Day 16 - The Grand Dessert Quest (and other Madridian icons)

This morning marked the first time we used the metro in Madrid. We certainly have used less and less public transportation as time has gone on, though some of that may have to do simply with the relative locations of our destinations. (Insert our discussion about the relative merits of the various metros we’ve used.) We took the metro to el Palacio Real (note: separate the vowel sounds, and it’ll actually make sense). Upon arrival, we ambled around the outside, looking for a line. We tried to attach ourselves to a tour group, in the hopes that they knew what they were doing, but eventually realized that the palace was closed for the morning due to a changing of the guard ceremony. As such, we once again rearranged our schedule and headed over to the Catedral de la Alumdena, which is directly across from el Palacio Real.

View of the Catedral.

We later saw a bit of the ceremony that prevented us from getting into the palace on schedule.

The first portion of our (self-guided) tour of the Catedral consisted of an exhibit featuring gifts to the church and clothing worn by important religious figures, as well as the history of the Catedral, Santa Maria de la Alumdena, and the evolution of the diocese. After viewing many elaborate robes, we made our way to the dome-viewing section and the dome-level balcony, which provided a lovely view of the city. We enjoy having the opportunity to get to such levels in each city, as they enable us to see how layouts and general architecture styles differ from city to city. It was also nice to be able to take pictures of the inside of the dome at that level, rather than simply from the sanctuary level, as it allowed us to see the design in greater detail. This is the newest finished Catedral we have visited, and this was certainly reflected in the style of the arches and stained glass.

Looking up at the dome.

Different dome, cool painting and stained glass.

We next wandered to la Plaza Mayor, which is a main square of Madrid. I’m sure that our DEAR READERS would be interested in knowing that the 44^th Feria Nacional del Sello (stamp festival) is occurring at present there. We did not actually go into the festival structure, though we did eat lunch across from it. The restaurant at which we ate was chosen because Sara was able to ask a waiter if they served flan, and he replied with an affirmative. I have never had flan before, and it is very good. We had flan caramel, in case anyone is interested. Now for a few notes about western European restaurants….Waiters do not hover like they do in American ones, and diners should allow for a fair amount of time to pass between when they finish eating and when they can actually go. Today, for example, at least a half an hour was taken up by flagging down the waiter to ask for the check (during this period, I learned how to do this politely – “Me podría traer la cuenta, por favor”) and then waiting for the waiter to return with a credit card reader. I would note that the other diners were being fairly rude (by our standards, at least), as they were snapping their fingers (and pointing) and calling across multiple tables to get their waiter’s attention and simply demanding things (“I want” rather than “I would like”). We may be young and awkward and American, but we’re polite about it! Also, many of the outdoor restaurants here in Madrid have devices attached to the top of the table tents/umbrellas that mist water occasionally over the diners. We noticed it last night, and this afternoon, it actually happened to us. It wasn’t hot at that point, but they still had them mist us. Apparently one mister was malfunctioning/bothering someone at the very rude table, so one of the dignified waiters got on a chair and wrestled the mister into a different position. (Sara was reminded of the misters in grocery stores, which are used on vegetables. We are vegetables???)

Plaza Mayor and stamp festival structure (orange building).

Eventually we did manage to pay and headed back to el Palacio, which reopened at 1:30. Once inside, we went through the Farmacia Real, which contained various types of old containers for many varieties of remedies. After that, we went to la Armería Real (Kaitlin shout-out here), which featured many, many suits of amour (for humans as well as horses) and weapons. We mainly saw the amour for Felipe II and Carlos V (Dr. H-W shout-out here). We then ventured into the palace proper, where we walked through many elaborately decorated rooms, and tried to dodge tour groups (we generally were caught between the same two ones, one of which had a French guide, although we also ran into a French school group in la Armería). Related aside: while the Farmacia and the official rooms of the palace had the tour notes in both Spanish and English, la Amería did not, so I’ve been getting rather a lot of practice reading Spanish (not that I can understand much more than I did at the beginning of the trip – Latin based languages/cognates are wonderful things!).

View of the Palacio from the Catedral.

We then ventured to la Plaza de España, which is another one of those monument-squares to which one must go if in Madrid for the first time. After prompting, Sara did manage to ask someone to take our picture! (I say “manage” not because her Spanish isn’t adequate, but because she doesn’t like talking to random strangers to ask things, like the way she refused to ask the bookseller yesterday if he had a connection to Boeing, as he was wearing a Boeing t-shirt.)

Us, Plaza de España, statue of something unlabeled. 

Our final official stop for the day was at the Reina Sofia. There, we saw many works by Picasso, Miró, Dalí, and other surrealist and cubist artists. To summarize, they’re weird, but very cool. We of course saw Picasso’s Guernica, as well as various sketches he made prior to creating the piece itself, and post-Guernica follow-ups that focused on a single image (such as a crying face or a mother with a dead child). I was fascinated by the fact that some of the plaques were in Spanish, English, and French, many were in just English and Spanish, some were in only Spanish, and a few were in Spanish and French or Spanish and Catalán (depending on the artist). Additionally, some of the books featured were French, and a few of the paintings had French words in them as well, which was fun. We also ran into the French school group from the palace, which was odd. Aside: some of the room titles had “utopia” or “dystopia” in them (which makes sense given that it was 1920s-40s surrealism/cubism mainly), which I enjoyed immensely.

Penguin outside of the Reina Sofia (they're scatterd around the city for some cause)

After the museum and dinner, we began a gelato quest. We didn’t realize that it would turn out as such, because in Barcelona one basically only has to step out onto a sidewalk and a gelato shop (or three) will appear. However, apparently this is NOT the case in Madrid, as we took a very strange, meandering route for about twenty-five minutes before we stumbled across the place from which we had procured ice cream the day before (note: ice cream, not gelato). It was still quite good, but it did make us a bit nostalgic about the good old days in Barcelona.

Tomorrow, DEAR READERS, is our last true day of the trip. As Sara and I were discussing earlier, it feels like we’ve been travelling in Europe forever (and not in a bad way), like school was ages and ages ago. It seems strange that we will be back at school next week (even if we won’t actually be attending real classes). Still, you can be assured that we will enjoy our last day to the fullest!

- Miel & Sara