Advertisement
I wake up and start to get ready for the day. Emily's ankle is still completely swollen and is starting to bruise as well. We make it down to breakfast before heading to the Prado Museum which is ranked third in the world. Check it out: http://www.museodelprado.es/en/.
Once we arrive at the museum with Cesar, which is another place I cannot take pictures inside, we check out a wheel chair for Emily to relieve some pressure off of her ankle. I push her around as we go on a tour with our tour guide from the previous tours again. I am amazed at how much information she can retain about so many pieces of artwork. Although I realize it is her job, it is truly astounding how much she knows about Spain's history, architecture, culture, and art. I feel like I am beginning to learn a lot just from listening to her while viewing each piece. The museum is pretty large so we weren't able to view as much as I had hoped. Mostly we just looked at paintings, and I even recognized some of the paint styles and characters. This experience was interesting and definitely something that I am
glad I was able to do, however I wish we could have had more time there to view sculptures and other art elements. Maybe I will just have to return some day!
After we left the museum, Jennifer walked us over to the Parliament which we had passed while walking the first day in Madrid. Again this was yet another place in which I couldn't take pictures inside which was becoming quite frustrating. I'll always have the memory of what I saw in these places, but because they were so unique and beautiful it is hard to describe them to anyone else and know that they could conjure up an image even remotely close to what actually was seen. What I thought was most interesting was that the big front door of the Parliament is only used to let the King come through and that there is a red carpet following the door immediately on which he walks along. This red carpet then continues onto a special set of stairs that fold out and lead up to the main stage in the congressional room which was by far the best room there! The ceiling was covered in a huge
fresco painting and there were red velvet curtains and dark shiny wood seats. Overall it wasn't overly ornate but definitely showed the difference between Spanish culture being present in a room as opposed to what our congressional room would look like, plain and boring. Needless to say it was an eye opening experience to how their politics work and what kind of differences and similarities there were between the Parliament here and in the U.S.
After this we headed back to Oneill's since our first experience there was fun. This time USA was playing Slovenia and much to our surprise there were barely any locals in the bar. Everyone downstairs with us (we sat in the same place) were Americans or at least USA fans. They began chanting and singing along with the national anthem which was pretty entertaining. After awhile though their chanting became annoying and made me realize how different they were acting compared to the Spainiards the other day. It made think about how a lot of Americans are louder and obnoxious in certain social settings and aren't aware of it or don't care that they are. After that I toned down my yelling and focused
Oneill's Irish Pub
The crowd of American fans in front of us after USA scored. on the game. In the end USA should have won, but their third goal didn't count according to the referee therefore the final score was 2-2.
Since we were already out and enjoyed going out to La Comedia the night before we decided to get the rest of the group involved and headed out into the area of where we had seen clubs and bars earlier. Again we were met by club promoters who offered us different rounds of drinks free or other good offers. After picking whichever we felt was best, we took the slip of paper with our drink order on it and took it to the bartender who would serve us the first round. Once we finished our drinks and stayed for a couple songs we decided to go to the next bar and try doing the same thing. Turns out that our little system worked pretty well because we went to numerous places and kept getting free drinks upon arriving. Throughout the entire night I had way too many drinks to discuss but only ended up paying three euros for drinks that I purchased on top of the free ones. We ended up splitting up
La Granola
One of the clubs we visited. into two groups because a few people wanted to leave earlier than the rest of us. The second group which I was in decided to visit La Comedia on our way back to the hotel and ran into the manager we met the night before. He immediately recognized us and greeted us with hugs and a not so needed free drink. After spending some time there we headed back to the hotel and I was glad to see my bed!
I knew we had a long day ahead of us because we were traveling to Segovia and Avila on our charter bus. I figured that I could just sleep now and during the bus rides and that I probably would feel fine after resting and eating a good breakfast. Hoping for the best I closed my eyes and fell asleep more quickly than I had any of the other nights here. Wish me luck! Buenos Noche.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0615s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb