The Journey to Salamanca and Home

So, with me being a such home-body and all, I´m definitely feeling a little homesick, despite Europe´s manifold charms. There have been two things that have reminded me of home and that have made it feel less far away. First, Ruth and I came across two paintings of St. Anthony´s Falls in the Thyssen art gallery, which made us stop and go, ¨Awwww.... Home!¨ Second, when we were on the train to Madrid from Toledo, we met a couple from Minnesota! The woman had been teaching in Morocco for a few years, and she and her husband were having a last voyage around Europe before heading home. It was so nice to have a conversation where we actually understood each other, and we even had the same accent! It´s funny how Minnesota has followed us to Spain.

In other news, we are in Salamanca, and it was a journey of somewhat epic proportions. We got up and out of our pension early this morning to head to the train station to make sure that we could get tickets, since trains have had a tendancy to fill up when we want to take them (and to escape the not-so-friendly eye of the pension owner, after the laundry incident). We got to the station, checked our big bags into lockers, since we´re just taking a little night trip to Salamanca, and then bought all of our tickets for the rest of Spain- to and from Salamanca, and then to Barcelona.

We spent our last few hours in Madrid wandering in the Puerta del Sol area and picnicking in the Retiro Park, which has a cute little man-made lake and great people-watching. We were a little late getting to our train to Salamanca, and, somehow in the frenzy of making the train, I lost our tickets. We have finally decided that there must have been a warp in the time-space continuum that caused them to mysteriously disappear, because I had the tickets in hand on our way down the stairs to the platform, but, by the time we were on the platform, they were gone. We searched like mad, tearing through all of our bags and pockets, but to no avail. We ended up having to reserve more tickets for a train that left over two hours later. We whiled away the time at the train station, only to have the train delayed several times. Finally, however, we got on our way to Salamanca.

The ride was very beautiful- up into the mountains, past some exciting wind farms, and then onto some plains that were very much like Nebraska, just with older buildings. When we left Madrid it was about 85 and sunny, and when we arrived in Salamanca it was about 55 and rainy. We weren´t quite prepared for the weather, so we got some University of Salamanca sweatshirts- practical souveniers. (I never thought that we´d be cold in Spain; I´ve always thought of it as a hot, dry place. However, since getting to Madrid, we´ve had more rain than sun, and definitely cooler temperatures than expected, with highs in the 60s often. Although it is nice to have escaped the heat, we definitely were not prepared for the cool weather. It´s not so cold that we feel like wearing fur-lined winter coats as we´ve seen some doing, but the sweatshirts are definitely appreciated.)

This evening we saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a beautiful plaza where the community gathers, had a nice supper (finally on Spain time- at 8:30), and then enjoyed a community orchestra concert on the plaza while the rain held off. Right now we´re in an internet cafe with a view over the Plaza, which is all lit up and lovely.


Tomorrow we explore Salamanca, and then we´re off to Barcelona for our last few days in Spain before meeting our family in Rome! I think I must sign off here. The internet cafe is a little interesting- not only do many of the keys not even have letters on them because they are so worn, but the screen itself is excessively, flamingly pink, and I am beginning a headache. Have a wonderful week, and thanks for tuning in!

Rainy Madrid and Sunny Toledo

Sorry for the abrupt end last time... Anyways, the Valley of the Fallen was amazing. The size alone was breath-taking, and the whole place portrayed the agony and pain of Spain´s Civil War, not to mention contained the grave of Franco. Besides almost getting pick-pocketed and watching a poor old couple get ripped off (which you can read about in Ruth´s blog), that was pretty much it for Saturday.

Yesterday it was still determined to rain, but we decided to brave it anyways and visit El Rastro, which is the largest flea market in Europe. We went, it started monsoon-like raining, so we left. I was wearing flip flops, which, being wet, were making very loud squeaking noises. Some French women came up behind us as we were walking back to the pension and started making fun of me and imitating the noise my shoes were making. As if that weren´t bad enough, I suddenly slipped on the wet granite sidewalk, and my flip flop broke beyond repair. Talk about wardrobe malfunction! We were in the middle of the government district with no shoe stores in sight, so I tried shuffling along, which did not work out so well. Finally we just tied a plastic bag around my foot and marched off down the streets. The other pedestrians looked at me somewhat askance, but I made it back to the pension, which was all that mattered.

The rest of yesterday was spent touring the art museums, which are free on Sunday. We saw the Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velasquez, and lots of other very famous and pretty paintings. We also experiences the frenzy surrounding a Real Madrid game, which involved women in their 50s emerging out of moving car windows to shake their Real Madrid scarves and scream cheers. When the team won, the celebrations were at least as crazy as when I was in Boston and the Red Sox won the World Series.

Today we were chewed out by the pension owner for doing our laundry in the sink in our room, which is apparently forbidden (whoops). We spent the rest of the day touring Toledo, which was very sunny and hot and charmingly medieval. Tomorrow we´re off for Salamanca. Hopefully we´ll get some pictures up soon, but we´ll have to see how things work. It´s a little tricky over here. Until next time!

Madrid Explorations

I have two addendums to my prior entry before anything else.

First, we did, get our bags actually last Monday, which I failed to mention. The arrival of the backpacks was cause for great rejoicing on all sides.

Second, I spelled Moors wrong in my last entry. Even though I had read about the Moors about a million times since coming to Spain, I just didn´t think about it. Please excuse this egregious error.

So, now we´ve been in Spain for a week- it´s hard to believe it´s only been a week, because so much has happened. We´ve had our ups and downs, but it´s been mondo fun.

Yesterday was our first day in Madrid. We took an early morning train to Madrid, and were off an exploring by noon. Our pension is right in the museum district, so we are less than five minutes from the Prado, the Thyssen, and the Reina Sofia (as well as the huge Retiro Park, which is gorgeous!). We visited the Thyssen, where they had a special exhibit on the paintings that Van Gogh did in his last couple of months before he killed himself. The paintings were beautiful, and it was interesting to have a window in to what he was thinking in those last few weeks.

After the museum we went on a walking tour of Madrid, visiting the Puerta del Sol, the Plaza Mayor, and finally the Palacio Real. Madrid is brimming with history, so there were monuments and statues everywhere. We even caught a peek of the ceremonies surrounding the moving of the city hall to new buildings, which was interesting. We toured the Royal Palace, which was beautifully decorated and had interesting collections of silver and clocks and such things that royals deem necessary to collect. We´re learning more and more about the history of Spain and the royal family, which is eye-opening and intriguing.

Today we took a day trip to El Escorial, which is an austere palace/monastery about 45 minutes from the city. We saw a wedding taking place in the basilica, which was possibly the most interesting part. We then went to the Valley of the Fallen, which is a huge (300 m long) underground basilica that honors all of those who died in Spain´s civil war. My time is out here at the cafe, so more later...