Palaces, Partidos, Plays, Professors, Praying-the-internet-will-start-working-so-I-could-post-and-stop-adding-p-words-to-this-list

This week was the first in awhile where no one was coming to visit. We therefore spent it, rather than relaxing, by doing a whirlwind of activities. Tuesday, since we had no class, we decided to head over to El Escorial – a famous palace about an hour west(?) of Madrid. We asked Angeles to make us a bolsa and were even bold enough to ask for what we wanted, because we’re definitely on that level. Since the bolsa is her weakest department (right after tact) we have since continued to ask for the same bolsa every time we’ve needed one. She thinks we’re insane but I’d much rather a safe, delicious tortilla than a questionable ham and cream cheese combination (this is a thing that actually happened. Why would you ever combine those things?) Regardless, I had really wanted to see El Escorial because we learned about it briefly in our history class. (We read about it in the fictitious novel we were tested on. Just goes to show you that history’s open to interpretation?) Things I knew about El Escorial prior to going: Fernando VII (my least favorite member of Spanish royalty ever) was trying to oust his father, Carlos IV (a pretty okay guy) from the throne! His fatal flaw was corresponding with his buddies about it via letter (never put anything in writing!!!). It was in El Escorial where Carlos got wind of this and found the letters. Silly, Fernando! He went to jail for like, 5 minutes, before throwing the blame on someone else because he’s the worst like that. We also find out the big secret of a main character of the novel in El Escorial – not historically relevant in that she doesn’t actually exist, but might have come up on our test. (Spoiler: she has a secret kid who turns out to be the main characters luvahhhhhh – history is juicy.)

Granted, I didn’t know very much about the palace, but luckily I had Anne, Robyn, and Rick Steves to fill in all of the blanks. Things I now know: the palace was built by Phillip II and used during the Inquisition (when Spain peaked in 1492). It was supposed to be in the shape of a grill (as in thing-that-you-bbq-on), in order to pay homage to Saint Lorenzo. Why a grill? Saint Lorenzo was martyred on a grill. I feel like Rick Steves was joking when he said that Saint Lorenzo was such a badass so as to suggest he was ‘done’ on one side and needed to be flipped. I find this implausible because 1. a little unsaintly, no? shouldn’t he have been praying or something? 2. I think he had more important things to worry about than being sassy, i.e. burning alive. Who knows, though? I wasn’t there. It’s currently a monastery. Anyway, it was filled with all sorts of cool things. Highlights: family trees – you could detail just how much incest there truly was…those trees stayed nice and narrow!, art – you know, paintings and what not, gardens – SOCOLDANDWINDY, tombs of all of the Spanish kings from then until now – you could see Fernando VII’s 4 wives (he so would, dirtbag); also they just ran out of room so hopefully the current King is immortal? Finally, and most awesomely, the Basilica – we didn’t think it was going to be open but it was immense and beautiful without being over the top. You weren’t allowed to take pictures; keeping with my fave tradition, see some pictures below. 

You would think a trip to palace would be enough excitement for one week, but you would be wrong. The next night, we headed to the Real Madrid vs. Real Murcia game – my first fútbal game! Everyone brings food to these games which is cool and very different from American sports venues where everyone begrudgingly purchases overpriced fast food. We continued the tortilla trend, as we plan to for the rest of the semester. Real Madrid destroyed with a solid 5-1 win. We were sitting in one of the furthest rows back but the stadium is really well built in that it’s basically vertical, so we still had a pretty good view. (It was a view that was certainly worth my 12 euro.) It was neat to be able to see and hear the rest of the crowd. They were loud and obnoxious, just as we’d hoped. There was a lot of “¡puta!” shouting. My favorite cheer was “¡hasta final, gana Real!” mostly because it rhymed and I could figure out what they were saying (although who knows if those are actually the right words.) Overall, great fun! After the game we went to O’Neill’s for Lauren B’s birthday (and to start getting into the Irish spirit!) Very busy evening.

I thought the guy holding the scarf was a nice touch

Thursday was an eventful day as well. After history (where we were assigned another fictional novel to read which we will subsequently be tested on – no worries; I got it fo’ free on my nook!) and our Madrid class, we had signed up to go see a play as a cultural activity. After enjoying the last one so much, I was really excited. We tried to find a Montaditos place for dinner, but as a result of failing on either googlemaps or my part (kind of irrelevant whose fault it really was; it was hurt just as badly to be wrong myself or to be let down by a google product), we couldn’t find it and ended up at a Starbuck’s instead. I got a salad which was great in that it was a salad. I miss those. After splitting a slice of (delicious-but-not-quite-as-delicious-as-I-had-anticipated) chocolate cake with Eric (because a salad was way too healthy of a meal) we headed off in search of the theater. My directional senses (in conjunction with my map) proved to be more adept here, and we arrived without problems. The show might qualify as the worst show I’ve ever seen in my life and I truly don’t think it was because of the language barrier. It was melodramatic, interrupted by random dance scenes, had a main character who was basically a rapist, one who committed suicide, one who did drugs yet was the only one with any sensibility, two who were embarrassments to the female gender for being either 1. excessively needy or 2. willing degraded by a male because of “love” even though he clearly didn’t love her. I left it feeling both depressed and angry; I’m pretty glad DIM paid for the ticket. We later met up with a bunch of people at the Cave Bar to continue Lauren’s birthday celebration but didn’t stay all that long because we were not about to be paying for a taxi so had to catch the last metro home.

