Last Days

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After Segovia, I was quite tired and did not do much on Friday. I stayed in most of the day sleeping and catching up on some work for school and studying my German Vocb. I did meet some interesting people at the Hostel where we stayed. One was a Cuban immigrant to Spain who had illegally fled his country and was currently living in Spain. He said that as much as he could not stand to live there, he really missed it as his home. I also met an Australian who had spent the last two months backpacking across Europe. He had visited about a dozen cities and seemingly done everything that was to be done there. He and I had a long and interesting discussion about languages - something that is often on my mind as I am travelling around Europe and constantly struggling to simply be understood. It is definitely a humbling experience to have difficulty expressing even the most basic things, like ordering food and asking for directions. I can manage such things ok in Germany, but in the Czech Republic and Spain, that was nearly impossible!

The next day, Saturday, many museums in Spain are free. I started off the day going over to the Naval Museum, which is actually run by the Spanish Navy and chronicles the history of maritime Spain from prehistoric times to the Columbus and Conquistadors through the downfall of its old glory with the defeat of the Spanish Armada and defeat in the Spanish-American war and then finally ending with the present day fleet, which though much smaller than the British or American fleet, nonetheless is a modern, well prepared navy. It was interesting to see all of the models and artifacts from the old days. I wish I could have read a lot of the plaques there because I would have found it very interesting to see what the present day Spanish attitude is towards the Conquistadors and the Spanish Armada and Spanish-American war. For that matter, I am actually also interested in the relationship between Spain and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, particularly its former colonies. I saw a lot of South American and Mexican immigrants in Spain, but could not discern much more of this relationship than that.

Next I went over to the Railroad museum, which is basically a large old train station that is jam packed with about a two dozen locomotives and old carriages. It was pretty neat to see all the old steam trains. Most interesting me was one steam train that they had cut away part of it so that you could see inside and get a feeling for how the locomotive ran. I wish I could remember more of my Thermodynamics because I remember studying some of the physics of steam powered engines, but could not recall enough to fully understand the locomotive.

Finally, I went over to the El Prado museum, which is THE museum of Spanish art in Madrid. It has a huge collection of such famous Spanish artists as Goya and El Greco. It was pretty cool to walk around, though my favorite part was actually the Greek sculpture that they had in one room.

The next day I got up early to try to go to my uncle and aunt’s old church from when they lived in Madrid, but I could not find it. I did end up having a nice walk around one of the more suburban areas of Madrid. Then I went back to the airport and we flew back to Berlin. It was nice and comforting to hear German again and actually be able to have some grasp of the language around me again. It is going to be quite a shock for me to come back to the U.S. and not have any problems at all with the language!

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