Update from Madrid

For all of my mom's friends out there who are waiting to hear if my parents are surviving in Spain...

We left very early this morning from Alicante (a 7:05am train) to arrive in Madrid around 11am. My dad was of course quite excited about the train ride and all went well. The trains here are really comfortable and clean and certainly out-do the US train systems. It was still dark when we left, but soon the sun came up and we had a chance to see the Spanish countryside which looks half desert,-half plains - maybe a bit like you would imagine the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma resembles. Not exactly entertaining or exciting, but pretty. The only hitch was that we sat just next to a group of 8 Spanish students, about my age, who conversed loudly throughout the entire train ride, preventing much napping from happening. We were in our hotel by 11:30 and getting onto the Madrid metro by 12:30. My parents and I also all agree that the metro system in Madrid out-does the metros in the US - it's cleaner, appears to run more often, and is really easy to understand, despite how many lines there are. Overall, I really like the city. It's very cosmopolitan, very clean, has lots to see, and is very big (a huge plus after living in Alicante for almost three months now).

I picked out some of the things I would like to see for the day so we headed right down town. We were in search of lunch at this point and found a cute, very small restaurant to eat some Spanish food. Afterwards we headed to the Museo (Museum) de Thyssen-Bornemisza. I thought it was a really great museum - it has art from the 12th century up to 1980, so there is a lot of variety, from Picasso to Van Gogh to really old paintings of the Virgin Mary to pop art. I enjoyed myself, but I realized my parents aren't really art museum type people and they were a bit bored. My dad also thinks post-modern art is a bit ridiculous, so he just kept laughing about how his mom threw out his art work from elementary school which looked like some of the paintings in the museum...

We stopped to get some Starbucks (there are a lot of them in Madrid! but none in Alicante) and then took a walk towards Madrid's famous center - La Puerta de Sol. We passed the National Congress building and some of the beautiful old architecture that is dispersed throughout the city. La Puerta del Sol was really busy and we just walked around a while browsing/shopping in stores and checking out the sites. I tired my poor parents out walking so we spent some time sitting on benches in random plazas and then stopped to get a beer in a pub along the way. We visited La Plaza Mayor (basically, main square) where we quite unexpectantly found some type of traditional Spanish dance exhibition going on. The square is quite beautiful and it was filled with people and music and a lively spirit. There are restaurants around all the sides of the wide plaza, reminding me of St. Mark's Square in Venice, except without all the pigeons. The dances were quite peculiar... something you might imagine in a 17th century ballroom dance. We spent some time watching, but left again to wander the tiny streets around La Puerta and go in search of churros con chocolate to eat for "dinner" since we were still rather full from our big lunch.

We found the churros (enjoyed them!) and then headed back to the hotel after a pretty long day so we can be ready to go again tomorrow. My parents aren't quite used to this type of "vacation" that involves museums and lots of walking. Regardless, they still said they are having a good time, although I don't think they like the eating schedule, and are just happy to see me. They admitted that without me showing them around and translating for them, they'd be in some trouble. They've still only got about 5 words of Spanish down... but I guess that is what I'm for.

Time to get some sleep to get up early tomorrow and see more of Madrid! Buenas noches!