AHHH!!! I am in Madrid! this i insane. met all sorts of cool ppl, who hav been very helpful. We have moseyed around old madrid quite a bit and are now fairly familiar w/ the streets. Madrid is insanely green! THere are trees and little green spaces everywhere. B/c pretty much everyone takes a siesta, there is no prob w/ just chilling in a park for a few hours and taking a snooze. Canada ahould def adopt the whole siesta idea.
So far we've seen the royal palace *palacio real* which was so cool. It had all sorts of decorations in it, w/ every room having a theme. I think my favorite one was Carlos III dressing room. It had hand embroidered silk on the walls, which was flowery and really inricate. There was also a rooom that was completely covered in porcelain. The joints we're all covered w/ porcelain vines glued/installed on top.
Made it to Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. They currently have a massive Picasso exhibit out, which is fantabulous, but a little overwhelming. By the end of it, we just wanted to get out. After a short break we went to the permanent collection, but only looked @ the surreal and modern art, and only briefly. Some of the modern art didn't actually look like art to me. But hey, if ppl want a singlt large tripe to be genius, I'm not going to argue. Especially b/c I don't speak the language.
Speaking of which, we're actually not doing to badly. I remember just enough Spanish to be moderately intelligible, and Sarah seems to interpret hand gestures, so we're puttering along, riding high on sympathetic smiles of mutual incomprehension.
The royal gardens *Jardin Real* are absolutly ginormous. We had lunch in them & took a bit of a siesta after. Didn't actually sleep, but sat in the sun and got sunburnt down one side. Sarah eventually dozed, so I toddled off to take some pics. There are @least 5 peacocks in the garden, which are incredibly tame, so I got some closeups of them. They have magpies over here btw, tho they do look a bit different than ours. Slightly smaller. There are pigeons everywhere, and Sarah and I have DEF chased a few. Really cute ducks, in the royal ponds. There are a couple other nice ardens around the palace as well, such as the one @ Plaza del Orient and S-something-or-other. I forget. Shrubbery pics can be quite amuzing. Amyways, loving the parks w/ all the green.
Madrid seems to recycle alot too. There are recycle bins everywhere for plastic glass and paper. Even in the Metro, you can usually find one for paper.
THe metro is suprisingly easy to get around on, once you've sorted out what kind of tix you need. There automaic tix machines are in multiple languages, so its pretty easy. The metromadrid pass works for us, it includes basically all of Old and Burbon Madrid and is 1E/trip. Sarah and I have our little area of trains down pat. Its actually pretty staight forward, and it ceratainly is simpler than Lethbridges buses. Follow the blue signs for finding your train platform, which varies depending on which line you need, and which way you going on the line. Once your @ the platforn, there's electronic signs hanging, telling you when the next trainis coming. They coe by no more than 5min apart. Its great, and saves a heck of alot of walking time. And you can transfer as many times as you need to so long as you dont exit the building or go outside your tix zone.The Atocha Renfe station is miserable though for getting Eurrail tix. You have to take a # and then we waited about 1.25hrs b/f our # came. Blah!
Buying groceries was certainly an experience. We couldnt find the corner tore one gitl tol us about. And when we went to El Cortes de Ingles *a massive department store* it was a while b/f we found the produce section. Unlike Canada that builds out, These guys build up. The food was in the basement, w/ several floors above. The cheese we bought was great, super hard, but not too salty.
We've alos bee to 2 churches. One we just kinda wandered into on our 1st day. It was absolutly gorgeous and i took lots of pics. We also went to the Cathedral across from the palace. We paid to go up to the cupola which was impresive to say the least. The main area is free to get into, and really cool. A good place for taking color/b&w contrast shots.
We're staying @ the Los Amigos backpackers hostel in old Madrid. Its cool, and there is certainly a variety of ppl. I jsut met a trio of Vancouverites, last night an Australian and a oder guy called Michael who is a Irishman, living in Morrocco who comes up to Spain for about 1 wwk a onth for vacation 'b/c he feels like it'
out of internet time.
must go
