Monday, 9:43 a.m.
Let me start this post by saying I am absolutely exhausted right now! I got very little sleep last night (more on that later) and it is taking everything in my power to not crawl into bed right now and sleep the day away. Today is a holiday in Spain (more on that later too) so I don’t have classes, but I’m pushing through the day (at least until siesta time) so I don’t throw off my sleep schedule too much! And let me also say that this post is LONG. I’d split it up, but am far too lazy to do that, so grab a snack and then get started :)
Let me start at the beginning…
On Friday morning, Sara, Kyla, Becca and I left our houses at 6:20 a.m. for the bus station. From there we took a bus to the Santander airport and boarded the 8:05 a.m. plane to Madrid. The plane ride is an hour long, which was the perfect naptime for me!
We arrived in Madrid, took a bus to the bus station, and then took a cab to our hostel, which was in the center of town in an area called Sol. There are a lot of shops, restaurants, and plazas in this area, so it was always incredibly crowded. You couldn’t walk without running into someone, and in some spots what appeared to be a sidewalk was also a street cars could drive on, so we had to stay on our toes.
We settled in at our hostel, which was really nice for the price we paid! We had a private room for four with its own bathroom. Our room also had a balcony overlooking one of the busy streets, and free Wi-Fi, which I loved. We also had a TV, where I was able to catch a snippet of the Royal Wedding. I only watched a little of it on TV because it was hard to pay attention to what was being said in English with the Spanish commentary, but I used my handy-dandy iPhone later to watch highlight videos and read articles about it. I’ll give you my two cents real quick – Kate looked gorgeous and was clearly born to be a princess!
We took a quick siesta and then set out to explore the city. Madrid’s street signs are even cooler than Santander’s – in addition to being on the sides of buildings, these ones are just pretty! Observe:
We passed a lot of street performers on our walk. This guy (these guys? I wasn’t sure if they were both statues) made a pretty convincing statue. We passed a Neptune “statue” taking a smoke break and weren’t quite as impressed…but these guys were impressive:
We passed so many gorgeous buildings – every single building in Spain is pretty, I swear! This is a church near Museo Nacional del Prado:
At lunchtime we felt like total Americans as we ate at places like McDonalds (I had carrots for the first time in over a month and was so thrilled) and Starbucks. We would have loved to experience the “real” food of Madrid, but didn’t want to fork over the money – fast food is incredibly cheap and easy. Don’t worry; eating McDonalds is definitely not going to become a habit! And my sweet host mom sent me to Madrid with plenty of food, so I stayed somewhat healthy.
Our wanderings took us to Real Jardín Botánico, a lovely garden near the Prado museum. We explored the garden for a while. It was so pretty! A lot of the flowers weren’t in bloom, but it was still really nice. It smelled incredible too.
Of course I had to get a picture with some roses (Abigail Rose, get it?):
We eventually ended up at Prado, “one of the world’s top museums”. Thanks to Rick Steves, we knew when to go to be able to explore the museum for free. We saw several masterpieces and I was reminded of my love for paintings. The museum was huge and we were hungry so we only stayed for a little over an hour, but we still got to see a lot.
We wandered back to our hostel where we turned in pretty early – we were all really tired! It was strange going to sleep in such a busy city. It was literally loud outside until 6:30 a.m.
On Saturday morning we set out around 10:00 to see some more of the city. We walked to Palacio Real, a huge palace – this photo is only a tiny part of it:
I was saving my euros (this weekend was incredibly expensive) and opted out of touring it, but Sara and Kyla said it was absolutely gorgeous on this inside as well.
Next we headed to Los Jardines de Sabini, the gardens on the backside of the palace. They were pretty and a nice place to walk around for a bit:
Then we went and saw Templo de Debod, a fourth century temple that was a gift from Egypt to Spain after Spain helped construct one of Egypt’s dams. The temple was cool in theory, but I’m glad we went during free visiting hours.
There’s a park behind the temple, where we took advantage of the view for a photo opportunity:
We returned to the hostel for lunch and a siesta before wandering again in the evening, this time to La Reina Sofia, a museum filled with abstract art. Apparently abstract art isn’t my thing (which makes sense, given my very literal personality), but I still enjoyed the museum. Seeing Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was very cool – it’s gigantic!
After the museum we got dinner and once again called it an early night. I’m really not a “going out” type of person. I knew that before coming to Spain, but being here has solidified it. I’d rather stay in any day, even when I have the opportunity to check out the Spanish nightlife. On top of that, Madrid is so incredibly crowded. The streets are always packed, and I don’t do well with crowds…needless to say, big cities are not for me! Give me sleepy little Santander (which is plenty big to me) any day of the week. Or, even better, give me sleepy little Corvallis! (Only 32 more days, for anyone else who’s counting.)
On Sunday we took our time getting up because we had to check out of the hostel at noon. Luckily the hostel’s manager was very nice and let us keep our bags there so we didn’t have to carry them around the city all day.
We headed to Plaza Mayor in the morning, one of the oldest spots in the city:
Unable to return to the hostel for a siesta, we went to Plaza del Sol and relaxed by the fountains for a bit:
We then continued our wandering, seeing more pretty buildings of Madrid:
Eventually Kyla and I split off from the group, braving the metro to go to Plaza de Toros to see a bullfight.
First of all, the building itself was another masterpiece:
And the bullfight itself was also quite a masterpiece. I know what you’re all thinking – Abbie at a bullfight? Does she know they kill the bulls at those? (To answer your question, yes, I did know.)
