textbooks come to life!

Ok, I'm not familiar with blog etiquette, (as in, if you're only supposed to do short/concise entries, or if it even matters...?) or if it even exists, but I've written kind of a longggg blog on my trip from last week to Madrid, Toledo, Segovia and Portugal, so I'm just going to post it all...enjoy.

FEBRUARY 7, 2007

TEXTBOOKS COME TO LIFE
Oh boy, it’s been a week. This is going to be a long post, so I’ll separate it into the four cities I went to.

Toledo:
I started off the week with my program in Toledo, which is this old, small city, mounted up on this mountain sort of thing, surrounded by a river…it’s really old, charming, and made up of a labyrinth of winding and extremely narrow streets, surrounded by tall buildings on either side, but really cute, full of nice people and abundant in old architecture and history. Toledo used to be the capitol of the country, wayyyy back, and it is famous for being the first city where the three prominent religions—Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam—coexisted peacefully in the past. After just a stroll through the streets you will find an abundance of sword and knife shops, and sweet shops filled with Toledo’s famous marzipan, or mazapan..it’s really good! We were only there for a day and a night, but we got to see the old cathedral of the town, the famous painting by El Greco—El entierro del Conde de Orgaz, some old, Baroque architecture, a monastery where Garcilaso de la Vega is buried, and an old mosque that was first a church but then converted to a mosque, then to a church, and is famous for its not being discovered by authorities back when Jews were being kicked out and Judaism being outlawed.
Madrid:
Next, we headed off to Madrid for a couple of nights, where we got to stay in this really nice hotel in the middle of the upscale part of town, and right in the middle of everything! We were there during the beginning of Carnaval, which is a really popular holiday/festival here in Spain, when people dress up during the days and party all night long, and there were parades and everything while we were there…it’s like Mardi Gras, but bigger and better. So anyway, we walked around a lot, got to see Palacio Real, which is the official residence of the king and queen of Spain, even though they don’t actually live there except for special occasions, and oh my gosh, I cannot put into words how beautiful the palace was and how much I fell in love with it. Every room we went into has sooo much detail, so much worth and beauty...every room is just filled with incredible furniture, and you get so caught up in the walls and furniture and decoration that you almost forget to look up, but you can’t forget! The ceilings are sometimes the most meticulously-decorated part of the room!!!
Ok I wrote some stuff down about my favorite rooms while we were there so I wouldn’t forget…my favorite room is called Sala Gasparini. It was used by the kings as the dressing room way back in good ‘ol Ferdinand and Carlos III and IV’s time, but now it’s used as a coffee room for after big events. Anyway, as we weren’t allowed to take pictures at all, you just have to use your wildest imagination to piece this together (if you want…I’m just writing it so I don’t forget it…):
All of the ceiling and walls are covered in stucco designs and patterns, and there is an oriental flare to the room, with stucco vines and flowers and trees and people from the orient all over in beautiful colors. The floor is made of marble, and the marble has a design and colors that correspond to the designs on the walls; the huge chandelier in the middle of the room, which they refer to as aranas (spiders, literally), is the biggest chandelier in the whole palace, and of course the furniture is just immaculate with beautiful hand-woven fabric…it sounds like all the detail and design would just be too much for a single room, but no, it’s amazing. I was just awestruck when we came into that room and didn’t want to leave.
Aside from that room, we saw tons of others: the throne room, the smoking room, the reading room, the “porcelain room,” the “yellow room” (it’s just decorated with this incredible yellow silk or some sort of fabric all over the curtains and floor and walls, etc. Really pretty, but come on, a “yellow room”…what’s the point? Go there when you’re feeling blue so it balances you out?! And for some strange reason and protocol from back in time of Carlos III and Carlos IV, the king and queen are not allowed to sit in the thrones in the throne room. The only stand in front of them to accept gifts or visitors, but never sit. I asked our tour guide why, but she didn’t know…weird. Man, if I were a security guard there, I’d go sneak in and sit in the thrones…
What I don’t get, is why there are rooms for such specific things?!?! I mean, if you want to smoke, why don’t you just take a step outside, or if you want to read, why can’t you read in the ‘chatting room’ or your bedroom? Crazy. Oh well, it makes for pretty rooms.
Ok. We also went to the Prado, the famous art museum with tons of famous paintings. We had a tour again, which was cool because people like me who don’t know much about art learned a lot about the artists and the stories behind the paintings, but at the same time it would’ve been cool to just have time to wander around and see more of the museum. I saw a few paintings that I had read/learned about in some of my Spanish classes, so it was really cool to see the real thing right there before my eyes, but 20 times bigger and more amazing than in a book.
Then we went to the big park, El Parque de Buen Retiro, which was where the king/queen would retreat to to relax, and be sort of removed from the center of the city, back in the times when they actually lived at Palacio Real. The park is amazing. It’s huge, has wide and long paths for running, has open fields, a pond, a mini-lake where you can rent a paddle boat, and tons of other stuff to do. I really liked Madrid…hope to go back and see more of it…

Segovia:
We then had a day trip out to Segovia, near Madrid, which is famous for the aqueduct there that´s been there since...well, ages ago. It brought water from across the city, distributed it different places, and ended in the castle where the king and queen lived. Segovia´s pretty small, but it´s really cute, and obviously has lots of history. We went and saw the big cathedral there, which was HUGE, and then we went to the old castle where the king and queen used to live, which actually served as the inspiration for the Walt Disney castle...crazy! it looks pretty similar...the castle is really pretty on the outside, and from the tower where we went (which meant climbing an insanely spirally and steep staircase to get there...) there are great view of the entire city and thereabouts, and it was so cool because I actually felt like I was in the “olden” days because you see all these small paths leading up to and away from the castle, little villages in the distance, and just wide, open spaces...I felt like Rapunzel kind of...?minus the long hair...and boy. Haha.
Anyway, then we got a tour of the castle, got to see the thrones, the ´armor´ room where they keep all the old armor, which, after Palacio Real in Madrid, was nothing, but still cool, etc. The castle actually caught on fire and ruined a good portion of the old, beautiful roofs and ceilings, paintings and walls, but they’ve done a pretty good job restoring it to look like the original version. Oh. And go in the spring or summer. It was freezing. The castle is made out of stone, obviously, which keeps in the cold, instead of keeping the cold out, and it feels like you’re trapped in an icebox. Luckily they’ve installed windows instead of leaving the window spaces open like in the centuries past, otherwise I’d still be frozen there. Segovia´s a really cute city. Go.

