Travelogue

We checked into a hostel at 8.00am, slept for 3 hours, and began sightseeing. Our first stop on Friday was at Palacio Real, the royal palace of Spain and official residence of the monarch. Both the interior and exterior were very impressive. Some of the inner room are exactly what you expect of a palace: ornately decorated and covered with gold, crystal, and other precious adornments.

For lunch I sampled two types of Spanish bocadillos (sandwiches): tortilla (which is completely different from Mexican tortillas—tortilla is a pasty mix of egg and potatoes) and jamón (ham). Now I can say definitively that you've never really had a ham sandwich until you've seen the shop owner cut the slices of ham from the leg of the pig before giving it to you.

Next on the travel docket was the Prado museum, the best art house in Spain, and Rick Steve's favorite in Europe. I took the jaded-art-museum-tourist approach, looking primarily at the famous paintings, the Picassos and the Dalis. There really is a fantastic amount of excellent artwork in the museum.

On Saturday I saw the Reina Sofia, Madrid's modern art museum. It is home to Picasso's famous masterpiece, Guernica. The painting itself is absolutely huge at about 20 feet wide. Beyond that, it is very powerful. Regrettably, I learn all my art history from tourism books, so I can't provide a very scholarly explanation. Suffice to say the theme is the bombing of the Spanish city Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in the 20th century, ordered by the dictator Franco and carried out by Hitler.

On a cheerier note, Elizabeth and I hopped on a bus to Toledo, a city an hour south of Madrid and home to Notre Dame's study abroad program in Spain. The city was capital of Spain for hundreds of years and is famous for the (relatively) peaceful coexistence of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. I would describe the city as a medieval version of San Francisco, at least in terms of road grades.

In Toledo, I finally saw a painting by El Greco that I read about in my Spanish class last year: El entierro del conde de orgaz (The Burial of the Count of Orgaz). Also, perhaps to prove to me just how confusing the streets of Toledo are, Elizabeth and I got lost for a good 20 minutes trying to find a church right next to us. Then, we went to Mass at Toledo's amazing cathedral. We wandered around the building just as Rick Steves suggested: like a Pez dispenser with our heads tipped back and our mouths open and saying "Wow."

Dinner provided another opportunity to sample Spanish cuisine at a tapas bar. Tapas are basically Spanish hour d'ours that range widely from french-fry-type things to rolled ham and egg in egg-roll-type things.

Sunday unfortunately brought with it a fever for me. I rested all day and was well enough in the evening to go to a Real Madrid (Real is pronounced "ray-ah" and means "royal") soccer game. A few of the players are on Spain's World Cup team and the game was entertaining. Best of all, the home team won 2-1.

Monday morning I flew home, dropped off my luggage at my flat, and had exactly 40 seconds to make it to class on time. No problem—that's what the challenge of studying abroad is all about.