funMadrid is truly beautiful, and Hannah is centrally located. We were about ten minutes away from the Plaza del Sol, which she explained to me was the Times Square of Madrid, and has a famous Tio Pepe sign in the center. We saw a lot of parks, my favorite was one that had a statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa (spelling?) in the center. The Spanish love Cervantes, he’s on the back of their currency and I must have seen a dozen statues either of him or Don Quixote throughout the city.
After a walking tour we hopped on the Metro and headed out to Hannah’s school, which is on the outskirts of the city. I tried to spend the time she was in class reading in the student lounge, but the TV was on and I got sucked into watching the OC, which I’d never seen before, and thought was kind of silly in that WB sort of way. I think it was on because it was in English, and Hannah’s school is American so all of the students speak English.
After the OC, Hannah came to collect me and we got lunch at a sandwich shop nearby before heading back to her apartment for a siesta. I now understand how Spanish people can stay out so late—they nap in the middle of the day. I was amazed to see how universal the practice was, shops and restaurants would close down for siesta, which was unlucky if you happened to be hungry between the hours of two and four in the afternoon. That sort of thing could never happen in England, mainly because day light is so precious that you wouldn’t want to sleep through two hours of it every day. I found that I couldn’t nap, and so I spent the time doing the reading that I was supposed to have done instead of watching TV.
When she woke up, Hannah and I collected ourselves and then headed out to do some shopping. I’m not much of a shopper as a rule, but there were a few things I needed that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to purchase in London, and the prices were so amazing that I found myself buying more than I needed. It was sooooooo refreshing to be able to look at a price tag without having to double the price. I ended up getting a skirt, a pair of high heels, and two shirts. Nothing was over twenty dollars out of the whole batch, which would be unheard of in London. Later that night I was able to test out the high heels when we went out to meet Hannah’s friend Katherine for cocktails. Instead of heading to a club afterwards, though, we went out for churros, Hannah informed me are the traditional post clubbing food, as little else is sold at six in the morning. Spanish churros are different from the churros I was used to seeing at fairs and skating rinks. For those uninitiated into the ways of fairway junk food, a churro is a long stick of fried dough, much like a doughnut, but long instead of round. In America they are usually served dipped in cinnamon in sugar, but in Spain they are served plain with a pot of dipping chocolate on the side. Mmmmm dipping chocolate.
We called it a really early night that night, getting home by about two thirty, but it was just as well as the new high heels had already begun to make my toes bleed.
The next day I was hoping to do more sightseeing, and Hannah dutifully took me around to all the famous landmarks and buildings, but because this is her second time studying here she’s so over all of the traditional tourist attractions. I contented myself with mostly photographing the outsides of famous buildings, such as the Spanish bank. Some artist had been going around and putting giant post-it notes with random messages like “buy milk” and “call mom” on famous landmarks, which I thought was really neat, but I couldn’t read them because they were in Spanish, so Hannah translated, but I’ve forgotten what each one said.
This is a plack memorializing Lope de Vega, the Spanish playwrite who's buried near Hannah's apartment
After the bank, as per my request, we went to the Spanish National Library, which was a lovely building, but we were not allowed inside to see the collection. I really liked the statues of famous authors outside the building, though. I got Hannah to take my picture with Lope de Vega, and I took hers with Cervantes. We then headed to the Thysson, a museum which I had had particularly recommended to me by a friend in London.
The museum was awesome, though there was more modern stuff then I really liked to see. Still, I would pass on the recommendation for anyone who’s in Madrid. After the museum we were tired and hungry, which frequently happens after walking around a museum for more than an hour. My mother calls the phenomenon getting “museum feet” because your feet always feel really, really tired even though you’ve done nothing but stand still in front of paintings. To remedy the museum feet we took the metro over to Hannah’s favorite Tapas restaurant, but as we arrived in the middle of siesta it was closed. We satisfied ourselves with Doner Kebabs instead, which tasted so amazing under the circumstances, and then headed back for our own siestas.
That evening we went out to a program her school had organized, which turned out to be a jazz concert at a Madrid jazz club. Our plan was to then go to a club, but when we emerged from the concert (around twelve forty five, so we could catch the last Metro) it was pouring. The rain didn’t phase me much as I’ve been basically existing in various degrees of dampness since my arrival to London, but apparently it never rains in Madrid so Hannah and her friend who was with us were both taken completely off guard. We headed over to the club, but by the time we arrived the rain had not let up, and none of us were in the mood to stand in a long line because it really was coming down so we hailed a cab and went back to Hannah’s, where we passed an agreeable evening doing not much of anything.
The sun was shining the next day, and we woke up late and headed over to the rostro—a large open air flea market which apparently every single person in Madrid attends on Sunday. We hunted around for cheap jewelry, and I got my sister a nice pair of earrings and found a cheap belt for myself. The museums are also free on Sundays, so we took advantage of the offer and went to the Prado. The last time Hannah studied in Madrid she took a class called art of the Prado, so she was able to explain a lot of things that I would have missed if I was just looking at the paintings on my own. The Prado was really amazing, the collection of Goyas and Velasquez was truly astounding. As my former docent Grandmother told me before I left, Velasquez in particular is not well represented in collections outside of Spain, so to see such a fabulous collection was an amazing opportunity. We saw as much as we could before museum feet struck, and we went home for siesta.
That evening we met up with Co again and went out for dinner. She told us all about Valencia, and afterwards we bought an ice cream cake and went back to her apartment to eat it.
Food, friends, and Velasquez, could a day be any better?
