Wise timing, Jorge: morning call, 12am to check out of the rooms, 1pm for touristing. We all roused ourselves out of bed eventually, around 10 or 11ish, and got a measly breakfast next door: tostadas con tomate (toast with tomato purée) at the ham place, then kebabs once the Turkish place opened. Ashley went cheap and picked up a baguette and butter at the alimentación two doors up (the one run by Japanese people with Pikachu and some other anime characters painted on the doorframe) and just buttered her bread at the Turkish place (since she’d buttered up the owner yesterday).

The only tourist trip (and last for the weekend) was the Royal Palace. It was quite palatial: tons of rooms with vaulted ceilings, probably a thousand different art pieces, walls covered in tapestries, walls covered in embroidered fabric (not wallpaper but thick embroidery), etc., etc. The place is pretty amazing, the most opulent palace I’ve ever seen — and it’s still in use, too, aside from being a national patrimonial site. The tour was a little different than normal: we were issued radio receivers to pick up a feed from the tour guide’s belt pack, so he could just walk around wherever and keep talking and we’d hear him pretty well. Shame that I couldn’t understand most of what he said, since he talked so fast and monotonously. Nice trench coat, though, and the palace itself was plenty to look at.

We had a few hours free after the palace before we had to report back to the hotel to load up the busses. A handful of us wandered across the street to the Parque Oriental, which was just a plaza with hedges and gardens and a little playground, and got into a discussion about what determines fluency and being religious. Interesting, though when it got to be three of the more outspoken and opinionated people discussing, the two more reserved and moderate people withdrew to form a side discussion about people in general. Interesting group dynamics. Also, I was hit up by a Bulgarian girl with gold caps on her teeth to contribute to a UNICEF campaign to build a deaf/blind school in Madrid. She was real sneaky about it, too - when she held out the petition for me to sign, she put her hand over the Donation column so that I couldn’t see all the 20€ entries … or the empty ones. I gave her a 1€ coin, which was literally all I had left in my wallet but for 17 cents.

There were a few cool things on the bus ride home: more windmill power generators and a huuuuuge rainbow. For about twenty minutes we could see the entire arch, from one landing point to the other. “Physics!” Also, we stopped off at a hotel/café halfway back to Granada and ran into our flatmate, Youssef. Coming home was nice; Akin and I both remarked on how Granada feels like el hogar — home.

Welcome home!

Breakfast came early today for the American tourists, whose route was to take them to Segovia all today. Segovia is of note for its cathedral, which is one of the best examples of baroque architecture in Spain, its ancient Roman aqueduct, which still looks in pretty good shape, and the coronation of Isabel la Catolica, the better half of the Reinos Catolicos (Catholic Regnants). (I don’t think I’ve mentioned the pertinent history here: los Reinos Catolics were the pair in power when the Reconquista, the reconquest of Spain by the Catholics, was completed in 1492 when Andalucía was retaken from the Moors. End lecture.) Speaking of breakfast, I took a good idea from Bianca at my breakfast table and put together a few bocadillas (little sammiches) of bread, cheese, and sausage slices for later.

Our little walking tour of the city brought us first to the famous Roman aqueduct. Dang, man, dang. The thing is massive, three stories high and stretching way ‘cross town. Also, it carries water from one side of town to the other. Roman civil engineers for the win!

Jorge, in his infinite wisdom, made sure to pad our morning with just a moment of rest in between the aqueduct (tiring just to look at!) and the rest of the tourist sites, at a chocolatería! The place was delicious; they offered great churros con chocolate (which we had to sample with great haste, as we were served last and Jorge got impatient), bombones (bon bons) such as chocolate-covered orange peels, and a fair cup of café solo.

Jorge told us that the cathedral was fancy, and it looked pretty groovy from the bus park, but gosh darn diggity was that an ornate catheral! That’s an awful lot of little sticky-outy ornamental bits on the numerous towers. The inside was just as impressive, but of course neither did I take pictures nor remember how to describe it. Our tour guide did point up an entertaining feature to the seats in the chorus: the seats either were folded down and functioned normally or could be folded up, where they had a little cheater seat for the sacerdote (bishop) to rest himself during services and look like he was still standing. Sneaky sneaky!

