El Escorial is the monastery, palace, crypt, library, and cathedral from the days of Felipe II. After all the insanity on Friday I went here last Sunday.
It's about a 40 minute bus ride outside of Madrid and a really cool trip.
We walked through the living courters, art museum, architecture museum, etc parts first. It was the first place I've seen that felt like someone actually lived there once upon a time. The furniture was worn and it looked so authentic which I really liked. Felipe II was a big supporter of art and so there are a lot of interesting and important paintings there. They also had lots of sketches for the plans of different parts of this gigantic building and models which I loved (that's my sort of thing)!
El Escorial has over 134 km of corridors, 1200 doors, 2000 windows, 86 staircases, etc. To say its big is an understatement.
We also walked through the royal crypts. This was interesting if not a tad creepy at times. There were 9 tomb rooms! Also, a lot of the tombs had intricate carvings on the granite and some even had life size statues of the person inside on top. There was also a room just for children of the royal family who did not make it to adulthood. There were 60 tombs in all with 47 full! They were stalked in three tiers and made out of white granite. As a result the spanish refer to the structure as the wedding cake. A bit morbid if you ask me but each to one's own I suppose.
We also went to the Catedral, always a necessary stop and walked through. As all European major cathedrals seem to be, it was extremely lavishly decorated with huge gold statues and was gorgeous on the inside. They also had a replica of the monument for Holy Thursday which is this structure that looks kind of like a Gazebo that was made out of over 400 pieces of wood but without any nails! It was really cool.
Last we went inside the palace library. The ceiling was decorated with one continuing fresco that showed all the great thinkers and areas of thought: math, science, philosophy, etc etc. There were also thousands of original manuscripts from back in the 16th century. They had some open so you could look at the covers or inside. The calligraphy was absolutely gorgeous as were all of the hand drawn sketches. It quite possibly was my favorite stop in the whole place.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Las Fallas
Las Fallas de Valencia eran genial!
Last Friday I went to Valencia just for the day and it was amazing! I left Madrid about 9am and got back to Madrid about noon on Saturday after staying up all night. What's a girl to do when there is a huge festival with people out all night and no hostel anyways?
The answer is this: stay out all night, watch things burn, and have a fantastic time!
I got there around 3pm on Friday after the bus left an hour late, had its mandatory hour break halfway through the trip, and four hours of driving.
I've never seen so many people out in my life. The only thing I can compare it to is the taste of Chicago on the 3rd of July before the fireworks in Chicago aka insane.
For those that don't know first let me explain what fallas are. It's this huge festival in honor of The Day of Saint Joseph. Artists and people in Valencia spend all year and tons of $$ building fallas which are gigantic paper mache and cardboard figures. Some were as tall as about 15 meters or 5 stories! They build these scenes surrounding a theme, this year the theme was the crisis in the world, and install them in the streets during the week leading up to this.
Every morning at 8am the people of Valencia are awakened by lots of noise (I did not get to experience this) such as firecrackers and drums and such I think. Then on March 19th (Dia de San Jose) at 2pm is la mescleta' which is a huge amount of noise. The noise of this whole celebration is unimaginable. I took videos just so i would be able to show people later. All day long people are setting off firecrackers in the street, there are musicians in the street, etc. It was so loud!
Then at midnight until about 2am they set las fallas on fire and burn them until there is nothing but ash! At 1am is la crema' which is the burning of the first place falla in the main square. I got to see this and I don't have words to describe how cool this was. First they set off fireworks directly over head. Not like in Chicago where they are set off over the lake or when they are set off further away normally in the states. The noise was unreal and so exciting! Then afterwards the ignited the first place falla and we watched it get engulfed in flames until there was nothing left. Then we walked away and saw another!
This was probably one of the coolest and most confusing things I've ever seen. I'm really glad I found a way to go last minute and buying my bus tickets from strangers at a random metro stop and paying in cash worked out in the end despite my apprehension of the shadiness of it all.
Last Friday I went to Valencia just for the day and it was amazing! I left Madrid about 9am and got back to Madrid about noon on Saturday after staying up all night. What's a girl to do when there is a huge festival with people out all night and no hostel anyways?
The answer is this: stay out all night, watch things burn, and have a fantastic time!
I got there around 3pm on Friday after the bus left an hour late, had its mandatory hour break halfway through the trip, and four hours of driving.
I've never seen so many people out in my life. The only thing I can compare it to is the taste of Chicago on the 3rd of July before the fireworks in Chicago aka insane.
