Bienvenidos a Madrid!

Hello, everyone! I apologize for not updating in a while, but I was waiting until I had some interesting news to share and some new pictures. ☺ This past weekend I went to Madrid with my friend Nanou, and it was a lot of fun! So different from Sevilla!

We took a bus there from Sevilla (it was the cheapest way—about 30 euros round trip, but took a little over six hours). We got there Friday night around 7:30pm and went right to our hostel. The hostel was actually a female residence hall for students studying in Madrid for the year, but they rented out available rooms to people looking for a temporary place to stay. The room we had was really nice… the beds were comfortable and it was very spacious. However, we ended up having problems with the lock on our door. Saturday morning, after taking showers, we went to go back in our room to change, but we couldn’t get the lock open. We found someone to come open the door for us, but she couldn’t get it open, and eventually a guy had to come and change the lock! There was no “receptionist” either, so when we wanted to leave on Sunday, we couldn’t find anyone to give our keys to. Haha, it was quite the adventure. It was a pretty good location though, and fairly cheap, so I really can’t complain.

On Saturday we went to the Prado… it was by far my favorite thing we did. It was so amazing to be able to see the actual works of Velazquez, Goya, and all of the other painters I had learned about in my Spanish class. Seeing pictures of them on slides was nothing compared to seeing the beautiful paintings in person! It was amazing! After, we visited the outside of the Real Academia Espanola (basically, the language police), and then took a walk in a huge park/garden. We saw the crystal palace (there’s a picture of it in my photos)… that was really pretty. Next, we took a walk through the shops and downtown area and got lunch at a local restaurant. (I <3 Spanish food!) Later that night we met up with Tori (friend from back home studying in Madrid this year) and went to a café for a while and that got dinner around 11pm.

Sunday we went to the royal palace (the old palace, where the royal family used to live). It was absolutely enormous, and made me sick just to see how much money was put into it. It was interesting that they only let you see the public rooms (the huge dining hall, the throne room, etc.) We didn’t get to see any of the private rooms, or the places where the servants slept, etc. Everything was extremely ornate and elaborate. We also saw the royal pharmacy and all of the battle armor.

All in all, it was a great weekend trip, and I feel much better about my Spanish skills after spending time in Northern Spain! I realized just how hard the Andulusian (southern/Sevillian) accent is. It was much, much, easier to understand the accent in Madrid. There was also not nearly as much of a religious influence. In Sevilla, there are pictures of the Virgin Mary everywhere… in the street, in bars, etc. You don’t see a lot of that in Madrid. Madrid is also much more modern, and the streets are much wider and straighter.

Well, I’m off to class! Feel free to leave comments. ☺