Day 7: Royal Madrid

Hi, thanks for bearing with us while we sorted out our lack of internet access. We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

This morning we woke up in Madrid, Spain, many of us for the first time. Then we had cake with breakfast, many of us for the first time. Happy 18th, Elias! Nothing like a traditional Tarta de San Marcos (picture a creme brulee but cake shaped and topped with more whipped cream than frankly seems necessary) and a few multicultural birthday songs to fill us with the sugar and festive spirit that all good days start off with. Plus, one of the songs mentioned "reyes," or kings, which sort of subconsciously primed us for, but more just provided our blog a nice transition to, our first activity of the day: a visit to the Royal Palace of Spain.

There we saw beautifully decorated ceilings, impossibly intricate tapestries, and many more displays of the artistic mastery that can be brought together by the wealth of a monarch whose nation's sailors recently happened upon a continent of rather rich but gun-lacking people, then happened their gun-having selves upon those people and their riches, and finally happened their way on home to the monarch with riches in tow. We also saw the old royal living spaces, many historic artifacts, and a throne room where the Spanish king received visitors, including Barack Obama, who as it happens was at the time of his receiving president of a large chunk of the same continent where those previously mentioned sailors happened upon those rather rich but gun-lacking people.

We lunched outside the Palace in the Royal Garden, and then toured its labyrinth, which despite being a product of the same artistic-mastery-producing money as everything else, failed to impress Ms. Novak, who was disappointed to find the solution was just a straight path through the middle.

Pushing through this minor spiritual setback, we moved on to the Cathedral of Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena. We only visited for a short while, but getting to see a church with an intact one of the story tablets we'd seen so many of at the National Art Museum of Catalunya was cool.

Our last big stop for the day was the Museo del Prado, Spain's biggest museum. Entrance is free for two hours a day, which means, as we learned, that there's a very long line to get in around that time. About thirty minutes long, in fact, outside in Madrid's harsh, unforgiving, sub-comfortable temperatures. The Post Oak Spain J-term group is nothing if not adaptive though. Some of us struck up an alliance with the family in front of us to ward off the cold with the distraction of conversation, and a small recon group set off with Mr. Jacobs to get us all churros and hot chocolate. In the end we survived the line, gaining a few friends and a few chocolate stains on our faces along the way.

Inside, we focused on the work of two artists: Velasquez and Goya. Both were in their times painters for the royalty of Spain, royalty whose money, as mentioned, commissions some pretty nice art. Among the works we saw were Velasquez's most famous: "Las Meninas," the original second-person painting, and "Los Borrachos," or "The drunks." We also saw Goya's most famous painting, a naked woman, and a slightly less famous painting, the same woman but with clothes on. Finally we made a brief visit to the landscape painting section, brief because about as soon as we got there the museum closed and we were kicked out.

To wind down the night, we ate at a great Italian-Spanish fusion place that Maria recommended and then headed back to the Airbnb, some of us stopping on the way to buy earplugs. Madrid, as it turns out, is very loud, and among other things we think we probably heard about a life's sentence worth of crimes happen outside our windows last night. Not to worry you or anything though, we're doing great. Good night from the Post Oak Spain J-term!