For those that don't know first let me explain what fallas are. It's this huge festival in honor of The Day of Saint Joseph. Artists and people in Valencia spend all year and tons of $$ building fallas which are gigantic paper mache and cardboard figures. Some were as tall as about 15 meters or 5 stories! They build these scenes surrounding a theme, this year the theme was the crisis in the world, and install them in the streets during the week leading up to this.
Every morning at 8am the people of Valencia are awakened by lots of noise (I did not get to experience this) such as firecrackers and drums and such I think. Then on March 19th (Dia de San Jose) at 2pm is la mescleta' which is a huge amount of noise. The noise of this whole celebration is unimaginable. I took videos just so i would be able to show people later. All day long people are setting off firecrackers in the street, there are musicians in the street, etc. It was so loud!
Then at midnight until about 2am they set las fallas on fire and burn them until there is nothing but ash! At 1am is la crema' which is the burning of the first place falla in the main square. I got to see this and I don't have words to describe how cool this was. First they set off fireworks directly over head. Not like in Chicago where they are set off over the lake or when they are set off further away normally in the states. The noise was unreal and so exciting! Then afterwards the ignited the first place falla and we watched it get engulfed in flames until there was nothing left. Then we walked away and saw another!
This was probably one of the coolest and most confusing things I've ever seen. I'm really glad I found a way to go last minute and buying my bus tickets from strangers at a random metro stop and paying in cash worked out in the end despite my apprehension of the shadiness of it all.
Monday, March 22, 2010
No comas pan enfrente del pobre!
My new favorite phrase I learned this weekend: "no comas pan enfrente del pobre." It literally means don't eat bread in front of the poor but it's used when you're with a group of people and two are a couple and start making out or something. The equivalent of "get a room" in English.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Interesting Customs Differences
Two different things happened to me today that would unlikely happen in the U.S.
THING NUMBER ONE: Business Being Conducted at a Metro Stop
So there is this insane festival in Valencia on Friday called Las Fallas. People from Valencia spend the entire year building fallas or giant paper mache sculptures/floats/models. This year the theme is "el crisis" and there supposedly will even be fallas of the first family. Anyways at midnight on Friday all of the fallas will be set on fire and burned as fireworks go off all over the city.
This is an internationally known festival and therefore it is extremely popular to go to. Thus waiting until two days before to find tickets leads to an interesting story. I used the everhandy services of google and found a trip with Madrid Erasmus that still had spots left. Only my instructions for paying were to go to a metro stop and pay in cash! This is something that would be considered extremely shady and I would never do at home...but I'm not at home right. I have a receipt and the people seemed legit so hopefully it all works out but I was very nervous to do this initially.
THING NUMBER TWO:The Grocery Store
So I went to the atm to get cash today because I needed to and walked away with a fifty euro bill. Walking around with a fifty bill isn't the most practical thing though so I wanted to break it. I also needed some snacks from the grocery store. My total came to 1.35 and I paid 50.35. The cashier seemed annoyed when I paid with a fifty then confused when I gave her change. In the U.S. it's fairly common to give change when you overpay to make the amount you receive back nicer. I don't think that's all to common here because this isn't the first time I've been given a very confused look when paying for something.
That's all for now. On to la crema de las fallas! (That's what it's called when the burn everything :D)
THING NUMBER ONE: Business Being Conducted at a Metro Stop
So there is this insane festival in Valencia on Friday called Las Fallas. People from Valencia spend the entire year building fallas or giant paper mache sculptures/floats/models. This year the theme is "el crisis" and there supposedly will even be fallas of the first family. Anyways at midnight on Friday all of the fallas will be set on fire and burned as fireworks go off all over the city.
This is an internationally known festival and therefore it is extremely popular to go to. Thus waiting until two days before to find tickets leads to an interesting story. I used the everhandy services of google and found a trip with Madrid Erasmus that still had spots left. Only my instructions for paying were to go to a metro stop and pay in cash! This is something that would be considered extremely shady and I would never do at home...but I'm not at home right. I have a receipt and the people seemed legit so hopefully it all works out but I was very nervous to do this initially.
THING NUMBER TWO:The Grocery Store
So I went to the atm to get cash today because I needed to and walked away with a fifty euro bill. Walking around with a fifty bill isn't the most practical thing though so I wanted to break it. I also needed some snacks from the grocery store. My total came to 1.35 and I paid 50.35. The cashier seemed annoyed when I paid with a fifty then confused when I gave her change. In the U.S. it's fairly common to give change when you overpay to make the amount you receive back nicer. I don't think that's all to common here because this isn't the first time I've been given a very confused look when paying for something.