While we were taking photos in the cloisters of the cathedral, Meghan pointed out that tourists contort themselves into the goofiest positions in order to record that perfect angle. Well, when they have chicken wire strung all around the cloisters, you do need to look like these folks in order to make it look good.

Next stop: the Alcázar, or the Royal Palace, where Fernando VII was stationed. This place was built a bit later and looks more like your typical Lego castle, with a moat, squared-off corners, conical roofs, and a parqué (parquet, tower) with the cylinder/torch-style decorations.

Inside, the Palace was typically palatial and also like a keep. There were many well-appointed royal rooms, a chapel in the middle, and many velvet ropes to keep the tourists off the old thrones. Also, a dungeon and a museum-y section showing off old arms and armor. For another 2€, thanks to Jorge, we were able to ascend to the top of the tower to look out over the town and countryside; also, get our cardio workout for the day.

The Alcázar concluded the touristy part of the today, as we were released to take lunch and enjoy the town. We returned to the Plaza Mayor, the main plaza which in fact used to be the bull-fighting ring of the town, to eat at a cafe. They served us tapas with our drinks, surprisingly enough, little half-sized hamburgers; afterwards, I took a sandwich of Iberian ham (cured ham slices) with salmoreja. Good times with good folks — I’m definitely enjoying the opportunity to hang out with people in the study abroad group whom I typically only see during class.

Well, what else is there to do in a town once you’ve seen all the tourist sites? Jason and I just wandered … and wandered … yup. Also, I snuck onto some terrace to take some baller photos of the cityscape. Jason played an awful lot with his whip — I mean that literally; he bought a whip en route to the castle and we stood out front of the Alcázar before going in. That whip is Damn Loud in the middle of a small-town street. Just saying.

The rest of the night is summed up pretty well: we went out to eat at a nice, medium-price Italian place, then went back and headed out to the bars around 1 or 2am, and come home early at 4am, then sat around the room for an hour or two while everybody wandered back to the hotel to share stories about the bars and the clubs.

Oh, Madrid.

Good morning, up and at ‘em! Seriously, though, wake-up call was 8am, breakfast at 8:30, on the bus at 9am. Breakfast was Spanish-style continental: sliced bread, either from a loaf or a baguette, which you could toast on a toaster with a track (put in bread on on side, watch disappear into toaster, toast appears eventually); butter and jams (many of which had crystallized into gunk); juices of various types; graham crackers (which we nicked for later): cheese and slices of sausage, several kinds. Spanish breakfast is pretty light in general.

Today’s touristing started at the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, the Royal Monastery of Saint Lorenzo, otherwise known as Escorial. Home to a seminary and a saucy tour guide (with a bit of a gravelly voice, to boot), … okay, really, I don’t have that much to say about Escoliar except that it had lots of Goyas, a lot of vaulted ceilings, very austere housing for the living royal family, and very well-appointed sepulchers for the dead parts. Also of note: before a member of the royal family is to be put to rest in their sarcophagus in the royal mausoleum, the body is left to putrefy (rot) for 25 years in a special room, which is called something like a putrificador (rotting room), after which time the skeleton is moved to its final resting place in the mausoleum proper. Oh, also, the tour guide teased us a little bit, about me joining the seminary, or Matt getting lots of earrings as tokens from all his lovers. That is all.

Francisco Franco was a real big deal. In other words, it’s good to be a dictator: he ordered a basilica to be built into the side of a mountain to house his remains when he died. When I say basilica, I mean BIG FREAKING CHURCH. The thing was massive. Just huge. We were told that a whole bunch of people died in the process of constructing it, of course. It came out pretty magnificently, though, since Franco was super-Catholic and did it up right. In addition to housing Franco’s tomb, they also buried his chief enemy on the other side of the dais. Some revenge =D but yeah, beautiful cathedral, and still in use: they had hours listed for masses.

Although Jorge gave us a big speech about showing up to the bus on time, because if we weren’t all in the bus on time, then the bus would be late, we’d miss our tour, etc., etc., … except for when we don’t have a tour: back on Spanish Standard Time, ten minutes late. We were amused, except for the people who prefer to kvetch than to laugh — they kvetched instead, so everybody was happy in their own way.

