Madrid de las Austrias

I realized I never wrote about the tour of the city I went on last Wednesday. So, since I haven´t really done much the past few days, that´s what you´ll hear about now.

We met up in the Puerta del Sol, in front of the el oso y el madroño statue, or the bear and the mulberry tree I think. That same image is on the city seal of Madrid. Rumor has it the statue isn´t of an "oso," but an "osa," or female bear. Anyways, there were about seven of us: me, Anastasia, two Dutch girls, one Thai girl and a guy and girl from Florida. Our guide was Carmen, the same professor who took us to Segovia, and her guía turned out to be quite entertaining. More than half of the students were beginners in Spanish, and although Carmen said there would be no English on the tour because she doesn´t know very much of it, she ended up following every Spanish explanation with one in broken, accented English. It really was entertaining, in a good way I mean, and we all appreciated her effort. In the end, she got the point across, and isn´t that all that matters?

We learned about Carlos III, whose statue sits in the center of the plaza and who is known as the "Mayor of Madrid" for modernizing the city. We saw the kílometro zero, or point where I´m pretty sure the six major highways of Spain back in the day went through. And of course, not forgetting the most important part of la vida, la gastronomía, Carmen told us that El Mallorquin has the best neopolitanos in the city, the Chocoletería San Gijon has the best chocolate con churros, and this tapas place that is sandwiched between a Burger King and a McDonalds has the best montaditos, or mini bocadillos (bocadillos are sandwiches on baguettes).

We then walked through the Plaza Mayor, which used to be the poor part of the city, until about ten or fifteen years ago, when the government cleaned it up, and the pisos, or apartments, around it are super exclusive and expensive. We walked by a store that had authentic Madrileño dancing costumes, called chulepas, I think. Carmen also showed us where to get the best bocadillo con camarones (with calamari) in the city. Behind the Plaza Mayor is El Botín, which the Guiness Book of World Records has certified as the oldest restaurant in the world. Based on the menu, I´m gonna wait for the parents to arrive before going :)

We walked down the winding Calle Segovia, which used to be a river, and then through Calle Codo, which means elbow. The street really does curve like an elbow, and at the end is a doorway architecturally reminiscent of when the Arabs were here.

We headed over to the cathedral, and in front of the cathedral is a bar that Carmen said has the best sweet wine ever. Next to the cathedral is the Palacio Real, familiar territory for me, having walked the area with Anastasia the day before. The palace itself is the largest in Western Europe, (Versailles the palace is smaller, but Versailles´gardens are much larger). The palacio has 2,800 rooms, and the current king, Rey Juan Carlos I turned down an offer to live there when he earned the crown, because he remembered the stories his grandfather told him. Turns out, it´s impossible to get a hot dinner because the dining rooms and the kitchens are so far away, and it takes 20 minutes just to get a glass of water. I think that´s a good enough reason not to live there :)

We walked through the garden, which is home to the statues that were actually supposed to be put on the roof of the palace, but weren´t because the reina, or queen, had a nightmare that they all fell down. So, they now reside safely on the grounds of the garden. We passed the royal opera house, and were back by the Puerta del Sol. We all decided to go grab the famed chocolate con churros, especially because all our hands, feet, fingers, toes, and noses were frozen to the bone.

We each got a taza, or cup of chocolate, the thick straight-up melted chocolate bar type of chocolate, and shared a ración of churros and borros, which are shorter and fatter than churros.

Oh my god. Anyone who comes and visits me, we are soooooooooooo going there. But, a word of caution. Don´t order a cup of chocolate unless you have enough churros to finish it with. Since we all split the ración, we each got one churro and half a borra, which left us with half a cup of chocolate. I finished it all because I´m crazy and it was amazingly delicious, but the others couldn´t handle the richness. Sigh...I really should stop writing about food when I´m hungry.

Overall, it was great because as we walked, we all talked with each other, and I made more friends and learned about my host city. And of course, the chocolate con churros. I mean, come one, how can anything that ends with rich oozy bittersweet fried goodness be bad.

Geez, I need to stop.

On Sunday, I went shopping/exploring with Amber, who direct enrolled here, (like I did) from Illinois State. We ate the famed bocadillo con camarones that Carmen recommended. It was pretty good, a bit salty and I found a couple small bones, but it was cheap and filling. We wanted to get pastries at El Mallorquin, but we were too full. And anyways, I should leave things for next time, right. She hadn´t seen historical Madrid yet, so I showed her the cathedral and the palacio real and everything that Anastasia had shown me the other day. It was a nice feeling, being able to show someone else the city. We then grabbed tea at Café y Te and chatted some before heading home.

And, like I said earlier, I don´t have much to say about the past few days except that my mood still changes on a whim. Randomly, while I´m getting dressed or I´m sitting in class, I´ll think of home and be like, how many days do I have left here? Then, I´ll be walking around in the street, or yesterday I sat in this pastelería, Dehesa de la Solana, on my street, eating a bolleon (sp?), and I´ll just think, wow, I´m living in Madrid. I´m happy to say that today, I´m feeling a lot better about being here, and I´m sure there will be many crazy interesting things I´ll be describing in the months to come.