That's all for now. On to la crema de las fallas! (That's what it's called when the burn everything :D)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Happenings of the Past Few Weeks
Hola a todos!
So I've gotten kind of lazy on this whole blogging thing but here's an update.
I've seen a lot more sites around Madrid and made my first trip outside the city yesterday.
Palacio Real
I went to the Royal Palace about two weeks ago and it was absolutely gorgeous! There is something to be said about the antiguity and lavish decor of palace's that you just can't find in the states. The first place I visited at the palace was the Armory. It had armor from the past five or six centuries that was just gorgeous. I've never had any interest in guns in my life but when I saw the intricate carvings on the hold shot guns I literally described them as beautiful. They also had different types of armor from everyone to your typical knight all the way up to the king. It was very interesting to see the distinctions in the various classes of armor. They also had horse armor. The face plates for the horses were especially interesting in my opinion.
Next we went inside some of the palace rooms. We saw everything from a royal dressing room, dining room, throne room, music room, to the yellow room and porcelein room. It was spectacular! I don't think I've ever walked around with my mouth hanging wide open in awe for such a long/continuous amount of time. Every room had lavish embellishments on the ceilings. Practically every room had an intricate fresco painted on the ceiling and intense gold and stone embellishments around the molding. They even had a yellow room where everything was in yellow down to the silk wall papering and a porcelein room which was gorgeous. Everything in the room was made out of porcelein including all of the decorative embellishments on the wall. What was even cooler was that you couldn't see a single joint because they were artistically covered in the pattern. The dining room which had a table to seat over 80 if I remember right (I counted) was gigantic for lack of a better word. Ansd the following rooms which house all the dishes, cutlery, glassware, etc was spectacular. In short, if you come to Madrid a stop at the Royal Palace is a must in my opinion.
The Reina Sofia
Last Saturday I went to the Reina Sofia. This is the modern art museum in Madrid which houses La Guernica and many other Picasso works as well as lots of other artists. Personally, modern art is not my favorite but it was still a very enjoyable visit. There were some paintings and sculptures that were particularly interesting to look at. I'm sad to say though that I'm not a huge fan of La Guernica. For those that don't know La Guernica is a painting by Picasso done in the early 1930s. Picasso was a communist and did not approve of the SPanish Fascist regime. Therefore, he painted this painting as a social comentary on the situation in Spain and was exiled shortly after never to return again. It is a very controversial and important painting in 20th century Spanish history.
Toledo
Toledo is a small town about an hour drive outside of Madrid. I visited yesterday and had a fabulous time! It is a town probably comparable to the UIUC campus or maybe double in terms of land size. It is on top of a hill and in general you spend the whole day going up and down hills when you walk through. The views from the top are gorgeous though. The town is surrounded by a midieval wall and is a mix of Moorish, Catholic, and Jewish heritage. It is full of architectural and cultural influences from these three religions which is an odd thing to have been preserved considering Spain's history with expelling the Moors and the Jews. It's most famous sites are the Cathedral, the house of EL Greco, and Alcazar although the latter two are currently closed for renovations.
Museo de America
I went to Museo de America this morning. It is a small museum dedicated to the Americas and reminded me of the exhibits at the Field Museum in Chicago about the Mayan, Incan, and Aztec cultures. This was much more in depth though I think. There were hords of artifacts from exploration in the New World. There were lots of maps from the time period which were very interesting to look at as well in my opinion. The museum only takes about an hour and a half to go through if you are stopping to look at every little thing like I did and not that well known but I found it very interesting and a nice little excursion for a Sunday morning. (Oh and by morning I mean I went at about 12:30pm)
That's all for now about site seeing in Madrid. I'm hoping to go to Las Fallas in Valencia next weekend which is this insane sounding festival where there are gigantic paper mache floats and huge parades and then at midnight they burn them in the streets! I also might go to Segovia next weekend and then the weekend after that is the start of Spring Break! Lots of traveling in the coming weeks-I can't wait!
So I've gotten kind of lazy on this whole blogging thing but here's an update.
I've seen a lot more sites around Madrid and made my first trip outside the city yesterday.
Palacio Real
I went to the Royal Palace about two weeks ago and it was absolutely gorgeous! There is something to be said about the antiguity and lavish decor of palace's that you just can't find in the states. The first place I visited at the palace was the Armory. It had armor from the past five or six centuries that was just gorgeous. I've never had any interest in guns in my life but when I saw the intricate carvings on the hold shot guns I literally described them as beautiful. They also had different types of armor from everyone to your typical knight all the way up to the king. It was very interesting to see the distinctions in the various classes of armor. They also had horse armor. The face plates for the horses were especially interesting in my opinion.
