The 10am bus to Madrid was full on Friday morning, so Cecilie and I sat in the Granada bus station for a few hours, watching the rain, chatting, reading, and feeling a little disappointed that the forecast was calling for a pretty soggy weekend in Madrid. Once we made it to Madrid, we discovered that our hostel had locks/keys for neither the font door nor the individual room doors, and it also lacked blankets. ? I thought that was weird. In addition, the wireless internet wasn’t working. But in spite of my pessimistic first impression, it turned out to be fne (clean; comfortable; friendly staff), minus our less-than-ideal roommates (smoking, coming in at 6am talking loudly). Anyway, enough about the accommodations. On Friday night we met up with Cecilie’s cousin Sam who has been studying in Madrid all semester for dinner and advice about the must-see spots, which was nice. Also nice: it only rained a teensy weensy bit on us!
On Saturday we went to Toledo, the city of Don Quixote and very old buildings. (Also where Christians, Muslims, and Jews have been able to live in possibly the most peace ever anywhere.) So, um… Toledo. is. beautiful. In my opinion, it actually deserves all the credit it gets as a pretty and historic place. If you ever go to Madrid, don’t miss Toledo!! I was perfectly content just walking around and looking at everything, and not actually going inside anything except one little museum, and a side chapel of the Cathedral. I was also more than perfectly happy that we only needed our umbrellas for about an hour total all day, and the sun actually came out by the afternoon. This was an extremely welcome surprise.
Back in Madrid that night, we took a speed-tour through the Prado, because Sunday and Monday it wasn’t gong to be open. Not ideal, but since we got there after 6pm it was free, so not all loss either. Needless to saw, we were exhausted from a full day of walking, so we stopped in a place on the way “home” for tortilla sandwiches, talked to the soccer fans who were there, and then flopped into bed. Luckily, our friends were more courteous (or maybe just more tired) and less disruptive tonight.
Sunday we went out to th town of San Lorenzo to see the Escorial (a monastery and where lots of Spanish royalty is buried), but bummer: due to the holiday, it was closed! So we took pictures from the outside (it’s a very impressive building) and then wandered into the madrileño countryside, where we made a lovely morning of wildflowers, quaint benches, and cows. After a couple hours of peaceful prettiness (which, by the way, made me really homesick for the Farm… I’ve been living in city city for quite a while now) we hopped back on the bus to Madrid, where we spent the rest of the day being tourists. After going to mass at the Cathedral that’s right across from the palace, we went on a quest of hitting up all the most famous places in Madrid, finished up the night with people-watching in Puerta del Sol, and getting ice cream to accompany us on the way home. Did I mention that we had a perfectly blue and marshmallow-cloud sky day? It was just wonderful.
Monday it was sunny from the moment we woke up, which made for another day of excellent vacation weather, contrary to the dismal forecast we had been expecting. Win! That morning we fulfilled Cecilie’s life-long dream of sitting at a café in Plaza Mayor by getting churros and chocolate for breakfast, and then we went to the Reina Sofía museum to see a few more famous pieces of art and a lot of pieces we neither understood nor particularly liked, but in the name of being cultured (and because with student IDs we got in free) I'd say it was time well-spent. After a little more plaza sitting and metro-hurrying, we made it back to the bus station and finally home again. Today (tuesday) is a public holiday, so no classes! :)
I’m really glad I made it to Madrid, and I’m really glad it hardly rained while I was there! I think it was to our benefit that the forecast had told us rain, though, because we appreciated the lack thereof so much more that way. It was a beautiful relaxing weekend before I have to truly buckle down and finish all my projects that are due next week. Wish me luck on those…
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