Portugal:
From Madrid, my friend Austen and I and her mom headed off to Lisbon for a few days, and I loved it! The Portuguese people were all so nice to us and helpful, friendly, funny, etc. The main thing that was really weird for me was that I would begin speaking in Spanish to whoever I talked to, but apparently the Portuguese (generally speaking, based off of what we encountered) don’t speak Spanish. They don’t like it. Rumor has it that the Portuguese view the Spaniards as these big-time conquistadores who are all really proud, etc., so the portuguese hold a grudge against them, and therefore for the most part don’t speak Spanish. I never would’ve guessed...anyway, so Lisbon is this really old town, which you can tell by first glance there, and it´s also pretty clear that the Portuguese economy is not treating them so well, either. Most of the old buildings are run-down and in need of major repair but no one can really afford said repairs to the buildings just continue to be rundown and ram-shackled and old. However, this is not describing the whole city...just...most parts of it. We went to another side of the city one day to see the oceanarium, which is basically just a huge aquarium with tons of fish, sharks, stingrays, penguins, sea otters, etc....stuff you would find in the ocean. duh. And that part of town was really nice. It was also the more metropolitan side of town, so I guess that explains it, but still.
One day we decided to go out to a place called Sintra, which is kind of like a suburb of Lisboa, about a 45 minute train ride away, and wow, loved it. It’s a really historically-important city, because it was where the king and queen of Portugal had there summer palace, and where there are other Moorish castles and another palace, etc. We caught a bus to go up to the big palace, and the whole way up the mountain, we were going back and forth on switchbacks on this tiny road in this huge bus, but all around us were lush green forests, a stone wall covered in moss and vines lining the road, and holy cow, I felt like I was in a fairytale….with cars…without my prince charming and horse-drawn carriage. It was just lovely! So we arrive a bit later at this castle, I believe it was called Palacio de la Pena, and out there everything was soo green! I guess I’m not surrounded with enough trees and green things in Granada that I was just caught off guard…in a good way. The palace was, of course, amazing. It has great views looking out all over Lisbon and Sintra and the surrounding areas, and it’s decorated with lots of colors on the outside, and the inside is also awesome, too. Then we went to the Moorish castle down the road…totally different…basically stone walls constructed, not really roofs or anything, but all the stones were growing moss and it was all so cute!
For superbowl Sunday, we really wanted to watch the game, but we couldn’t find a place that was showing it, so we were on our way back to our hostel when we stumbled across a friend of ours outside the Hard Rock Café, and it turned out they were showing it that night, so of course we had to go. Let’s just say, lots and lots of Americans, a few big tv screens, and lots of beer later, the upstairs part of the Hard Rock was crazy. Right next to us, there was a huge table of ½ Americans, ½ Portuguese guys, who turned out to be players for the various Portuguese national basketball teams. We started up a conversation with one of them, he was really nice, from Colorado or California, and ended up ‘knowing’ one of the girls I was with…I only say ‘knowing’ that way, because he only recognized her from facebook, but they had never personally met…crazy. And a crazy game.
Our last day in Lisbon, we went to Belém, which is just the name of a section of the big city, it’s really old and cute, but we got there around 6 in the evening so it was already getting dark and we had to be back to go to dinner in a bit, so we wandered for a bit, and came across this bakery that, for some reason or another, had these two huge lines of people going out the doors and we were like, whattttt?? So I went inside to check it out, expecting something out of the ordinary to explain the lines, but no. just a restaurant/bakery that apparently is super popular, and it might have to do that it was a holiday/carnival/fat Tuesday(?)…but I noticed that every single table had these little pie things, and everyone walking out of the place was eating them, so we were like, we might as well get in line and check it out…luckily! Turns out those little pie things are the most amazing egg cream pies ever, served steaming hot, right out of the oven, and they just dissolve in your mouth.
For our last night there we went to a Fado performance. Fado is a type of song/music, that is native to Portugal, but especially in Lisbon. No one knows for sure when it was born, but apparently the Portuguese used to sing Fado out in the streets, and it has evolved into basically the national type of music/song of Portugal. The word ‘fado’ comes from the latin word ‘factum’ I believe, or whatever latin word means fate or destiny, so essentially the singers/guitarists are singing and playing about their destiny. Most of the songs were pretty melancholic, though there were a few songs that seemed happy…our waiter said that destiny used to be viewed as something sad/melancholic, hence the type of song. So anyway, how it worked was this: we go to this hole-in-the-wall type place, that turned out to be a really high-rolling place, really fancy inside, and you order your food, and then around 9:30 or 10 the guitarists come out, followed by a singer, sit in the middle of the restaurant, sing/play a set of about 3-4 songs, during which the lights are dimmed and the restaurant turns silent except for the music, and then the musicians leave for about 10-15 minutes until the next set. It was really cool…even though I didn’t really know what they were saying in the songs…