Spain!

Well, Madrid has come and gone with many happy memories.  I spent two days in the actual city touring and exploring on the mass tourismo bus that identifies you as non-Spaniard as soon as you board.  As much as I don’t like making my tourist-status obvious, I do appreciate the views from aboard the autobus.  A few highlights.

A Super MASSIVE museum. 

They said that this museum had one of the top art collections in all of Europe, but I didn’t exactly know what that meant.  Apparently it meant walking hundreds of miles, room after room, painter after painter for at least 3 hours.  The first 90 or so minutes, I stared at each painting trying to interpret it, but the last 90 I was completely overwhelmed with brushstrokes and could no longer analyze.  They were all fantastic in their own ways.  Some were flowery, others of scenes from history, and others people, and then you had the random boob.  I was absolutely horrified when I saw one boob in particular squirting a giant stream of milk into the night sky completely missing the mouth of the sweet babe.  Apparently, that is how the Milky Way was made according to Greek mythology. I sat there staring at the milk, and then the boob, and then the milk, and then the stars…and then the boob again. My mind was completely blown and I shall never look at the stars the same again.

One other amazing piece that I saw was of the Christ babe in the manger with Three Kings—and one of them was an African king! He was Black! I was thrilled. Yay for the Black people. Many people who are Afrocentric and think that the Bible was made for and by Whites to dominate the Colored people of the world oft don’t realize that Jesus was a Savior to all of mankind and that the story was early introduced to the Motherland as depicted in this painting and also in the writings of Paul.  I wish I could discuss this more, but that’s all I know.

6 billion more paintings later, my legs were completely exhausted and we went to go eat and I got more orange juice. 

The next day was super awesome.  I decided to be a big girl and travel a bit on my own.  I went to a city called Segovia which was a 30 minute train ride from Madrid.  I don’t know how I didn’t miss my stop because as soon as the train started moving, I drifted into a deep coma.  The trains here feel like what I’d imagine Star Trek Enterprise to feel like as you can barely tell when they are stopped and when they are moving.  The train and transportation infrastructure here puts the United States to absolute shame.  

America needs trains for the simple fact that trains are cool.

(Segovia street)

Looking in the guide book for Segovia, they recommended seeing the Roman Aqueducts, the town’s cathedral, and a castle.  I got off of the train thinking that I would be in the middle of town, but this is actually what I found:

I was filled with trembling and fear.  I arrived there during their siesta (daily napping and resting time) which is between 12ish-2ish and there wasn’t a soul in sight except for other likewise tourists who were lost and befuddled by the lack of—city.  All of a sudden, four taxi cars (I’m sure they knew the train schedule by heart) just appeared out of nowhere and I shared a cab to the main city with an Italian family.  I looked on the map and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to see the aquaducts because I thought they’d be tucked away somewhere, but then I saw this:

And I said, “Oooohhh!! Well, those must be the aquaducts!” They were GINORMOUS! No mortar and no place to even squeeze a piece of chewed gum (several had tried).  Even after 2,000 years, they were beautiful pieces of work and had just been put out of commission lesson than 40 years ago.  

Amazing. 

I walked up into the city. That’s ANOTHER thing that has pissed me off about Spain.  All this exercise with no warning! The city had 2 relatively large hills which I crossed hither and thither.  My next stop after the aquaducts was the castle which was at the very back of the city.  On my bucketlist was to walk through a not-so-famous castle.  This was one was nice and not-so-famous. Check!

I even found my knight in shining armour!  Check! Not really.

Speaking of unplanned exercise, they said that I could pay 2 Euro to go into the spire of the castle because of the beautiful view of the city.  Well I said, “Of course!” That was before I knew that there were 154 stairs separating me from the ground floor and the top.  Pissed. Again.  I won’t mention what I sounded like climbing those stairs as it is rather inappropriate for this blog, but you can use your imagination and deductive reasoning skills.  Kinda awkward.

This was my reward after PAYING for exercise—again not excited.

Next stop was the cathedral in the middle of the city which was an exquisite and quaint cathedral.  Still massive, but not as massive as some of the others.  I liked this one just as much as I liked Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, but for different reasons. 

Last. Food. Let’s talk about this crepe I SMASHED.  I walked into this restaurant and asked if they could serve me in 30 minutes as I had a train to catch.  Before I blinked, it seemed, my food was in front of my face.  Inside of this wonder was rotisserie chicken, some kind of cheese like Swiss, caramelized onions, and (drum roll please)—DIJON MUSTARD!!! Heaven.  AND THEN I had fresh squeezed orange juice. 

With a crepe-filled belly, I took the taxi back to the train, napped, and then found my way to this English club that is sponsored by the church I went to on Sunday.  It was super awesome and I met some great people.  One was a super handsome, bearded Italian who looked maybe 5 years older than me and had a PhD and spoke 4 languages.  I may have to expand my boundaries to include Italians now.

Great day once again.