Odyssey to Europe

Essay 6:
I groggily opened my eyes and sat up at around 10, and then finally climbed out of bed at around 10:30. So, after cleaning up and waking up a bit, my dad and I walked out of the hotel to find a place to order breakfast/lunch. We found a neat little place that looked like it had good food, so we went in and sat down, as the waiter came towards us. However, the waiter didnt understand English, so we both struggle back and forth to find some common ground. Finally, after several frustrating minutes of haggling, we were able to tell him what we wanted, and so he left to go bring us the food.

Street peddlers. Even though we were slightly annoyed by the long exchange we had with our waiter, we noticeably cheered up when the food arrived. French fries, toast, and scrambled eggs with hot chocolate for me, a gigantic croissant and orange juice for my dad. We both dug in and gorged ourselves. When all the food was gone and our stomachs were satisfyingly full, we paid the owner and walked out into the sweltering heat of Madrid. Madrids temperature is much like Californias, hot but dry, so we did not sweat that much, and did not feel overtly discomforted. The two of us slowly walked towards our first destination, which was the grand palace of Madrid.

The palace from the outside.

Along the way, we saw many musicians, and entertainers performing. The streets in Madrid always seem very excited, and enthusiastic, filled with people performing, drawing, or just sitting there in hilarious costumes. So, we tramped along the streets of Madrid, admiring the performers or artists along the way. Finally, we found the grand palace of Madrid, silhouetted against a beautiful blue sky and a gorgeous, blossoming valley filled with greenery.

The view from of the valley. We got in line for the tickets and waited. At this point, I really appreciate my dad buying the museum pass, as it negates the need for tickets and allows you to just go in directly. While the line to go into the museum was not long, it went by excruciatingly slowly, as there was only one booth open. Finally, after waiting half an hour, we managed to buy our tickets and go into the palace. The interesting thing about this palace is that the king still lives in there. So, there are military officers walking around, and several sections are walled off. Those sections must be

where the king is living now. The entire palace is huge, surrounding you on three sides by massive buildings, while a row of columns holding up the on the far end lets out a majestic view of the valley beyond. The valley is extremely beautiful, with lush, fertile grasses and green trees stretching as far as the eye can see. To the left, the modern part of Madrid lays sprawled out in front of us, displaying its showy and flashy buildings. Inside, the rooms are all filled with expensive and luxurious furniture, for the king to sit on or relax on. The palace seems to have an abundance of chandeliers, as I see a wide variety of chandeliers in almost every single room. The palace is much like the Chateau de Versailles, but seems much grander, and much more luxurious. I suppose that much of it stems from the amazing view, but the Palace of the King seems more majestic than the Chateau de Versailles. Sadly, I was not able to take pictures, as they did not allow pictures inside the palace. However, in the middle of the tour, my dad realized that he had left his book about Madrid at the restaurant where we had breakfast. So, once we finished touring the palace, we rushed to the restaurant. Thankfully, the restaurant waiters had found it, and held on to it, so we managed to get our book back. We both were quite tired already by the touring of the palace, so we decided to return home for a while, and rest up a little bit. Once we were at home, we just relaxed, drank several Pepsis, and then set out again. We traveled by metro to a very famous museum, the Reina Sophia, the museum of art in Madrid. However, after making a wrong turn into the Department of Agriculture, we found that the museum was closed on Tuesdays. Afterwards, we went into the train station to have our Eurail ticket validated, which we did not validate in France. Surprisingly, the validation took about one minute, and then we were done. So much for a long wait! Afterwards, we then decided to go to a monastery and nunnery to complete our day; however, the monastery opened at four. So, we just went into the Parque de Retiro, which was a massive garden in the outskirts of Madrid. While French gardens are blooming with color and brightness, Spanish gardens seem to just rely on verdant and abundant numbers of grass and trees to produce the same result. The two of us just sat down for a while, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. After we sat down for half an hour, we decided to take the metro to the monastery, and then end our day there. So, we leisurely strolled down the main road, admiring the wonderful scenery and bright, cloudless sky. In the garden, the entire world seemed to be at peace.

The garden. Then, we passed a large pond, glowing green under the bright sun, and knew that we were close to the metro. So, shortly after, we were underground, riding a subway back near our home. After exiting the metro, we headed directly towards the monastery. However, we then learned that you had to have a guided tour, and the English tour began only at 6:30. So, we then returned to our hotel to wait. Inside our hotel, we just killed time by typing on our computers, browsing the web, and drinking more soda. By 6:30, we were lined up outside the door with several other families, ready to begin the tour. After several minutes of waiting, a diminutive woman came in, and bade us to follow her and to begin the tour. The monastery and nunnery is an extremely reverent place. In the middle is a small garden, where the 20 nuns that live here plant their vegetables and fruits. The first floor is not very interesting; it just contains the gift shop and the waiting room, but the second floor has about fifteen chapels, spread out along the second floor. The second floor also has a lot of rooms, filled with statues, paintings, and other works of art depicting Jesus Christ, or other important figures of Christianity. The tour then proceeded through the tapestry room, where the nuns stored 11 of their 20 beloved tapestries. The tapestries are truly masterpieces, every one of them. They are artfully woven out of gold, silver, and silk threads, and were crafted painstakingly by nuns over the course of 6 some years! The tour then went downstairs, where

