I know, I know, it's been a while (again) since my last post, but I have a pretty good excuse, I suppose...I had visitors!!! The weekend before their visit, I had an art field trip to the Reina Sofia Museum, which was really interesting, since we got to see Picasso's masterpiece "Guernica"...it was one of the few times where I have been awed just looking at a piece of art. First of all, it was gigantic, covering the majority of the wall, floor to ceiling, side to side. It was also interesting to see all of the detail and simplicity that simultaneously existed on the canvas. For example, there are images in the painting that you just can't see on a slide in class, such as the flower that is growing out of the broken sword, or the dove that is mortally wounded. Tons of symbolism, and it was just neat to sit there and take it all in. Aside from that little jaunt to Madrid, I just worked furiously to get ahead on my papers and whatnot, so there's not too terribly much to talk about there.
However...that Wednesday (the 26th) my parents, 2 younger brothers, and boyfriend came to visit! I think it is safe to say that this visit was the most eagerly anticipated event in my memory. It seemed like it took forever to get here, but I survived! On Wednesday morning, I had class and then planned to collect the jet-lagged travelers at the Toledo train station, but the transit didn't go as smoothly as planned, so they had to catch a later train. That forced me to have to sit through a portion of another class, even though I got nothing out of it, since every 30 seconds, I was either glancing at my watch or trying to tell myself to calm down. I am not even exaggerating when I say that I was bopping up and down in my chair for the entire hour-long class. FINALLY it came time to go to the train station for the 2nd time of the day, and this time there were no problems.
I got everyone and all of the luggage onto the bus and then we lugged it the 10 minutes to my school. After resting for a bit, we went out to find some lunch, which was definitely a necessity, as the visitors were kind of like zombies at this point in time. We walked around the city and visited the Cathedral before I put them in cabs off to the hotel and returned to school to have 2 more classes. At the end of the day, I took a cab to the hotel, which was a parador. That means it was an older building that was previously used for other purposes, but they have converted it into a hotel. It was gorgeous and so nice, and the views of Toledo were the best I have ever seen. Everyone was still pretty beat on Wednesday evening, so we had dinner at the restaurant at the Parador and called it a night.
On Thursday morning (Happy Thanksgiving!), we had breakfast and then headed into Toledo to do a dinky little sight-seeing train that is reserved strictly for tourists. Quite literally, it is fashioned like a choo-choo train, and it drives all around the city as they pipe in commentary for the passengers to understand what they're seeing. Of course, Toledo was experiencing a cold snap during the visit, so everyone was a bit cold, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. After the train, we scurried over to the train station to go to Madrid.
Once we arrived in Madrid we got ourselves situated at the hotel, after a bit of a taxi conflict that consisted of our cabbie insisting that we couldn't hold bags on our laps, but there was no room in the trunk, so we were stuck....not exactly the most helpful Spaniard I've met thus far... oh well! We headed over to the Plaza Mayor to have some tapas, which turned out to be a rousing success. It was quite the Spanish Thanksgiving feast, I guess you could say...we had shrimp, calamari, pork, cheese, sangria, and many other typical spanish dishes. After filling ourselves up with that, we did a tour of the Royal Palace and then walked around the city a bit more. For dinner, we headed over to a very modern restaurant that was near our hotel. We got there at 8:30, and like most dinners we had in Spain, were the VERY first patrons at the establishment. At least there weren't other people to slow down the service! After that satisfying meal (we all agreed it felt like we were always eating!), we went to sleep, ready to go to Barcelona the next morning.
On Friday morning, we took the metro to the airport for our flight to Barcelona. During our metro experience, someone (I don't know who, so I won't lay blame) decided to ride in the surprisingly empty car on the train. Once we got into the car, though, it became clear as to why it was so empty... the floor had a nice, healthy coating of vomit. Good work, Schroeder family! We stood awkwardly in a circle around the puke and were thankful that we were only on that train for a stop or two. After the upchuck debacle, we finally made it to the airport and got through security in record time, considering that we were the only people in line. We landed in Barcelona and got settled at the hotel before deciding to explore the city a bit. We walked up Las Ramblas, the main drag in Barcelona, and had some lunch at a cafe. Barcelona is right on the sea, so the seafood is delicious, and we all enjoyed some seafood paella. We walked around a bit more, seeing a variety of street performers and stores. Finally, my mom and I ditched the boys while we did a bit of shoe shopping before dinner. We ate at a nice restaurant very near our hotel, once again, the earliest patrons, but that didn't bother us. We had a busy day planned for Saturday, so dinner ended the day for us.
