Madrid Trip (its a big long, I'm trying to write down everything so I don't forget!)
So I left for Madrid on Thursday morning, with a 5 hour bus trip! We basically ate a lot on Thursday, and walked around. I had my first churro! I have a picture below, it was at the shop called St Gines. When we arrived, it turned out that we had booked a hostel in the wrong city (in spanish) and had to get a last minute room! But luckily there was one about 100m down the road, so that was good, even though the hostel was a bit dodge. There are a lot more fast food chains! We have one Macdonalds in Pamplona, but we saw 2 upon arrival!
On Friday, I walked around the plazas, like the Plaza del Oriente, and shopping. I visited the biggest park in Madrid - El Parque del Retiro - it's beautiful, (the Crystal Palace is there, its lovely) but it would be stunning in summer/spring when flowers are actually open. After, the others went to the Palacio Real - home to Spanish royals up to the Republic. Since I had already been there, I went to la Plaza de Espana - it has a monument to Cervantes, and it's beautiful. Along the way, I visited a little cathedral, and the luxury and detail of the decoration is crazy. Then I headed to the Prado museum! It's home to paintings from the Old Masters: Velasquez's "Las Meninas", Goya's "Saturn devouring his Child" - it had a room full of paintings from his dark period (it was amazing, but so depressing - like scenes from hell), Rembrandt, el Greco, Ribera, Raphael, Titian.... It was crazy. I was there for 2 hours, but only managed to see half the rooms. It was really intense. The others had found a Nebraskan bar, and we went out to an Irish pub. It was very expensive, and I went home a little tipsy after only two drinks!
On Saturday, I went to the 20th century art museum La Reina Sofia with the others. It was amazing as well! But I was so tired from Friday, it was difficult to concentrate properly, and I wanted to sit down all day! It was home to Guernica by Picasso, and his other works, Richard Serra, Joan Miro, Dali, Antonio Tapies; and I finally saw stuff by the movement Situationists (I had studied this group in uni a few years ago). It was awesome to see art by all these people I had only heard about, and even artists I didn't know - they had some cool stuff. Someone had taken a portrait of different people from birth to 100 years old. So 100 portraits after, it felt like I had experienced a lifetime.
On the last day, Sunday, we visited a huge street market called El Rastro that sold everything. It was cheap and cool.
Madrid is an enormous city, with a great public transport system (the metro). But I found it too big, dirty and busy for me. But I loved the art museums there. I still didn't get to the visit the last of the big three museums. But they were so intense, it just wasn't possible to see everything in two and a half days.
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| I woke up during the bus trip and saw snooow! I was so excited! But there was no snow at all in Madrid =( I didn't get to touch it |
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| Street Performers in la Puerta del Sol |
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| Churros at the most famous churreria in Madrid- St Gines. It was really good. Drinking the chocolate at the end was even better. But it was so busy, that there were no seats (this was 4pm in the arvo!) |
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| The Spaniards are loco for ham! El Museo del Jamon - The museum of ham. They just have rows of legs of pork hanging from the ceiling |
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| El Parque del Retiro. I didn't realise I look like a complete idiot, I'm actually just trying to copy the statue on the fountain |
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| The Crystal Palace in the Park El Palacio de Cristal |
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| In La Plaza del Oriente in front of the Royal Palace - Palacio Real |
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| Inside a church next to the Palace: it was amazing Cripta de la Catedral de Madrid |
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| Back end of the Palacio Real |
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| The Prado Museum! |
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| Big streets of Madrid |
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| Amazing ice cream and cake for breakfast! haha |
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| Sunday Markets El Rastro |
The most exciting thing this week, was the bible study in Spanish last night. I'm really excited to join the ministry/church by American missionaries to go to their church for the first time!
There is an international documentary festival this week called Punto De Vista. So hopefully I'll go to one of the screenings tonight, then a farewell party starting at midnight (for another erasmus student who arrived in September), and go to a small town called Olite with some girls on Saturday, then church on Sunday morning! Very excited for this weekend =)
Here are some pictures from my daily life in Pamplona!
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| New culinary delights! haha If anyone has any good tips for keeping food fresh, or basically eating nice food without cooking every day, let me know! |
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| hahaa, it's a brand of bread and biscuits |
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| Spaghetti Bolognaise with cheese =) |
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| Downside of having australian and hong kong electric goods in europe. Thanks to Yuan for buying me the adapter! |
YUMMM LOOK AT THAT CHURRRO! was it actual doughnut cinnamon churro? or was it like batter churro? LOL you'd be surprised of how many fake churros are around in sydney :(
ReplyDeletebut it still looks GOOD! i'm craving it right now! omgg and ya spaghetti bolognaise... OMG i'm getting really reallly hungry.. and it's only 10.13am :(
it reallly does sound so lovely at madrid! i wish i was there to enjoy such beauty! and the art galleries sound SO nice, even though i didn't know like half of the famous painters you mentioned. but it's still, awww sounds like such an experience! and boo you didn't get to touch snow :(
drink lots of hot tea! OH if you don't wanna get sick, go buy some GINGER fresh ones, cut them up. use like 1 or 2 pieces (if one is too small use two ginger) slice them, doesn't have to be too thin. use a pot, add water (reaching like half of the size of the pot), boil for like 30mins and drink while hot. i do it all the time in winter! keeps me warm + helps me recover from sickness or prevent me from getting sick! BTW YES IT WILL BURN WHEN YA DRINK IT loloolol P.s don't add sugar to it, just drink it naturally.
lots of sydney lovin'