Madrid. Ah, Madrid.
I didn’t realize it was possible to say “I left my heart in such-and-such city”, but I Madrid…wow. As in, Wow. (note: Capital W). My heart is palpitating as I speak. MADRID! I love it. And not with an easy-mac kind of love, either. This is a real cheese kind of love, a homemade maple syrup French toast and infused coffee on a foggy day kind of amore. If you ever find yourself in Spain in December, you MUST visit Madrid otherwise I’m afraid we would no longer be on emailing terms.
Anywho, my trip to Madrid began like most of my other trips: a six-hour long bus ride from Granada to Madrid, only, I’d actually be visiting the city instead of using it as a transit to somewhere else. (I met some other people from my school who were on the same bus, who said, “Where are you going?”
Me: Madrid.
Them: yeah, well, obviously, but where?
Me: um, I’m visiting Madrid.
Them: Oh.
Madrid doesn’t have a very good reputation in Granada. I’m not sure why.
When the bus ride came to a cheerful halt, I jumped off the bus, texted my friend in Madrid, and started heading for my hostel. This involved getting a 10-trip metro ticket, which are usually extremely useful in big cities (We ran out several times when we went to Barcelona.) Despite the “Big city” title that Madrid wears around its neck, one can quite pleasantly walk around from tourist attraction to tourist attraction without losing too much time—by the end of four days, I still had 2 trips left. (And that was after deciding to make one last tour of the city before the bus left, too.)
Youth hostel: a place that is usually shabby, crowded, a place to sleep in between touring the city. Imagine my surprise when I opened the doors and discovered that the place I had managed to book myself was a tourist attraction in itself: an old Arabic-style palace converted into a youth hostel. Intricate tilework played out over the walls, sofa chairs lounged on the floor; a sign pointed to the basement where free internet access, a bar, and a disco ball were located. The desk was indisposed to let people check in at that time, so I dropped my bags off in the locker room and headed out to explore the city.
I didn’t have a whole lot of time before I met up with Madridian chums, so I spent a euro and went at looked at the botanical gardens. It occurred to me as I was inside that perhaps the dead of winter was not the best time to go to the botanical gardens. (Oh look…more hibernating flowers….) Nonetheless, I stayed there for about 2 hours staring at trees. Robert Frost had the right idea when he said that he would never see anything quite as lovely. The botanical gardens offered a natural space away from the hubidy-bub of a new place, and I ended up writing a few philosophical pages about it in my journal. (excerpts: what would the main characters from Grapes of Wrath have thought to see colorful cauliflower in a zoo of plants? --cheated that the government gets money for showing off plants they could grow themselves? What does it mean that we are so detached from nature that we have to go to a zoo to see plants? Is it fair to take trees out of their natural habitat for the sake of fulfilling our curiousity even though, when displaced, they can’t grow and resemble their natural state for which they have been moved to a plant zoo? [I saw the scraggliest-looking sequoia tree. I didn’t know they existed that small.] )…
Afterwards, we met up, went out for churros with chocolate, went to this place called “the museum of ham” (apparently like the in-and-out of Madrid) and went walking around the illuminated nighttime city. There was a parade; trumpeters playing Christmas carols; people of all ages walking around wearing reindeer hats and Technicolor wigs; overall, festiveness in the crisply chilly December night air. I felt like this was a place I could fit in. (especially after seeing the reindeer hats and wild wigs.) That night I got lost going back to my hostel, but oddly enough I wasn’t worried at all. (2 hypotheses: I’m so used to getting lost in big cities at night that it doesn’t faze me anymore, especially since I even had a map this time, 2: Madrid doesn’t seem to have any dark creepy alleys, and was still hopping.)
