century! We rounded out the day with a couple very old and beautiful synagogues (El Transito and Santa Maria la Blanca, supposedly the oldest standing in Europe). We left sunny, leafy, 80-degree Toledo to return to Madrid and meet up with my roommate Camila's boyfriend, Chet, who is studying abroad there. He brought us to tapas in the small Plaza de la Cruz Verde, and then gave us a tour of the city's nightlife: highlights included the 1-euro-a-sandwich Madrid chain Los Cien Montaditos and ending the evening around 3am with hot milkshakes. Madrid, we quickly realized, is dead in the morning, even more dead in the afternoon when everyone is taking their siestas, and truly comes alive only at night. And at night, the streets are teeming with people and energy! We learned fast to love the street performers in Plaza Mayor, above all what we could only guess was a goat with long, sparkly rainbow hair. The next morning, Claire, Nathaniel, Allison, and I headed straight for the Prado for the first in a parade of great art that I saw over spring break. I focused especially on the Spanish art, first and foremost on Velasquez (Las Meninas!) and Goya (I loved the room devoted to his late black paintings, of which Saturn Devouring his Son is probably the most famous). The Flemish collection was amazing, too, and I was really excited to see Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights in real life - as well as Bosch-esque paintings like a guy named Patinir's Charon Crossing the Styx and the armies of skeletons in Bruegel's Triumph of Death. After a hearty paella lunch, we visited the Palacio Real, which is quite sumptuous even as palaces are concerned and is still used by the king of spain for state ceremonies. For dinner, we smartly chose Casa Mingo (suggested by my friend Helen-Marie), where the kitchen churns out criminally delicious pollo asado and cidre for every table in the house. Then we went to the packed cave called Sesamo, bedecked with literary quotes, where Hemingway apparently used to drink sangria. After people (and sparkly goat) watching in the Plaza Mayor, we finished the evening eating churros con chocolate in the wee hours of the morning. Our last day in Madrid, still enjoying 80+ weather, was filled with more art. First the Reina Sofia, where we concentrated on the Surrealist stuff and drawings/photographs relating to the Spanish Civil War. And of course we saw Picasso's Guernica, for which the various studies and sketches were equally interesting. We picked up picnic stuff and lounged luxuriously amidst the flora in the Parque del Retiro, a kind of fun circus on Sunday afternoon. The reservoir there has rowboats, which of course we rented and paddled around in for 45 minutes. Thoroughly blissful, we ended our day with a quick run through the Thyssen museum (lesser known but great stuff from all periods) and more yummy tapas.
On Sunday night, after midnight, Allison and I bid farewell (unknowingly) to the sun and began a looong night sleeping cross-legged in the Madrid airport, accompanied by a friendly British student and absurdly loud floor-cleaning machines that needed to clean all night long.
To be continued...
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