We got out of bed at around 4:30 in Dublin and caught the 6 AM flight to Madrid, walked around all day today. From about 10 AM to 9 PM.
I´ve gotta tell ya folks, I can´t stress enough how glad I am that I spent 3 years in high school attempting to learn Español. Believe me, a few words go a LONG way.
Today we´ve drank Sangria atop a rooftop villa (rhyme not intended), walked into the Catedral de Santa Maria (rhyme also not intended), strolled along the Plaza España (above), and the list goes on. I´m gonna go out on a limb and say that I´m impressed. Impressed that a naive group of 20 year old college kids from the U.S. can transfer through subways, buses, and walk around the capital city of a country weve never set foot in, see all the stuff we did, and just within about 8 hours of the plane touching down. Amazing. If every day this month goes as well as the today, we are in for one hell of a fun, educational and eye-opening experience.
Day two: took a bus tour around the modern/historical part of Madrid, saw a lot of the stuff we did yesterday and more. Don´t remember most of the names, though. BUT, I did pop in to the Museo Thyssen for about an hour. This is a huge art museum, not Louvre huge, but huge. The first 2 floors were kind of boring to me, not being a huge art enthusiast (although Dali´s paintings are messed up, in a good way) I was bored. But then I got to the third floor and there were more 15th and 16th century paintings depicting biblical events, about over a hundred re-imaginings of the crucifixion, and plenty of landscapes of Venice, Rome, and Athens (and the mythology that goes with the area). So that was cool, I guess.
Anyways, take care, I probably won´t update again untill we arrive in Belgium. We´re staying in a town called Bruges, which is basically the "Venice of the North". It´s loaded with canals and is the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Europe. It´s also where they filmed one of my favorite movies, In Bruges (rent it, GREAT film), starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (<--Mad Eye Moody or Hamish from Braveheart) so I´m going to try and nail all the locations they shot it in. Slainte!
No comments:
Post a Comment