Next we went inside some of the palace rooms. We saw everything from a royal dressing room, dining room, throne room, music room, to the yellow room and porcelein room. It was spectacular! I don't think I've ever walked around with my mouth hanging wide open in awe for such a long/continuous amount of time. Every room had lavish embellishments on the ceilings. Practically every room had an intricate fresco painted on the ceiling and intense gold and stone embellishments around the molding. They even had a yellow room where everything was in yellow down to the silk wall papering and a porcelein room which was gorgeous. Everything in the room was made out of porcelein including all of the decorative embellishments on the wall. What was even cooler was that you couldn't see a single joint because they were artistically covered in the pattern. The dining room which had a table to seat over 80 if I remember right (I counted) was gigantic for lack of a better word. Ansd the following rooms which house all the dishes, cutlery, glassware, etc was spectacular. In short, if you come to Madrid a stop at the Royal Palace is a must in my opinion.
The Reina Sofia
Last Saturday I went to the Reina Sofia. This is the modern art museum in Madrid which houses La Guernica and many other Picasso works as well as lots of other artists. Personally, modern art is not my favorite but it was still a very enjoyable visit. There were some paintings and sculptures that were particularly interesting to look at. I'm sad to say though that I'm not a huge fan of La Guernica. For those that don't know La Guernica is a painting by Picasso done in the early 1930s. Picasso was a communist and did not approve of the SPanish Fascist regime. Therefore, he painted this painting as a social comentary on the situation in Spain and was exiled shortly after never to return again. It is a very controversial and important painting in 20th century Spanish history.
Toledo
Toledo is a small town about an hour drive outside of Madrid. I visited yesterday and had a fabulous time! It is a town probably comparable to the UIUC campus or maybe double in terms of land size. It is on top of a hill and in general you spend the whole day going up and down hills when you walk through. The views from the top are gorgeous though. The town is surrounded by a midieval wall and is a mix of Moorish, Catholic, and Jewish heritage. It is full of architectural and cultural influences from these three religions which is an odd thing to have been preserved considering Spain's history with expelling the Moors and the Jews. It's most famous sites are the Cathedral, the house of EL Greco, and Alcazar although the latter two are currently closed for renovations.
Museo de America
I went to Museo de America this morning. It is a small museum dedicated to the Americas and reminded me of the exhibits at the Field Museum in Chicago about the Mayan, Incan, and Aztec cultures. This was much more in depth though I think. There were hords of artifacts from exploration in the New World. There were lots of maps from the time period which were very interesting to look at as well in my opinion. The museum only takes about an hour and a half to go through if you are stopping to look at every little thing like I did and not that well known but I found it very interesting and a nice little excursion for a Sunday morning. (Oh and by morning I mean I went at about 12:30pm)
That's all for now about site seeing in Madrid. I'm hoping to go to Las Fallas in Valencia next weekend which is this insane sounding festival where there are gigantic paper mache floats and huge parades and then at midnight they burn them in the streets! I also might go to Segovia next weekend and then the weekend after that is the start of Spring Break! Lots of traveling in the coming weeks-I can't wait!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Leftovers Get Flushed
Okay so before I left I had a ridiculous discussion with several people about whether the toilet water swirls the same way as in the U.S. here. We decided that was a North/South not East/West oddity.
That aside funny anecdote about my host mother:
She is very adament about not wasting food. I'm not sure if there is a connection between that and the small garbage can in the kitchen or not and I doubt there is any connection between that and the small kitchen sink. However, whenever there is excessive waste it gets flushed! This wouldn't be funny except for the part where I had lental soup for dinner and the remains looked like something fitting to be flushed...very good taste wise just not appearance wise. Ariel and I might be the only ones that find this amusing but we couldn't help but burst out laughing when we heard Nieves flushing a certain something after dinner...buen provecho!
That aside funny anecdote about my host mother:
She is very adament about not wasting food. I'm not sure if there is a connection between that and the small garbage can in the kitchen or not and I doubt there is any connection between that and the small kitchen sink. However, whenever there is excessive waste it gets flushed! This wouldn't be funny except for the part where I had lental soup for dinner and the remains looked like something fitting to be flushed...very good taste wise just not appearance wise. Ariel and I might be the only ones that find this amusing but we couldn't help but burst out laughing when we heard Nieves flushing a certain something after dinner...buen provecho!
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