WHAT a day! Despite the fact that I had a grammar exam this morning, which thankfully wasn’t as bad as I thought, today was by far one of the best days yet. After class, the university took us to the Monasterio de la Encarnación, which currently houses nine monjas, or nuns.
As we were all walking to the metro, I chatted with Kumiko from Tokyo, who is studying Latin American literature and history. I think it’s so interesting to see people from other cultures learning Spanish. I mean, the only thing that attracted me to Spanish was its practicality. (In middle school I actually wanted to take French.) But it seems that people living in Japan or Russia or Holland are learning Spanish because they are fascinated with the actual language and the culture itself. I mean, I definitely am now, after dedicating so much to learning the language, but that wasn’t always the case.
Anyways, Queen Margarita de Austria founded the monastery in 1611, and while the nuns have taken a vow of poverty, the monarchy still funds the monastery. Inside are paintings and statues and relics. The blood of San Martin, the shoulder bone of another saint, the hair of another, it was all there. There were these really interesting paintings on polished rock, with the veins actually integrated into the paintings. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures.
Afterwards, Rose from Holland mentioned she wanted to go have chocolate con churros. “I know just the place,” I said, and six of us headed over to Chocolatería San Guijón. You of course remember how excited I was last time we went. This time was no different. *Sigh* I really can’t be doing this every week or none of my clothes will ever fit again.
Once we had sufficiently indulged in the chocolatey fried goodness, Marianne, also from Holland, asked me to come with her to the cell phone shop to assist in case her beginner Spanish wasn’t good enough to buy her a SIM card. Luckily, the clerk spoke English, and it turns out he was in her town in Holland recently for a concert. He’s also going to San Francisco to study English this summer. Anyways, we stepped out of the store and, to our great surprise the sun was brightly shining above. You see, every morning in Madrid begins fairly overcast, and the clouds just never seem to completely disappear. So, to enjoy the sunny goodness, we decided to head over to el Parque de Gran Retiro. We wandered through the park, watching the children in their school uniforms run around and wistfully reminisced about the carefree days when we played tag and hide and seek, blissfully unaware of the world around and all its problems.
We found a spot on the steps in front of the big lake and basked in the sun’s glow. We started talking about Spain and life in our respective countries. She explained me the Dutch political system and I explained her ours. In the middle of our conversation, we heard some more English. Turns out the couple sitting next to us was vacationing in Madrid from Ohio, and when I told them I was from the D.C. area, he said their son was looking at Georgetown for college. After chatting for a few minutes about how there’s no convenient metro stop for Georgetown, they were on their way and Marianne and I returned to our conversation.
I can’t even begin to explain you how nice it was to just be sitting in the park with the sun and the breeze talking about every possible topic, from crazy Americans to religion to world peace to popularity to the handsome Madrileño policemen to how it’s important to just be happy with the person you are instead of trying to make yourself into someone that other people will like. Really, we didn’t stop talking for at least three hours. After the breeze started blowing a little more coolly, we checked out the children’s art exhibit they had in the park’s cultural center. We then decided to check out this bar our professor had suggested to us during the Madrid city tour.
Carmen had told us that this place, el Anciano Rey de los Vinos, has the best vino dulce in the city. So, we gave it a try, and boy was she right. It’s sweet and delicious. As we were talking, we found out that the man seated next to us was from Toronto. His wife was a Spaniard, and he told us that this place was a very typical Spanish bar. We got to talking more about Madrid and he told us of a couple other restaurants and markets to hit up. Then we started talking about travel in general, and it turns out he’s half-Indian. So we started talking all about India, and I was telling him about this South Indian restaurant near me, and it turns out he knew the restaurant I was talking about! Which is weird, because it’s just this tiny place in a strip mall. Anyways, it was seriously like the most perfect thing ever, sipping the red vermouth he also suggested we try and talking about food and travel and culture. Seriously, so entirely perfect.
Afterwards, we walked around a bit more before deciding to part ways, since we have to get up once again at the crack of dawn for tomorrow’s trip to Toledo. I did a bit of shopping in Sol before heading back (these rebajas are quite dangerous, let me tell you!).
*Sigh* So happy to be here, finally!
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