What’s the best way to cure kvetching? Food! The bus took us back to Principio Pio, where our hotel is, and the group split up to go to lunch. After looking at a couple different restaurants (The Wok, T.G.I. Fridays, and a Peruvian place), we settled on a Spanish chain called Cañas y Tapas on Gran Vía. We were mostly attracted by their menu del día, which Jorge had informed us was a selection required by the Spanish government: an entire meal for about 10-12€, with a variety of selections for a first course and second course. Of course, after spending twenty minutes trying to translate all the food words, we gave in and just ordered from the page that had pictures and decent prices. I ended up with, surprise surprise, a selection of tapas which included some ham with salmoreja on bread, fried mushrooms, and various other yummy things. Along with the meal, it was obligatory (of course) to drink a caña.

Lunch was but the mid-point of our day, though, and there was still plenty to do! Jorge’s itinerary for the afternoon: a whirlwind tour of the famous Spanish painters in the Prado and the Museo del Sofia Reina. Lots of great art! It was a bit bittersweet, though; while I was glad to glimpse all sorts of famous pieces of art I’ve studied in school, such as Picasso’s Guernica and the statue Hermaphrodite, I would have hoped for another few hours (or days) visiting the museums! Perhaps I’ll spend a free weekend and come back to see the art again.

To contrast the wide survey of all the high culture, Jorge took us down into the depths of Madrid, to take the subway home! It was, um, a subway, but it was efficient and clean, so we were reasonably impressed. That’s all I got, really.

What with all the art on our agenda, Jorge barely left us any time for dinner before our Thursday night “sorpresa.” So, hungry, tired, and rushed, we found a café for dinner: the Café Sereta, off Gran Vía. We step in to find nicely dressed tables with wine bottles on each table. Hmm. Well, we can afford to splurge a little, since we didn’t spend much on lunch — but we won’t open that bottle. The maestra came over to ask if we’d like anything to drink — oh, could we have a photo? Thanks! Now, let’s check out the menu: hmm, 15€ for one person’s portion of paella, minimum two-person plates … oh, this is a café de comida tranquil

The girls went the really quick and easy route, to the kebab place next door to the hotel, but Jason and I ventured a little farther away. Jason and I ended up at the PARAÍSO DE JAMÓN. OH MY GOD SO MUCH HAM. WE HAD A PLATE FULL OF SLICED HAM FOR DINNER AND THAT WAS EVERYTHING. Also a beer and some cake for dessert. PLATE OF FREAKING HAM. CALLED THE FUENTES DEL JAMÓN (sources of ham VERY LOUDLY). alright done now. oh wait sorry HAAAAAAAAAAAAM.

Onto the aforementioned surprise, which Jorge’s been talking it up since he gave us the itinerary last week. Now, he said it was a little expensive, so he hopes that Christina (the program organizer in Delaware) doesn’t mind, but it’s a very interesting event culturally speaking. Well, what is it? SARA BARAS, the world-famous ballet dancer and choreographer, in a flamenco rendition of Bizet’s Carmen. Although we were up in the nosebleeds (the 25€ seats), there wasn’t a bad seat in the house. Cool notes about the production: for the second scene, a wall with five doors was flown in (and the doors were used as dancers in their own right, opening and closing in ripples and whatnot); and for the second and third act, the instrumentalists were put on a dais upstage, sometimes with a scrim in front of them. Very professional lighting, of course, much smoother than Bodas de Sangre. Hilariousest moment of the show: an usher spotted Laura taking photos during the encore across the entire balcony and pointed a laser right across the balcony at her. FML.

The show, which started at 10pm (that’s right, ten at night), let out around midnight. A bunch of people were planning to go out to the clubs, but since another bunch of us unfortunately fell asleep a couple times during the show (thanks to Jorge for not building a siesta into the agenda), we went back to the hotel and Passed Right Out.

Good night — tomorrow is more touristing!

