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Published: September 21st 2008
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Palacio Real
This is the entrance to the royal palace! After I woke up this morning I went into the kitchen to get some breakfast. My host mom was already starting on lunch, but it's the largest meal of the day and it takes preparation, so I guess that part makes sense. She pointed to a bag on the kitchen table and said that she had picked up some churros this morning and I that I should have some for breakfast with chocolate milk because they go well together. I love churros. For those of you who do not know what they are, it's a long cylindrical strip of fried dough. With cinnamon sugar on top...mmm....Anyways. There were three of them in a bag. I took one because you know, there are 5 other people in the house and I wasn't going to eat all of them by myself. When lunch time came around, we all sat at the table and my mom was asking why I didn't eat all of them. She was clearly offended. I quickly apologized and explained that I didn't know that the whole bag was for me. Then I told her that I would eat the rest after I was done with lunch. Moral of the
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Vandana, Amanda and I and the Palace with the Cathedral in the background. story is that Spaniards get kind of offended when you don't accept everything they offer you. Especially food. But I guess I am not going to complain when we're talking about churros, not that I need three of them for myself, but hey.
Let's back track a little bit.
Holy cow I'm going on my third week. I'm definitely convinced that my time here will be done in no time. Sad. Wednesday I had my first official day at the museum. Miguel told me that the museum used to be a hospital during the 16th century and then it was used as a fortress during the civil war before becoming a museum. You can see all of the impacts from cannon fire and gun shots on the side of the building. Everyone was very nice when I went to visit on Tuesday. They asked what I wanted to do and I told them that I wanted to be a curator eventually. Perfect. I happened to be talking to two of them. So Wednesday comes along and I go to work at 9. The museum isn't open yet, so I have to use the knocker on the huge wooden doors. I
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Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena across from the palace. get inside and go into the private part of the museum and head up to the 3rd floor. The entire back area is build around a square courtyard. There are paintings, ceramics and many other artifacts in storage in the halls. The restorationists have taken over one section of the hallway. Tarps are on the ground, paintings are stood against the wall and they just work on them that way. Crazy. I thought they would be in a more protected environment, but I guess not. I share a room with another museum worker and I even have my own desk. My job right now is to catalog artwork from a youth show that they had focusing on the local architecture of Castilla La Mancha (the region where I'm in). I go through all of the pieces and write down the following information on an index card: What type of work it is, title, media used, dimensions, condition, a brief description and what show it was a part of. All of this is in Spanish. There are probably 100 drawings and paintings that I have to go through. I was there for 5 hours and I'm not sure how much I
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Arches that overlook the city outskirts from the Palace. actually did. I have a large pile of cards, but I don't know how long it should take. Then again I am just learning and I am sure that it will go a lot faster next time. I get to learn how to do some restoration work at some point too which I am also very interested in. I'm really excited to go back this week.
Friday was our excursion to Madrid. The bus picked us up in Poligono at 9:10, but we didn't get into Madrid until 11. First thing was the Royal Palace. Carolyn and I had already been there from our travels last summer, but it was interesting to go through all of the rooms with a guide. I got a lot more information from him than what the didactic plaques had. I enjoyed walking through again. The interior of the palace is ridiculously ornate and there is no way you can take it all in in one visit. Frescoes on all of the ceilings, real silver on the walls and gold everywhere. Unfortunately we only had time to tour the inside, so the armor exhibit was out of the question. I'm glad I saw that last
year because it was quite the collection! We had to head to the bus right after for our panoramic tour of the city, which really only meant that we made a big circle around Madrid. That took about an hour and a half, then we were dropped off at the Plaza de Espana for lunch. We all went to Museo de Jamon, which is sort of a bar/deli. Carolyn and I ate there almost everyday, sometimes twice a day, last year. Bocadillos with ham. They're super tasty and that's kind of what I was expecting, but I was wrong. It was fried chicken breasts, french fries, salad, and ice cream. It was a good lunch, but I was so disappointed! I was missing those bocadillos...I'm sure I'll be going to Madrid again soon, so maybe I can satisfy that "need". After lunch we only had 2 1/2 hours of free time. That isn't enough time to walk through any of the art museums, the zoo is too far away, Retiro park takes quite a bit of time to walk though also...and we weren't on the right side of the city either. Mostly everyone went shopping and hung around the Plaza
del Sol area. We were ok with that though. It was very, very warm and the air conditioning was kind of nice. I ended up coming back from Madrid that night. Granada was canceled because it was too last minute, we wanted more time there, and one of my friends got bug bites from her family's house and they didn't want her to travel with those! So instead, it has been postponed until the last weekend in November. I didn't stay up all night in Madrid with friends either because we were all way too tired! Overall, I had a lot of fun. I wish we could have had more time...but at least Madrid is only an hour bus ride away from Toledo, so it won't be difficult to get back.
Traveling. So far I have tickets to go to Barcelona and Paris. Then we'll take the 5 hour bus trip to Granada. We'll be able to spend 2 1/2 days in each place. I am so excited! Barcelona is going to be amazing with the Sagrada Familia and the Picasso Museum. I have to wait two more weeks though! Paris is going to happen November 6-9. We're planning on
going to the Louvre, Versailles, climbing the Eiffel Tower and shopping of course! It should be interesting since none of us speak French, but we're doing the uber-touristy things so I think we should be ok. I can't wait!
My weekend has been fairly uneventful. I had book to read for tomorrow. It was about 50 pages, but the font was super tiny. It was almost as painful to get through as Mosen Millan, but at least it was more interesting. I understood for the most part. Now all I have to do is write a four page analysis on it for next Monday! This Friday is our field trip to the Prado for master painters. I can't wait to get back there. I have a feeling we'll only be looking at El Greco, maybe Velazquez...hopefully we'll have some extra time to look at the other paintings! I'm going to try uploading pictures on here again. For those of you with facebook, I have a Toledo album and a Madrid album. There will be more to come!
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