we saw several rooms covered by paintings, all depicting historical Christian scenes. Finally, after we exited a room covered with Spanish and Italian paintings, the tour was over. We went back into our hotel, to drop off our stuff, and then quickly left, as we were starving. As we did not plan to go anywhere, we just decided to revisit the buffet where we ate yesterday. Again, we satiated ourselves on meat so succulent it fell of the bone, spaghetti drowned in delicious and flavorful sauce, pizza smothered with cheese and duck meat, and cold lettuce spread with ranch. My dad also got a pitcher of beer, which he said was very good, though I thought it was disgusting. We finished off with a plate of watermelon, and then got up, paid the cashier, and then staggered home, where we both fell into our beds, me in a food coma, my dad stone drunk. As we felt too lazy to do anything due to the surfeit of food and in my dads case, beer, the two of us just lay on our beds, did nothing, and then satisfyingly fell asleep because of our stuffed stomachs. Day 2 Today started out much like yesterday, beginning with me waking up at 9:30, and the two of us eating lunch at 10:00. We simply browed random cafs and restaurants until we found a place that looked nice, and then went in. I had a plate of sausages, eggs, toast, and beans, while my dad had a huge bowl of rice and chicken. However, we both ate each others foods, and eventually swapped meals, both of us eating each others meals. The food was quite good, although it wasnt anything special. It was good, but not good enough to register deeply within my memory. An interesting thing happened when I asked for some water, and the waiter gave me a bottle that we had to pay money for. So, my dad tried to explain to the waiter that we just wanted tap water, but since the waiter didnt speak English, it was extremely difficult to communicate with him. However, after about ten minutes of useless debating, we managed to make him take back the water. So, after that slight delay, we headed back outside, to go to our first destination, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, a very famous museum of art in Madrid. The museum mostly displays impressionist paintings, although several modern art works are displayed there. Impressionist paintings are always very beautiful. Although not as clear and precise as older styles of painting, impressionist works of art manage to convey a clear and beautiful picture without scalpel like precision. For example, many of the paintings we saw were made out of dabs and dashes of paint. That technique results in a slightly blurred picture up close, but at farther distance, becomes more beautiful than other ancient paintings, as the dashes blur the picture slightly, resulting in a surreal and dreamlike painting.

The museum also exhibited several Picasso reminiscent paintings, which I found very interesting. The picture changes as you move around, as the characters usually have different faces. Those paintings are very open to interpretations, yet not as blatantly equivocal as the two lines of spray paint that constitutes modern art. However, after looking through the paintings for a while, my dad decided that we had seen all this before, and decided to try and go to another museum. So, the two of us sat down while my dad pored over the map, trying to find a noteworthy museum that had something that we hadnt seen before. After looking at the map for about five minutes, he found something interesting: the Museo de Naval. We both thought it sounded very interesting, so we exited the Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza and headed towards the Museo de Naval. The most interesting thing that we saw as the museum came into sight was the sign. It simply a sign that said the Museo de Naval, however, there was a Chinese/Japanese translation under it. My dad and I both found it very interesting, that they would have a Chinese or Japanese translation but not an English or French one. Inside, we ran into a block at the first step. There were several military guards there, so I knew there must be some kind of important building here, and that was emphasized by the procedures to get in. The security guard told my dad that we needed to show our passports to get in, despite our protests that we had left them in the hotel. However, after us pleading to him multiple times, he gave in and let us go. The museum is extremely interesting. Inside, there are massive models of ancient warships used by the Spanish at the peak of their naval empire, and also models of newer battleships or ironclads. There are artifacts and weapons used by seamen when boarding an enemy ship, detailed videos, albeit in Spanish, that are nonetheless interesting to watch. We both wandered around, lost in the sea of ships and sails, and steam engines. After a long time of just roving around the museum, we had seen pretty much everything that was there to see, and decided to go to our final stop.

Models on display at the museum.

The last museum we were going to see today was the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, or the Museum of national art decorations. However, much of it was closed, so we only saw a small bit of the museum, before we had to leave because of the museum closing. The pieces of furniture are extremely interesting, and so are the paintings, all of them are unique in their own ways, whether they are made out of china, wood, porcelain, or gold. However, we only spent around 20 minutes, as the museum closed at 3 and there wasnt much to see anyways. Outside, we just decided to go home, and rest a little. So, after taking a short nap, my dad told me that we were going to see the statue of Miguel Del Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Supposedly, Don Quixote is the second bestselling book in the world, besides the bible. We just hang around the statue, took a few pictures, and then left to go home.

The statue of Miguel Del Cervantes.

Along the way back, we passed through another garden. This garden had more variety, such as trimmed bushes, low hanging trees, and spaced out squares of plants, giving people more room to walk. We quickly passed through, and then headed home. After cleaning up, we went to the buffet where we had eaten dinner for the past 2 nights. Once again, we ate till we were sated, and then returned home, and got ready for tomorrow, where we are leaving Madrid and going to Barcelona.