On Saturday, we woke up and went to the center of the city to participate in a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter of the city. Of course, on the day of the walking tour, it decides to rain....and by rain I mean monsoon. Everyone was huddled under umbrellas, but the tour was still really interesting. We saw the famous cafe where Picasso and his friends would meet, a church whose facade was severely damaged from a bombing during the Civil War, the palace of the kingdom of Aragon, and the cathedral of Barcelona. After drying off at the conclusion of the tour, we headed over to one of Barcelona's most famous sights, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.
This is a church that has been under construction since 1882 and still isn't finished. The famous architect Antoni Gaudi was the mastermind behind the project, and although he has died, the construction goes on, hopefully finished by 2026, the 100-year anniversary of Gaudi's death. Just to give you an idea of his sort of style...the word "gaudy" was created based on his name. Everything is over the top, there are no straight lines, just completely crazy and busy, but still beautiful (at lesat to me). The exterior of the church has a birth of Jesus entrance and a death of Jesus entrance, and these two sides of the church are completed in drastically different styles. We spent a lot of time just looking at all of the intricate sculptures and carvings on the church's exterior. For those of you who have been to Disney World, it was a lot like Animal Kingdom's Tree of Life - there was so much to see! You had to keep shifting your perceptions to notice new details or pieces of art. After looking at the exteriors, we headed into the church. I was surprised to discover that it was still a construction site! I know, I should have been able to put it together, but I assumed that by "under construction" they meant that there were times open to the public, and then there were times when construction took place and visitors weren't allowed. Definitely not the case! Inside the church, we saw beautiful stained glass windows, soon-to-be stained glass windows, and other typical church elements in addition to cranes, blueprints, wires, and other typical construction elements. It was definitely a surprise to see how much work they still had to do! After looking at the facades of the church for a bit more time, we tackled a wee bit of souvenir shopping before having lunch nearby.
Andy and Brad in the Sagrada Familia. This should give you an impression of the construction in the church in addition to an impression of how much it rained that day!After lunch, we visited the Picasso Museum. Picasso spent a large amount of his formative years in Barcelona, and therefore a lot of his earlier works are housed there. It was interesting to see some of the lesser-known pieces of art and how his style trajectory actually unfolded. After our time in the museum, my Mom and I headed out to hunt down a few souvenirs. We unexpectedly stumbled upon a great gift idea, and through some Spanish discussion, even managed to get a great deal on it! I won't go into detail here, as some of you may be receiving this gift (how cryptic, I know!).
We had dinner that night in the restaurant in our hotel. The food was ok, and the service was a little less than ok, so Brad had the ingenious idea to hunt elsewhere for dessert. He was smart enough to suggest this, as no one really wanted to end our culinary experiences in Barcelona on this sour point. We headed back to Las Ramblas and found a gelato stand that seemed to please everyone, so Brad was the hero of sorts for the night. Good job, brother!
On Sunday morning, we flew back to Barcelona, took the metro the hotel (no puke this time) and then headed out for lunch. Afterwards, we went to the Prado, the biggest art museum in Madrid. I had a really good time taking my family to the paintings I had studied in my art class and pointing out specific aspects or sharing important historical background for the paintings. I think I wow-ed them! Unfortunately, we didn't get to make it over to the Reina Sofia, which I was really hoping to do. I didn't check the times for the museum and we missed our window of opportunity. Sorry, family....guess you'll have to come back to Spain! After our time in the museum, we walked around Madrid a bit more, and explored the Puerta del Sol, one of the larger plazas. Madrid had turned on its Christmas lights that night, so it was a very busy area! We popped into one of the biggest department stores for a bit to kill time before dinner, and it was PACKED. It wasn't as bad as a typical Black Friday, but it was at the same time worse than a typical day at the Galleria, for sure! We concluded our wonderful Spanish visit with a good dinner before calling it a night.
On Monday, we woke up and took some cabs to the airport before I saw them off. Apparently there were some technical difficulties on their plane back, so they took up, returned to Madrid, and had to take off again, resulting in quite the delay, which of course threw off the entire plan for the rest of the day. Long story short, they did all arrive home safely, and I can say without a doubt that I am now more excited than ever to go home. I am really enjoying my time in Spain, don't get me wrong, but having the opportunity to actually spend time with my family and my boyfriend has just reminded me of all I have back in the States. I can't believe at this time next week, I will be sitting in the airport, hours from setting foot on American soil for the first time in nearly 3.5 months! It is definitely bittersweet, but I can confidently say it is more sweet than bitter.
Home in a week,
Jill
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