Friday was our trip to Toledo! It’s actually very sad because it was our last group trip. Toledo is a beautiful and old city which has an interesting history. Its three major attractions are a cathedral, a mosque, and a synagogue. It is the ultimate cultural mix. I thought it was interesting how the land was passed to from the Spanish to the Arabs and then back again – all without any fighting. See that? People can play nice sometimes! Toledo also is famous for its marzipan. I didn't realize I like marzipan but now I'm not sure how I'm going to go on without it. We also learned that it is known for its swords for some reason (I missed why but I’m sure Robyn will comment and tell me) but more people than I thought would have purchased some. I personally did not because knowing me, the way I would pack it would leave my clothes in shreds by the time I got back to the good old US of A.

Toledo, in all its glory

Mosque

Cathedral - where the made announcement in 5 languages every  5 min about how you can't take pictures

Synagogue

It was a relaxing weekend – the first in awhile where people weren’t visiting. I feel like we didn’t do very much but that could be a lie. We went shopping with Anne and Josh on Saturday where Erin successfully found an awesome leather jacket, and I made another H&M purchase since it makes sense that everything I buy in Spain comes from a store that we have at home, right? Oops. Sunday I went to the Rastro with Anne, Mike, and Perry where we bought some things & stuff. Erin and I watched the Social Network via the interwebs even though it’s still in theaters because we’re sneaky like that – it was awesome!

Yesterday after class, we met up with Erin’s friend Nada who is here to visit! We walked to the palace to see our building (and I guess the palace), and to a new part of Retiro to find the “crystal palace.” It was awesome! It’s the perfect time of year to go to parks like Retiro – the trees are all changing colors. It’s the perfect temperature to walk around with a coffee in your hand (or a different hot beverage for those of you who realize coffee is gross) and a friend by your side (or an ipod for those of you who have no friends…?). After stopping at Starbuck’s (where I tried their Christmas themed Toffeenut latte – delicious) we parted ways – Erin and I were meeting our program director, Eva, and a girl from our class, Sarah to go see Ojos de Julia, a scary Spanish movie. It was a ‘cultural event’ aka free and it was AWESOME! Eva was hilarious and I mostly understood what was going on. I don’t care if you speak Spanish; watch this trailer and be scared: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ea8h27m64 It's actually not that scary of a clip, but I promise the movie was really good.

After having a rough night sleeping, (noises at 4AM = creeper mccreeperson coming to kill me?), we woke up to what should have been a mundane day of class. To our surprise however, just as we were walking out the door, the doorman (he’s awesome) comes running up to us to tell us that the circular (our metro line) isn’t running and that we need to take the bus! WHAT? We have only a vague idea of what line to take and no idea where to get off. ADVENTURE TIME! Luckily, Katherine happened to be on our bus and is a lot smarter than me (possibly Erin too, but it’s not my place to say…) and knew the stop we had to get off at. The bus took forever because 1. rush hour traffic, and 2. the circular wasn’t running so everyone was taking the bus. We were moving as fast as we could (aka slightly faster than a casual walking pace) and made it into our building. We were in front of the door, which was closed. This is a bad sign, as it means class has already started. We have seen our Spanish peers try to get in after class has started. Our teacher seems to be pretty nice, but has this death stare she whips out when mad which makes us think she’s a little bipolar. We had a conference outside the room to decide whether or not to knock…our Duke classmates later informed us that they could hear said conference. We decided to open the door (I was elected as the actual knob turner) and when I did so her eyes locked on mine. I saw the eyebrows begin to furrow and felt things were not going to end well. She put up her finger to do the requisite “no” wag, but I already knew it was a lost cause. I shut the door quickly, fearing the death stare had some sort of Medusa effect (you never know.) Defeated, we made our way to the library where I had a much more productive hour than I would have in class. Painting came and went (we’re learning about Surrealism which I’m very excited about!) and suddenly we were getting ready for Madrid class. This wasn’t just any Madrid class, though – this was a visit. It was sort of like our last walking tour of Madrid except we went to fewer places and stayed closer to Sol. We went to the Círculo de Bellas Artes which is AWESOME because you could go on the roof which offers amazing views of the city! I definitely want to go back during the day to snag a few shots (and I hear they have a mean white hot chocolate.)

Plaza Cibeles

A building that looks a lot more important than it actually is

The last time we went on a walking tour of Madrid, our teacher, Patricia (who is wonderful) wanted to have dinner with us, but we all hadn’t told our respective host families that we would be eating out so we had to decline. This time we planned in advance (thanks, Robyn!) and most of us made it out to dinner. Patricia picked a cheap and delicious restaurant (my fave combo!) where we ate fried eggplant (don’t knock it ‘til you try it), an asparagus omelet (again, it’s actually good), a vegetable medley, garlic chicken, and delicious desserts that were sort of flan-like and apparently pretty Spanish. After dinner, Erin and I went to meet up with Nada because she was leaving the following morning. We got home a little after midnight to find both Angeles and Emilio up and about. I promise if I had gotten home before midnight there is no way I would have been awake. They are entirely too cool for me.

Yesterday we got up bright and early and made sure to make it to class on time. All of classes are starting to talk about finals. I am going home in less than a month. How is that possible? I’m excited to go home and see the fam (AND DECORATE FOR CHRISTMASSSSSS – my favorite activity of all time) but I cannot believe that I have less than a month left in España! I’m trying my best to slow time down, but it’s been a few years since physics so I’m missing some of the particulars of special relativity. (Come on, now – everyone loves a good physics joke!) In all seriousness though, it’s going to be hard to leave. Rather than focusing on how much has gone by though, I’m focusing on how much I have left. To look at what I did in just over a week, I could only imagine what I could do in four!