Day 2: I didn’t sleep so well that night, because there were some really noisy males getting ready for a night on the town to go drinking. (The disadvantage of staying in a renovated ancient palace: no soundproofing.) Morning: breakfast, internet checking, and off I go! (looks at cell phone that functions as a watch: oops. That took awhile.) Luckily, Spain time means there’s not much of a point in waking up early, because nothing’s open ‘till 9:30am. (even then, there are still a lot of things that don’t open ‘till 10.) That morning I spent walking around the “parque de buen retiro” which I believe means “good retirement park”. (or, a park where you can rest well.) Maybe the reason why I like Madrid so much is because I spent so much time among trees. Anywho, Once again within ent brethren, I felt very cozy. The park is hard to describe: ooh, trees! Hey look, there are some more trees, and they’re different than the other ones! O.M.G. LEAVES. You’d think I was starved for nature or something. (Oh wait..that’s right, there are no trees in Granada. Forgot about that.) Statues lined walkways; inlaid fountains bubbled. In the middle of the park, there was a man-made lake at which you could rent a paddleboat and amuse yourself cruising through the water. A full-out puppet show was settled by the shore, amusing children in a sesame street manner by having one puppet correct the others’ grammar. It was all too reminiscent of childhood. I found this building called “la casa de la vaca” (The cow house), and at first, I was scared to go inside. (A cow house? What’s that?) As I neared the place, I swore I could smell cow dung. I made a quick beeline in the opposite direction, then made some rationalizations (that’s way too small to be a house for cows, and what are those people doing sitting behind a desk?) I knew I was going to regret it if I didn’t at least take a quick peek inside, so inside I went. I think the smell I sensed the first time must have been part of my imagination, because the building was a showcase of local art. (Some of it was quite good, too.)
For lunch, my Madridian buds and I went to one of their madridian buds’ host family and we made REAL Mexican food. YUM. REAL GUAC. It’s amazing how, despite the fact that they speak the same language, it is impossible to find real Mexican food in Spain. (Oh please, a quesadilla with brie? A quesadilla with no cheese? It’s actually quite amusing to see the differences, but when one is craving a phatty enchilada, manicotti with marinara sauce just doesn’t do the trick. ) WE stayed for quite a long time chatting, munching, reminiscing about real food back in the states…good times. I’m not sure what I did after that. Maybe that was the day we went to the Doblod temple. (the only ancient Egyptian temple in all of spain, a gift from someone in some year. )….
Day three: hitting up museums big time. At 10am, I entered the Modern art Museum Reina Sofia. I finally escaped around 2pm because I was hungry. WOW. It’s just not possible to see that museum in less than five hours. Lunch: shwarma! Then—next museum. Museum thyssen-borson: approx 3pm-7pm. I was thoroughly tuckered out by that time. I never realized how much art culture Spain has. I suppose “Picasso,” “Salvador Dali,” and “El Greco” should have given me a clue. Those were huge museums. I don’t think I’m capable of describing them.
Sunday morning: I woke up slowly, packed my things, and got ready for today’s gem: Museo del Prado. I waited in line for about half an hour, and when I finally got in, I was greeted by a security team that would have put an airport to shame. When my bag went through, my cell phone aroused suspicion. (ah…that’s the metal object. Okay, no guns or knives, you’re clear.) I shook off the dregs of thorough security inspection, looked up, and saw a sign that made my heart skip a beat.
I attempted a calculation. If I spent one minute in each room, that would mean almost two hours. But of course, there was no way it would be possible to spend only one minute in each room. I think my estimate ended up being 9 hours. (I didn’t spend that much time though; it was necessary to get to the bus station and get my ticket back into Granada).
By the third room, I was already experiencing fatigue. (Bad planning on my part: try to fit 3 huge museums in two days? How was I to know—it worked in Italy and France, and even other cities in Spain too.) I can’t express how amazing that museum was. Best admission fee I didn’t spend. (on Sunday admission is free.) I think this was the only time I’ve really been defeated by a museum. I didn’t get to give all 110 rooms justice (though by the end I decided I had to at least walk through all of them—I’m stubborn.) I headed out, thoroughly exhausted, and made what I thought would be my final trip through the Madrid metro for the weekend.
The bus station was PACKED. (me: oh right…it’s a holiday. Dagnabbit.) I spent half an hour waiting in line to get my ticket, and though it was only about 3pm, the earliest bus back to Granada was 11pm.
Thoughts:
…more time in Madrid?
Score!
I called up my Madridians, and that night we walked around the nighttime city, admiring lights, investigating bookstores, sipping tea, commenting on certain parts of town, enjoying tapas, cracking jokes…it was a lot of fun. Eventually though, I did have to go back to the bus station.
Luckily for me, I am incapable of staying awake on ANY bus ride, so I slept exceedingly well. (Usually this really annoys me because I always bring books and writing material on the bus and never use them, but this time it came in handy.) I arrived back in Granada about 4am, and was back in my own bed by 5am. (And woke up about 9am to get to class. Ah, how useful youth and coffee are. )