We were standing outside, waiting for the bus when Ashley remarked, “I know exactly what Andy’s blog is going to say: ‘We were standing outside, waiting for the bus…’” Well, we were! It was back to our old bus and driver, the other Jorge (who has a cute little “MADRID: Jorge” mini-license plate, E.U. style, hung up above his head). It’s a comfy little bus that holds probably forty people, so most of the twenty people and change get their own seat (or the five-seat bench in the back). Nonetheless, we loaded up and ended up in pretty much the same arrangement as we did from the Ronda trip. Most people do that in class, too, as usual.

The first stop, after about two hours of driving, was a typical roadside café area with the standard tourist kitsch. Jorge bought us all a drink — that is to say, a café or bottle of water — which we enjoyed nearly as much as the servicios higienicos, or the loo, if you will. This aperatif merely whetted our desire to get back on the road to our destination, but before we got to Toledo ..

… we had to tilt at windmills. Yep, along the way to Toledo are the molinos of fame from the story of Don Quijote de la Mancha. Now I can understand why they’d be mistaken for giants: standing at three stories tall, they dwarf any of the Delawareans who might take up battle with their arms. Fortunately, the worst we put our hand to was a jumping picture in front of the old things.

Next stop: Toledo! (That’s toe-lay-dough or toe-lee-dough depending on how Spanish you’re feeling at the moment.) We were released for a few hours to wander the city before our tour so that we might eat lunch, relieve ourselves of a few duties, etc. Jason chose to visit the American Embassy for the second part — that is to say, the Golden Arches Consulate — while I took care of the bocadillos Carmen had packed for Akin and me. Since I had forgotten mine last week, I looked forward to today’s hearty meal of a Spanish tortilla (potato omelette) on a baguette and cured ham on bread with vinegar. Om nom nom! Also, a banana and an orange, except I dropped my orange on the bus. C’est la vie.

After lunch, all that was left to do was wander and shop. The girls got jewelry. The boys (a.k.a. Jason and I) hit up the sword shops: Toledo claims some certain fame for the sword factory on the edge of the city. Jason picked up two katana — one for his bff slash roommate and one for his birthday self-present — while I came out of the dungeons with a replica of el Cid’s battle sword, la Colada, and Carlos V’s dagger. El Cid, for those of you unfamiliar with Spanish history, was a well-esteemed Spanish swordsman from the … I think 12th century; he was thought so highly of by the Moors that they called him El Cid, which translates to El Hombre or The Man. He was a Cool Guy; also, he had two swords, one for ceremonial purposes and one for battle (the main difference being the handguard on the hilt). Anyway, everyone was very impressed, and it wasn’t too bad of a deal: 83.65 euros for a quality sword with the dagger (priced at 16 euros) thrown in gratis. They didn’t come overly sharpened, but I could still run somebody through pretty easily if I were overcome by bandits in the streets of Madrid.

Our guide met us back at the plaza at 4pm to tourist around the city. She is a very petite and professorly lady (who knows an awful lot, but needs to speak up a little) and showed us an awful lot of neat-o things, like little cherubim making out or at the point of fisticuffs. Those showed up in the first tourist site we visited, the Cathedral of Santa María of Toledo. The place is huge; it’s one of the greatest examples of baroque architecture in Spain. It was also built large enough to cover the entirety of the mosque which preceded it. Of note: three pipe organs, including two in opposition over the chorus, one Baroque-style and one Neoclassical; a very intricately decorated skylight allowing sunrays to illuminate a fancy sculpture in the back of the church; and a set of towers that defeated the wide angle lens on my camera.

While walking to the next part of the tour, our guide showed us one of the delicacies of Toledo: mazapan (marzipan). Specifically, she showed us the city gate done up in marzipan. I coulda eaten that entire town. Unfortunately, our guide doesn’t speak too loudly (and my memory doesn’t go back more than day or two), so I didn’t get to hear too much detail on the marzipan. In addition to marzipan, we dropped by the Interment of Sr. de Orgaz (el Greco). Basically, it’s a little chapel with his tomb and a lovely painting above it.

