Lost in Madrid

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I wake up to my alarm today and we still have time to make it to breakfast! After we get ready we head down to the dining room which is set up very nicely, I am pleasantly surprised to see a variety of choices. From cold meats and cheeses, to scrambled eggs and bacon, pancakes, fresh fruit, rolls, and pastries.... they had everything. And I can't forget to mention the champagne, fresh coffee and five types of juices either.

After stuffing my face since I know we have a long day ahead of us, we meet up with Cesar and head over to the Royal Palace. Unfortunately this was one of the several places in which you cannot take pictures inside of the building. However, even if I could have taken pictures of all the beautiful rooms I saw, they still wouldn't give justice to how truly breathtaking this place was. We saw the rooms in a specific order and saw about twenty rooms total. Twenty out of the 2,750+ rooms overall! Leading us throughout the palace was our tour guide from the first day in Madrid. She seemed to know quite a bit about the history of the palace as well as the kings and royal families too. Everything she said was extremely interesting, however, the entire time I was there all I could do was stare with my mouth hanging open at every single room. The first set of rooms were the king's rooms, which included the "Porcelain Room" which was covered in porcelain all over the walls and ceilings with ornate enamel designs and paint. Next, we saw the queen's rooms which were just as extraordinary as the others. I found it amazing that every room was decorated completely different with either velvet, porcelain or silk covering the walls and a different exquisite chandelier in every room as well. I've never seen anything like this palace and most likely that is because we do not have anything remotely close in style or structure in America. I saw many archways and paintings that looked familiar to those I had learned about in my art history class earlier this year and it made me appreciate the chance that I had to actually see these things in real life. This was definitely by far the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and it is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. In my opinion, the Royal Palace is one of the greatest landmarks in Madrid and is part of the reason why I view the city as such as a beautiful and cultural place.

As we head out of the palace, Emily stops to buy a water which takes about twenty seconds. After this we step outside to catch up with the rest of the group and cannot find them anywhere. Trying not to panic we walk to the sidewalk and look in both directions from where we are standing. I decide that we should stay put for a couple minutes to see if they come back looking for us. A few minutes pass and I recognize the way we came and decide that we should head back that way towards the subway and hotel so that we can make it to EFE on time, even if we have to get a taxi there by ourselves. As we're walking up the sidewalk past the palace entrance we came in, three girls bump into Emily. At first Emily apologizes to them thinking that it is a mere accident, until she hears the velcro rip open on her travel purse. She immediately looks down and realizes that indeed her purse is hanging wide open with her brand new camera dangling halfway out. One of her shoes had fallen off and the girls kept pointing at it almost as if to distract Emily. However, Emily realizes that the one thing missing out of her purse is an envelope with her metro map and tickets in it, which was probably the least valuable thing. Knowing this she demands that they give her her envelope back and starts to get emotional. Considering I know she isn't the most confrontational person I begin asking them (I guess asking is probably too nice of a word so probably more like yelling at them) what they took and to give it back to her immediately. Moments later one of the girls bends down and pretends that the envelope had been on the ground the entire time and gives it back to Emily and then walks away glaring at us. We're both in shock and keep walking up the sidewalk only to find Cesar and the rest of the group right by the fountain we visited the first day. We tell them about our first pick pocketing experience and realize that those girls probably didn't expect us to be so confrontational and aware of what they were trying to do. We give ourselves pats on the backs and make up for lost time by rushing back to the hotel.

Once we get into the lobby we meet up with Jennifer to visit EFE, a newswire agency in Madrid. Upon arriving and going through security since EFE had been attacked in the last few years, we pile into a meeting room and watch a video about the company. After this we get a brief speech about EFE and then a tour of the company. Some of the rooms we visited were newsrooms as well as the photo archives downstairs. The photo archives holds around 4,000 pictures and provides the best and most complete history of Madrid. Some pictures were even purchased in order to complete collections. We also get to view a picture that had been manipulated a long time ago but was just recently discovered by one of the women showing us the archives. The picture was of Hitler and Franco who were enemies. The person who changed the picture made it so that both of the men were similar in height when in reality Hitler was much taller than Franco. This manipulation was done so that Hitler wasn't towering over Franco physically which could represent a literal meaning as well. I found it really interesting that this was done so long ago before Photoshop and other programs were created. In order to make this change, the person had to layer negatives on top of each other very carefully to create a faux photograph. Another thing we were able to see was a world map that had color coded thumb tacks pressed into over a hundred different locations worldwide. Each thumb tack represented either a freelance employee, an office, or other aspects of the company.

After we left EFE we decide to go to Oneill's Irish Pub to watch the world cup game that Spain is playing Switzerland in at 4 p.m. We finally found enough seating for all of us that decided to come. We were only a few tables back from the large projector screen that the game was being played on, so we had a good view of the game and of the local crowd as well. Several of us decided to try a beer just for the experience and realized that many of the locals were enjoying plenty of beer and smoking as well. A couple of the locals around us turned around and smiled once they realized we were rooting for Spain as well. In the end Switzerland won by one goal and this disappointed me because I was looking forward to watching a Spainiard celebration. We left the pub smelling like cigarettes and headed back to the hotel to change before our big Paella dinner with our professors.

We met Jen and Cesar downstairs and proceeded to walk downtown together. After stopping in a bar we decided we would wait to drink wine with dinner and continue exploring the city. For a few minutes we also checked out a favorite building of Cesar's where a well known philosopher was giving a lecture at the time. The restaurant was close so we did arrive somewhat early, however, we were the only ones there so service was quick and wonderful. Jennifer explained how to order the Paella dinner (Paella being the main dish which consists of rice and usually seafood). A bottle of wine was to be shared between two people as well as the main course and every person received their own dessert (lemon sorbet) and got to choose their own appetizer as well. I stuck with white wine, seafood paella and calamari as my starter. Everything was absolutely delicious and I finally felt like I was getting a sample of something more authentic.

After this amazing meal we ventured back to the hotel, I could say I waddled back considering how full I was. Deciding to wait another night to go out we all went to bed to get rested for our next full day of activities.

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Photos

The Royal Palace
One of the entrances to the Palace.

EFE Newswire Agency
The entrance of the company.

News Room
One of the news rooms in EFE.

Photo Archives
The Photo Archives room at EFE.

EFE Map
A map that has colored thumb tacks to represent their employees and locations.

Oneill's Irish Pub
The crowd of locals in front of us.