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Published: October 24th 2007
I am going to warn all of you ahead of time, this blog is going to be a long one.
This past weekend was a long weekend, and I spent it in Madrid. I had a really great time. Sallie and I flew in to Madrid Friday night, and checked into our hostel. We were trying to meet up with Furman friends who were on their study abroad program there, but had some difficulties contacting each other at first. Eventually, my friend Matt (Krantz for all of you at Furman who may know him) got a hold of us and took us to eat in a Restaurant called “Museo de Jamon,” which literally translates into “Museum of Ham.” Its basically a Spanish chain of restaurants, that serves lots of ham (ham is really popular in Madrid). The food was good, but it was kind-of a strange place because they had ham legs hanging over most of the walls in the restaurant.
After dinner, we met up with some more Furman people (Aleah Holland, Rachel Bounds, Nate Wofford, and Reed, who I had never met before) and they took us to get a typical Madrileno (Madridian) dessert of Chocolate con Churros (Doughnut stick with chocolate to dip them in). It was great, but incredibly rich. About halfway through a Furmanite who had transferred and was now studying in Copenhagen (Spencer Cummings) joined us. So, we had a pretty good Furman group going on. We parted ways with most of the group, and Krantz took us around a little bit to see some of Madrid, and then we went back to go to sleep.
The next day, Sallie and I did a lot of sightseeing. We started off at an Egyptian Temple that was transported to Madrid and then re-constructed, and then set off to the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace in Madrid is the largest palace in all of Europe (Versailles is commonly and falsely considered the largest because of its extensive gardens, but it is not bigger), and was absolutely amazing. I’m not positive on the specifics, but I believe Krantz had told us there were 2200 rooms in all in the palace. It was pretty spectacular. After the palace, we went to the Almudena Cathedral next door, which was also an amazing sight to see. It was so different from any of the other churches we’ve seen in Europe, and you really need to see my pictures in order to understand.
So, after the Cathedral, Sally really wanted to visit the Hard Rock Café in Madrid, so we went there for lunch. It was nice to have some American food for a change, and to be able to get free refills.
After the Hard Rock Café, we walked a little further down the street to the Gran Via, which is like their Broadway, and looked around a little while. After that, we went to El Retiro, which is like their “Central Park.” It was amazing, and what was even more amazing was the gigantic coincidence that happened there. So just to put this in perspective before I tell you the coincidence, Madrid has a population of 3.3 million people. Now, out of those 3.3 million people, I happened to randomly stumble upon one our FUtones alum (for those of you who might not remember, FUtones is one of the acapella groups I’m in), and one of the coolest people ever, Adrienne Emerick. I hadn’t realized she would be in Spain again this year (she was there last year to teach Spanish kids English, and is doing it again next year). It was a really wonderful surprise.
So, after the amazing surprise, and some more walking around the park, Sallie and I departed for our last tourist spot of the day, the Atocha Train station. Now, this wasn’t just a train station, it was a train station with a tropical garden inside, and it was really cool.
After Atocha, we took a short siesta, and met up with Krantz for dinner (poor Aleah was sick and couldn’t come) and we had some traditional Spanish Tapas. Later that night, Krantz took us bar hopping.
The next day we woke up early to go to a gigantic flea market in Madrid with Krantz and Aleah. It was not as cool as I thought is would be, because it was mostly women's stuff, but I found a thing or too also. Sfter that we decided to visit "Casa de Campo" outside of Madrid, which was basically a big park with hiking trails, and after that, we took the metro to the next stop, where there was a giant lake. The rest of the time after that we spent in Plaza Mayor and The Retiro Rose garden. After that we had to leave, which definitly stunk, but what was cool was we randomly ran into another Furman student in Spain on the subway, who was just coming home from Toledo!
So, some general observations about Spain that everyone should know: They are crazy partiers, and schedule their entire lives around the heat there and partying. They go to work around 10pm, come home for lunch and siesta at about 3pm, go back to work at like 6-9pm, eat dinner at about 10pm, and then go out partying till like 2 in the morning. And that's on weekdays, on weekends, they party until the sun comes up. Pretty cool way of life, huh.
Well, not much exciting is coming up, so there might not be another blog for awhile. If something fun happens, i'll keep everyone posted, but until then, see ya later!
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Kira
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WHAT THE FUTONES??!?!??
You saw YoA?????!!!! I'm so jealous, and really amazed! That IS a huge coincidence, and SO cool. Plus, all the stuff you're getting to do sounds awesome... Spain (Madrid specifically) is definitely on my to-go list. :) I'm really enjoying keeping up with you via this blog, so keep talking! We miss you!!!