You’ll remember that Spain used to be home (and is again) to Catholics, Jews, and Arabian Muslims. Toledo is the one place in Spain where the three religious groups could live side-by-side in harmony, at least until the Reconquista of Spain by the Catholics. There’s a sculpture when you enter the city to that effect, something about peace and harmony written in all three languages. Anyway, we visited an old synagogue to prove the point, the Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue from the 12th century. (Seriously, that’s what the sign said: Sa MARIA la BLANCA / MONUMENTO NACIONAL / ANTIGUO SINAGOGA DEL SIGLO XII / XIIth CENTURY OLD SYNAGOGUE.) Although it had been converted into a stables when the Catholics gave the Jews the boot a few centuries back, it still had that synagoguey feel to it. Today there was an art exhibition featuring some contemporary drawings, good stuff: the centerpiece melded the Torah, the city of Toledo, the city of Jerusalem, a Jewish couple, and the word “love” in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. Architecturally speaking, the place looked more like a mosque: the archways were done in a partially Arabic style, with funky curliques in the top of the arches instead of classical or baroque-style decoration. More on this later.

What comes after Judaism? Catholicism, of course! So we walked over to another Catholic site, the Claustros (Cloisters) of San Juan de los Reyes. In the chapel attached, we got to rest our feet for a moment and learn about how, since there was Spain royal lineage coming from Germany (and I really ought to have taken notes about this), some of the royal seals and shields included the double-headed shield from Germany. Seeing all these palaces and old-timey buildings is gonna get me real good on parsing all the symbolism in shields.

The visit to the Cloisters concluded our tour of Toledo, but for one more treat: walking across the beautiful river to our busses. Hilarity ensues as Jorge tries to get us to hurry up to the busses while we see a lovely opportunity to spread out and take photos for twenty minutes. Twenty years in his position as program director and I don’t think he’s used to the digital age yet with all their newfangled gadgets, including cheap cameras. Japanese time for all…

After such a full day of touristing, we were glad to hear that nothing more was scheduled but to drive the few more hours to Madrid, check in to the Hotel Principio Pio, and do whatever we pleased (within legal limits). My roommate Akin was invited to join the triple of boys (since we have an odd number of boys and girls and UD study abroad policy prefers to keep them separate), so I roomed with Jason instead (which was more to our taste anyway). Best perk of hotel: UNLIMITED HOT SHOWERS OH MY GOD SO GOOD.

Incidentally, Jorge elected to give us a per diem on the bus this morning rather than even attempt to host group meal times; so we started the trip with 75 euros for lunch, dinner, and merienda which is basically tea-time, through Sunday afternoon. Since lunch finished off the sammiches from our señoras, dinner was on our per diem. Jason, the girls, and I walked up to Gran Vía, the main avenue of Madrid, to find some food while it was still daylight (so. We decided to put The Wok, a mixed Asian chain restaurant, on the back-burner and, after looking at a few other restaurants, split up: the girls went back to just grab some kebabs next door to the hotel, while Jason and I walked a bit farther to see what there was to eat.

We found the Donkey Cafetería. We took one look at the place, decided it was a dive, then looked up at the sign and decided we had to eat somewhere called the DONKEY CAFETERIA. The place was pretty legit, too, just a bunch of Spanish people and a pugnacious little bartender who said there wasn’t a menu, just the tapas in the heater in front of us. Alright, give us a little of everything: little hot dogs wrapped in bacon and fried, Spanish tortilla, all sorts of yummies.

In addition to enjoying dinner and a beer on Jorge, we definitely took advantage of the alimentaciones just up the street from the hotel to buy some food and beverage supplies for later on in the night. Evening plans for most of the group were to go out clubbing, but my smaller group (Jason, Laura, Ashley, Karen, Analecia, and me) chose to stay in the hotel, in anticipation of more hard-core touristing tomorrow, and play Kings, a “getting-to-know-you” card game. Our game got crashed around 1:30am, a not unreasonable hour, when the barhoppers came back from the bars and got in their jammies. See: photo.

Toledo? Check!

I’ll write all this up on Sunday or Monday once we get home, but this weekend’s excursion is going quite fun-like! Our day trip to Toledo was entertaining (we got some sharp and shinies), Madrid is quite classy (Prado and the Museo Sofia, as well as Sara Baras’ flamenco ballet rendition of Carmen), and today we go to Segovia! I hope there’s enough time to sleep on the bus to make up for the lack of siestas and the staying-up-late-socializing going on around here.

ttyl!