Practically everyone told me not to bother with Madrid. It's boring, they said, and not very pretty. I figured I had better see it anyway, being the capital of Spain and as a rather large city there must be something to do, even if it's hanging out in Starbucks drinking chai tea lattes all day.
By the time we got off the bus from Bilbao it was well into the night, and we hopped straight on the metro to Gran Via, where our hotel was. We came up out of the underground station and immediately my spirits soared as we looked out onto the avenue - I felt as if I had stepped out of the subway in NYC onto Broadway. Immediately to our left an enormous theatre emblazoned with billboards for "The Producers", all the stores and restaurants were still open despite the fact it was past midnight, and the whole place was buzzing and humming. We dumped our bags in the hostel and tried to drag ourselves out on the town for the night - but in the end decided it would be better to rest our weary heads, be bright eyed the next morning, and really go to town the next night, which would be Halloween and loads of fun. We got chatting to an English couple who had just moved to Madrid; they didn't speak a word of Spanish and were looking for work and a place to live. That gave me hopes for my eventual move to Spain - if you can find work without a word of Spanish then I certainly shouldn't have a problem!
The next day we "saw Madrid" and on route stopped into loads of stores - I went mad shopping as clothes are crazy prices compared to Dublin! Even Julia was in heaven as everything is incredibly expensive in Norway. The architecture in Madrid is beautiful and interesting, although not quite as great as Barcelona. It's hard for a city so old to be ugly. We went to the Reina Sofia, where my mission was to see the Guernica up close and personal. I had seen it before in pictures but obviously it just doesn't compare at all to the real thing. There's something magical about seeing a painting that someone has made with their own two hands, a canvas which has been pored over for months, taking shape from a white sheet piece by piece until it becomes a masterpiece that can move emotions just by looking at it. A reproduction can only be a shadow of the original. Plus the Guernica is enormous. And it is a real masterpiece - the sheer terror, the uncertainty, the gore and destruction leaps out of the canvas and makes you feel what the people of Guernica must have felt that day.
Aside from the Guernica there were also loads of other fabulous pieces, notably Miró and Kandinsky who are among my favourites, and lots more I can't remember. One installation in particular that I loved was by an artist whos name I also can't remember; it was an enormous metronome (bigger than me) and on the top of the pendulum was an eye. If you looked at the eye from the left of the metronome, it was open; if you looked from the right, it was shut. I began by walking from side to side watching the eye open and close, but soon found it was easier to stand directly in front of it swaying left to right. Thus although the metronome is perfectly still, it works by influencing the viewer to provide the regulated movement. Brilliant.
We stayed until the gallery closed, and I got lost on the way back to the reception (it's a big building, and quite scary when it's empty) and then back to the hostel to prepare for Halloween night. We met two Yankee girls studying Spanish in Seville, and the four of us got all pretty (none of us had costumes, but who cares, we just wanted to have a good time) and set off to the clubs. One of the girls we were with was totally into Spanish pop music, and was singing along to all the songs (which were cheesy as hell, just like the English ones), and they played "Gasolina", which I always love to hear as it reminds me of when I was last in Argentina. Later we set off to "La Latina" which is an area in Madrid with lots of bars and such for a drink with some guys that the American girls knew. They took us to a great club decked out in Halloween decorations and we danced the night away. Jules fell in love with one of the guys, and Jenny was talking to her man, while Dierdre and I amused ourselves for a while. In true Spanish fashion, we stayed out till all hours, and at about half six when we made it back to the hostel Jules and I went to San Gines, a famous chocolateria in Madrid, for chocolate con churros and to dissect the night that was. The place was packed from wall to wall and the staff couldn't serve everyone fast enough (at half six/seven am! I love Madrid!) but by some miracle Jules and I found a seat where we enjoyed our liquid chocolate and fried sugary dough (oh my god yummy). After we’d ingested obscene amounts of sugar and fat, we headed back to the hostel and tumbled into bed.
We woke up (I use the term loosely) later in the day to check out the Palacio Real, the old palace of the Kings and Queens of Spain. It was spectacular, I must admit, but running on about three hours of sleep I was incredibly blasé about what I was seeing – another tapestry, nice chair, cool throne, whatever. Afterwards I was tired and grumpy and so headed back to bed for the afternoon while Jules went to the Prado. I really wanted to check it out but in that state I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all so I figured my time was better spent sleeping.
Somewhere in the mix there we went to Toledo, which is a couple of hours from Madrid. Toledo is an incredible little walled city which literally makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time into a fantasyland of swashbuckling pirates, blushing maidens, duelling, chests of gold dubloons, and maps of deserted islands marked with an ‘X’. There are only two drawbacks – the stores sell nothing but overpriced souvenirs and (very expensive but real) swords; and the streets are so narrow, short and windy and the buildings are so tall that it is impossible to find your way around, even with a well-marked map. At one point we were searching for the cathedral (absolutely huge, beautiful, and full of priceless art) when we realised we had been circling it for the last 5 minutes. Toledo is well worth a visit though, if you can stomach the tourist-trappy aspect which is very hard to ignore.
Eventually our time in Madrid came to a close, Jules went to catch the bus to Valladolid from which she was going to London, and I went to Starbucks and spent the day drinking Chai Tea Lattes with a copy of "El Jueves". Normally I’m dead-set against Starbucks as a propagator of extremely bad coffee, but seeing as I was in Madrid, a city which reminded me so much of New York, being in Starbucks felt right somehow (although Starbucks coffee is deplorable, it’s a damn sight better than the filter stuff that you get everywhere else in the Big Apple). Then off to the airport to catch my flight to Roma. I’d never been to Italy before, and was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of so much history, culture and art. I was also looking forward to staying in the same place for more than two or three days! My cold was proving impossible to shake and I badly needed rest and relaxation. But how could I relax when there was a new city to explore?
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