Madrid!

On my way to Madrid, I had to make a connection in London. For some reason, the pilot of my flight from the U.S. couldn't land the plane when we approached London for about 20 minutes, so we spent that long doing figure eights in the air while waiting for the control towers to approve our landing. Therefore, when we did finally land, I had to sprint, take a train and a bus, to get to another terminal for my connection. I arrived at the plane as the gate was closing.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for my luggage. So I spent my first afternoon in Madrid with the close I had been wearing for 12 hours on two airplanes. I felt really sanitary. It was irrelevant, however, seeing as I just got to my room and fell asleep.

After my two hour nap, I woke up and went to orientation with the group in some hotel meeting room. We went to dinner afterwards--appropriately in a Chinese restaurant. API paid so I still hadn't spent a dime in Madrid at all. When we returned to the hotel, my luggage had been delivered. Phew!

Later that evening, the people in the Salamanca group all went out to a little place for cafe in the Plaza Mayor. It was good to get to know each other, even though it's likely that we'll all be in different Spanish classes, and we won't be living together. Regardless, they seem nice.

Today, API made our wake up call for 7:15 a.m., so by 8:30 we were on a bus to El Escorial, the burial place of all of the deceased Spanish monarchs. Imagine a circular room made entirely of marble, and lavishly decorated with golden highlights. It was actually probably more of a hexagon or octagon, and each side had three extravagant tombs. The bodies are only allowed to be placed in there once they have decomposed fully into skeletons. Ergo, there was a decomposition room as well.

The fact that El Escorial is the resting place of such famous monarchs in Spain is its most redeeming quality. The rest of it is not so special. It is a building made entirely of huge pieces of granite stone taken from nearby mountains. Additionally, it contains the second most important Catholic library in the world (behind the Vatican), whatever that means. Art inside features works by El Greco, Valasquez, and other lesser known Spanish artists.



We returned to the hotel in Madrid around lunchtime, and some people and I went to a restaurant and all ordered the Menu del dia, a menu very similar to Miami Spice. It is basically a three course meal, with three or four options for each course, all for a deal price. Overall a good choice if you want to try many things, but not spend much money.

Later today, the group is heading to the Museo Prado, which should be pretty cool.

That's it for now.

-Michelle