No Hablo Español!

This past weekend my roommates and I traveled to Madrid, Spain for a fun little trip. As my title suggests, we didn't know much Spanish other than the typical "Hola," "Gracias," and "Adios!" Sara had taken Spanish in high school, but lately we've had Italian on the brain and it wasn't coming back very easily. The German Jenn and I know didn't really help. Interestingly enough, we learned that Spaniards pronounce their "C's" like "TH." Therefore, "gracias" sounds a little more like "gra-thee-as." Anyway, enough about linguistics.

We left our apartment at 3 a.m. for the airport and arrived at 3:45. Unfortunately, the airport doesn't open until 4:30 a.m. We were more than a little early! After freezing outside for 45 minutes, we got checked in, flew, and landed around 9 a.m. in Madrid. Another unfortunate moment taught us that our hostel was really far outside the center of the city. Thank goodness Madrid has an excellent transportation system! For instance, Rome has 2 metro lines, some intra-city train lines, and buses. Madrid has about 10 metro lines, a huge train line system, and buses.

Our first adventure was to the Prado where we saw many famous works of art by Velasquez, Goya, El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt, and a special show of Renoir pieces. Sara, the art history major, was absolutely delighted and I enjoyed myself as well. Sometimes it's hard for me to understand why certain pieces are so celebrated, but that's probably just my lack of art history knowledge.

Following the Prado, we decided to walk to Puerto del Sol (a large famous plaza) and stopped at Museo del Jamon (literally "Museum of Ham") for dinner. It's not actually a museum, but a little restaurant/bar that represents one of the famous foods of either Madrid or Spain as a whole...I'm not sure which. After Puerto del Sol, we traveled to Plaza de Espana and got hot chocolate. It's absolutely nothing like the Swiss Miss we drink at home. In fact, the most similar thing would be to melt down a semi-sweet chocolate bar, put a little milk and sugar in it, and drink it. Oh my goodness it was so wonderful! That evening we went to see an incrdible flamenco show.

Not very good, but you get the idea...they moved FAST!

On Saturday, we toured the Royal Palace...

...had chocolate and churros...

...and went to the Renia Sofia museum quickly to see some Picasso before going to see a Spanish Operetta at Teatro Zarzuela.

Sunday morning we got up early and checked out of our hostel before going to Museo del Traje, a clothing museum. It was pretty interesting and followed the clothing styles of Spain from the 18th century onward.

In the afternoon we shopped at a Flea Market, had Argentinian ice cream (which was delicious!), and spent a little bit of time in Retiro Park before returning to the airport.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and we had a wonderful time. But...we were so glad to be back home in Rome! No city compares to the beauty that is Rome. :)