part deux

To continue...

[ Front facade, from diagonally across the street, Madrid Cathedral ]

Thursday afternoon, after basking in the sun for a bit, we went into the Madrid cathedral. Now I have been into a lot of really old churches, really cool ones too, while here in England, but no one does cathedral like Spanish Catholics. The exterior, though pretty awesome, was nothing particularly special. 

[ interior ]

The interior however was remarkable. The space was enormous and there were stained glass windows. Since there is sun in Spain light actually ran through the colored glass filling the cold stone interior with warm colors. Every chapel was filled with gold filigry covered Virgin Mary's and Crucifixes. It was nice to just sit and look.

After that we decided to walk through town down the main street la Grand Via. Its like Spain's version of London's West End or the US's Time Square, I suppose. It had a lot of shopping, a lot of food and a lot of theaters. I thought it would be pretty funny to go see something in Spanish, of course it would be something I've seen in English or even to a Disney movie. Would have been good, but we didn't have time, nor really the money. All down la Grand Via there was of course beautiful architecture. Big buildings with classical features and Spanish Baroque details lined the street. We passed the National Bank, that was pretty fancy. We of course stopped at a little restaurant to warm up and refresh. Every time we would stop it would involve food. I had some hot chocolate. Now hot chocolate in Spain is not your typical steamed milk and chocolate syrup, it is legit chocolate. If you know what sipping chocolate is, it's like that. It's pretty much a melted candy bar, you add a little sugar to it so its not so bitter. But it is rich and thick and smooth and delicious. 

Once we reached the end of the street we found a park and decided to explore.

[ Retiro Park ]

[ me falling over in Retiro Park ]

[ me recovering in Retiro Park ]

The park was really pretty. I can only imagine what it looks like in the summer time. The best part of the park was the boating pond. We walked passed this big pond  right on the edge of a huge monument thingy and it had tons of little boats on it and we all said no matter what it costs we're doing it. We walk over to the booth and it was only four euros to rent a boat for forty five minutes. We hopped on that. We got our boat just before six and the office must close at six cause we were the only ones on the pond our whole time out there. I started out as a rower but soon got demoted to picture taker. It unfortunately was all on Brit's camera so I don't have any pictures actually on the boat. We rowed around, rocked out while listening to Lonely Island's "I'm on a boat" and oh yeah we were on the news. A guy with a camera waved us over to the shore and we rowed a little closer and said we don't speak Spanish, in his broken English he tried to explain what was up and he just had us row to a certain spot and we were just sort of in the background of this little segment on Madrid's channel 6 news. I just googled it and i'm pretty sure there is no way I'm going to find it, so just trust me. 

[ boating pond ]

That night walked back towards our hostel through the park, and ended up at Plaza Mayor we we had a super fancy dinner. We asked for non smoking and we were banished to the basement, and were the only ones down there. My meal was delicious, I got two courses, well three cause I ate half of Kellen's appetizer, croquettes, then I had a steak and fancy mashed potatoes and a chocolate cake to top it off. It was divine. Oh and European Fanta which is far superior to anything in the States. 

After food, which was like nine thirty, we rushed over to the bus station and made sure Brit had a ticket, she had misplaced it. The ticket lady got mad at us because in Brit's haste she just started speaking English. She was the only person to get mad at us for not attempting to speak Spanish and she was pissed. 

Once that drama passed, I experienced one horrible night on a seven hour bus ride from hell. Cramped, smelly and just plain awful.

Friday February 12

We arrived in Barcelona at six something AM. It was dark and miserable. My mood is pretty dependent on how much sleep I get and at this point the ratio was not doing so hot. We struggled a little through the metro system but eventual found our hostel where we were told to wait till nine to check in. We wasted time on the internet and Spanish pastries and then I demanded a nap. 

After a not long enough nap we embarked on Gaudi Day. It was my favorite day, not night- I'll get there- but day was awesome. Our first stop was the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. My bestie Camille wrote a paper on this place in our architecture class so it has been much discussed in the past as well as actually studied in class. It was striking to say the least. It literally looks like a melting church, Gaudi definitely was a little surrealist. 

[ me and the North facade]

Yes this building is covered in scaffolding. It has never been finished. Gaudi started on it in 1882, then he died  a while after that, then they left it for a while and now they have been building it ever since, I don't get it build if Gaudi wanted a big gaping hole in the ceiling than he got what he wished for. 

[ South facade, on the melty side]

We didn't actually go inside. It cost too much, fifteen euros my butt. It was massive though, much bigger and yet smaller than I thought. It was big but not as tall as I imagined. But this was just the beginning of Gaudi day, and boy do people in Barcelona love Gaudi. Next we walked through town over to Casa Milla, an apartment building he designed. It was curvy and melty and also cost a ton to get inside. Once we ended our brief visit there we hiked up a treacherous hill, ok parts had escalators but not all, to Guell Park. 

bored again, to be continued.....