Mad for Madrid

What a cool city! To me, Madrid seemed like Europe- like what I used to picture when I thought, “big, metropolitan city in Europe,” complete with museums, monuments, plazas, churches, palaces, gardens, etc- but not in an ordinary way.

My friend Abby and I took an extraordinary journey to Madrid last weekend and had a ball. We bussed over six hours early Friday morning to Madrid and immediately had to figure out the Madrid metro system. Not that hard really. (I think I can handle almost anything after Berlin two years ago- yikes!) It took us close to our hostel, which was a decent establishment in a great location. I say decent very particularly because as soon as we arrived, the hostel’s guide/social dude began nagging us to give the hostel a great review after our stay and to mention him specifically. In fact, anytime we asked where to find a tapas bar or how to get to Toledo, he answered and then said, “Don’t forget this when you give our review!” Obnoxious to the extreme. I may or may not write the review. If I do, however, I’ll be sure to remember that he directed us to the wrong bus station when we wanted to go to Toledo, thus delaying and shortening our trip nearly two ours. Yeah, Pablo, I’ll write you a review!

Other than dealing with silly Pablo, though, the trip was fantastic! Abby and I made great use of our time. We went to the Prado the afternoon we arrived and stayed until it closed. What a fascinating museum! Before traveling to Europe, I recommend taking Renaissance to modern art history, without which I would have had no idea of the significance of the pieces I saw- they were extraordinary! We saw Velazquez, Goya, Raphael, Titian, Durer, El Greco, Zurburán, Rubens… and were able to identify their work! Thanks, Art History 202!

Also thanks to Candy, a good family friend who lived in Madrid for several years, for giving some fantastic suggestions for our trip. The first night we ventured down to Plaza Mayor to search for some yummy tapas and were readily rewarded with patatas bravas and chorizo. And sangria. Mmmm. We made an early night of it to prepare for the Big Day of Sightseeing that would follow on Saturday.

Big Day of Sightseeing:
Starts off with the meager “free breakfast” of cornflakes and buttered toast. It was decent. A decently boring breakfast from the decent hostel. Then we headed out to explore Madrid! First stop: Plaza Mayor during daylight. The area is a tad swanky, with plenty of expensive shops and restaurants, but there is a really cool indoor market with every kind of fresh food you might want, and a bar open in the early hours of the day- why not? Abby and I drooled a bit, but resisted. We took a million pictures- the fish heads and octopus are just so photogenic!
Second stop: the Cathedral de Nuestra Señora de la Almudeña and the Palacio Real. The cathedral was only built within the past 20 years so most tourists dismiss it as unworthy of their precious time. We wandered around outside, but didn’t spend too much time there. The architecture was cool though. Then we got dumped on walking to the adjacent palacio, which seemed really cool! I’ve heard it’s definitely something worth seeing, but Abby and I were significantly deterred by the line of hundreds standing in the sideways rain. Maybe if it had been the end of the day.
Third stop: Puerta del Sol. According to Pablo, this is a relatively unimpressive plaza, but it sits in the center of Madrid and has a statue of a bear leaning on a tree where madrileños go when something big happens- Real Madrid winning a big game, for instance. Anyway, the really exciting thing about the plaza was Jennie coming to meet us! Jennie is one of my roommates in Madison who is studying in Álcala, a city of about 200,000 roughly 20 miles outside Madrid. Good sport that she is, Jennie accompanied Madrid newbies Abby and me to all the typical touristy spots in Madrid that she’s obviously already seen. We sauntered down Gran Via, a main thoroughfare of Madrid, walking by gazillions of stores, restaurants (one called the Jamón Factory!) and new things. It’s a big deal to some, but just seemed like it could be plopped down in any city to me. The other end of the Gran Via, though, carried us along much more beautiful architecture and several cool buildings such as the Puerta de Álcala and several palacios. We ended up at Retiro- a giant park in downtown Madrid that sports a few lakes and greenhouses and SEEMED like a good spot to park for lunch. Yet just as we pulled out our food, the rain came. No- that description of rain is too gentle. How about sheets of liquid wrath of the sky determined to soak a few well-meaning tourists? That sounds more accurate. We hurried toward the snack hut for shelter and waited out the downpour before carrying on with our tour of the park. We saw fountains, flora, fauna and a couple funny kids riding bikes in bright red raingear. Retiro is also home to the only statue of Lucifer that exists in a public park in the world. Does it really matter if it was cool? We took pictures anyway.

I’ve lost count of stops. (We start-stopped a lot whenever we decided something was worth checking out). Next, we went to Reina Sofia (the second of the three large museums in Madrid that together possess the largest collection of art in the world – we didn’t make it to the third- the Thyssen). Reina Sofia happened to be free entrance when we got there, and would have been a welcome respite from the rain. Alas, we have just the luck that it stops pouring when we go INSIDE. Yeah. The museum was well worth it. Much more modern art than the Prado, but some really cool collections by Spanish artists. And, of course, Picasso’s Guernica. Abby was dying to see this massive painting lamenting Franco’s allowance of Germans and Italians bombing Guernica, in Basque country in 1937, and it did not fail to impress. We stood among the masses looking at one of the most famous paintings in the world and I thought, “It’s pretty damn thrilling that I get to take a trip like this.”

Saturday was a long day, but full of amazing things. Abby and I went out for tapas again, trying new dishes of course, and made plans to meet up with our Spanish roommates at a discoteca later. We went and saw them a little, but got lost in the crowd. As Madrid is such the Spanish hub, we also ran into some friends from our program at the same club!

Sunday we went to a fabulous, enormous outdoor market that Abby found in her guidebook. The first 50 or 60 huts sold typical touristy stuff, clothes, jewelry, sunglasses, etc. As we walked on, though, we got to the antiques, which were really cool. I may have even bought a really cool present for one of my sisters… And the morning provided sunshine! Later that day, we headed to Toledo (after the aforementioned delay) and spent a few hours wandering the hills and ramparts of the medieval city. We sat on benches on a huge hilltop terrace just talking and looking out at the city. It was so relaxing to rest in the sun after several busy days.

When we got back to Madrid, we cleaned up at our hostel and then went to meet my friend Alison, who has been studying in Álcala for the whole year! We went to a churro place a woman at the hostel recommended and had the BEST hot chocolate and churros that I’ve ever had!! YUM. Have I mentioned how the hot chocolate in Spain isn’t like warm chocolate milk? It’s melted chocolate!! And it’s wonderful like nothing else in the world. After lingering in the delicious-smelling churrería for a while, we bade adios to Alison and headed back for an early night.

We spent the few hours we had Monday morning shopping. I’m on a bear hunt for great leather boots, and cannot find them anywhere. I was again unsuccessful with boots in Madrid, but not with espadrilles! Another tip from Candy- Casa Hernanz- an alpargateria which madrileños have been frequenting for decades for the city’s best espadrilles. I bought off-white wedges to wear with sundresses in the spring and Abby bought some sassy red wedges and navy flats. We really represented the homeland well.

Alas, our lovely excursion to Madrid had to end sometime, so we grabbed our bags from the hostel and hopped on the metro to the bus station. The long ride home (long, but beautiful- gorgeous mountains, but also heavily flooded fields) was made even longer when our bus broke down and we had to switch in the middle of nowhere. Ah well, home safe and sound.

Now I’ve been back in Sevilla for approximately 48 hours and I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon for Barcelona! Ahh, Spain, te amo.