It was such an amazing experience though. Was it uncomfortable to watch the bulls get taunted and then killed? Yes. But did I appreciate the culture and history of it? Yes.
Bullfighting is really an art. It starts with the weight and brand of the bull being displayed to the spectators. I don’t know kilogram conversions, but these bulls were huge – the biggest was 590 kilos.
After this, the bull is let into the ring and the first fighters (I think they’re more amateur, but I don’t know for sure) tease the bull to get him riled up. They take turns waving their pink capes in front of the bull, dashing behind protective barriers and sometimes hopping over the wall to avoid getting hurt.
[[These are going to be my last pictures from the bullfight. I took more, but don’t think everyone would like to see them…if you want to see them, I’ll show you when I get home.]]
After this initial teasing, two horses are ridden into the ring. The horses are blindfolded, and I assume sedated as well. They are decked out in some pretty impenetrable armor. The bull, seeing an animal near its own size, charges at the horse. The rider’s job is to use a spear to stab the neck of the bull (above its shoulders) in order to force it to lower its head. This happens twice, and then the horses leave the ring. The final bull (the biggest) ended up knocking the rider off the horse as it almost lifted the horse completely.
It was amazing to watch the teamwork of the bullfighters here – if ever anyone is in danger, they run out from their hiding places, yelling and waving their capes so no one gets trampled by the bull (although the first bullfighter got partially run over during his first fight. He was fine, but it was really intense to watch).
Next, three different fighters use their bodies to attract the bulls as their try to stick the bull with barbed sticks. After these are in the bull, he is sufficiently riled up – snorting, dragging his hooves in anger – and the final fighter enters the ring by himself.
The final fighter is what I would consider the “master” fighter. He has a red cape that he uses to taunt the bull, and his goal is to stab it with two different swords right above his neck. I know this seems mean, but it really is a calculated art form. The way the fighter moves is almost like a dance, and it looks very graceful.
Finally, once the bull has been stabbed twice, three other fighters come out and help the one with the red cape to confuse the bull enough until it falls over and is then put out of its misery.
Doesn’t sound like something I’d like, right? I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Yes, it seems rather cruel to torture a poor animal, but I love how rooted in tradition it was, and how innately Spanish it was. I was really amazed by it, and glad I went.
After the bullfight, Kyla and I met up with Sara and Becca to pick up our bags from the hostel. From there we took three different metros to get to the airport (way cheaper than the bus/cab combo we used to get from the airport to our hostel on the first day). We couldn’t check in until about 4:30 this morning, and spent the night on the airport floor.
Thanks to my ability to sleep anywhere, I got a decent nap in…I woke up at least once an hour and probably only got three-and-a-half hours of sleep total because, let’s be real, the cold, hard tile floor of the Madrid airport is not comfortable. My friends don’t have my ability to sleep anywhere, so they stayed awake and made sure we didn’t get mugged. There were so many people camped out in the airport with us – looks like no one wanted to pay for a hostel the night before an early flight!
We flew out of Madrid at 6:40 a.m. (I slept from before take-off and through the landing, sans Dramamine!) and arrived in Santander at 7:45. We shared a cab home, where I immediately ate breakfast, took a shower, and unpacked.
All in all, it was a great weekend in Madrid. The girls I spent it with and I have become great friends, and we really enjoy each other’s company. Madrid itself was nice too – more English was spoken than I would have liked (it seemed like most people in shops and restaurants, as well as police officers and museum workers could speak English), and there were a lot of tourists (we heard accents and languages from all over the place while we wandered the city). I sometimes have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept that people actually live in the cities of Spain – the lack of actual houses and the fancy-looking apartment buildings make it seem like every building is some hotel or important government residence.
Oh and Zach, just so you don’t miss a shout-out, I got your present this weekend :) You too, Jonny, Grandma, Gwen and Dru, Tanya and Vern, and Dad. Mom, you are still proving to be the most difficult person in the world to shop for – thanks for that!
Today is a lazy day here, which is much needed after the hubbub of this weekend. May 2 is a holiday in Spain, so the city is pretty quiet. Madrid probably isn’t because it was there on May 2, 1808 that Luis Daoiz and Pedro Velarde lost their lives attempting to take back control of Madrid from France. This battle started the War of Independence against the French. Or something like that…anyway, the Plazas were starting to get bleachers and things set up in them yesterday afternoon, so I’m assuming stuff was happening there today.
Anyway, this means that shops are closed, and with the clouds that are filling the sky right now, I’m guessing that the streets are pretty empty as well. This afternoon I’m hoping to be able to find Internet somewhere and post this so you all can see what I’ve been up to!
It’s been a busy weekend and I’m glad to be “home”. I’m also glad to have reached the halfway point of my trip (it came and went on Friday). Don’t get me wrong – I like Spain. I love that I’m able to spend a lot of time here, getting immersed in the culture rather than only being able to experience a few weeks’ worth as a tourist. I just know I don’t belong here.
A lot of people on this trip love everything about it and aren’t even looking forward to leaving. This trip has solidified what I already knew about myself – I’m a homebody and I crave being near my loved ones. It also solidified something I didn’t know for sure – I don’t like big cities.
I’m really glad I’m on this trip, and that I’ve toughed it out during the rough moments. But I know that home is where the heart is, and my heart is always going to be in Oregon. I know that sounds cheesy…but I also know that it’s true. I believe that there probably are people who are born in one place but find somewhere they belong somewhere completely different. Luckily, I was born somewhere I know I belong. I don’t have to see any more of the world to know that, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore more.
♥ Abigail
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