Ok so I am in Europe After All

Last Friday, I took the train to Madrid to go meet up with my parents! The train was painless, and I walked from Puerta Atocha, the main train station in Madrid, to the hotel. Our hotel was quite nice, and a bit away from the main downtown area of Sol. So I was able to get a good look at the city on my half-hour walk from Atocha. I mostly passed by the Retiro gardens, which are a sort of “central park” of Madrid. It’s as decorated with sculptures as Tuileries in Paris, filled with much more grass than Seville could ever cultivate, and has a very nice artificial lake in the middle.

After arriving at the hotel, we grabbed some food and headed out. Our first stop was to go back to the gardens, where we saw the lake, as well as the “Palacio Cristal,” a palace whose walls are nearly entirely glass. We continued downtown, heading into Sol. I was very surprised upon arriving in Puerta de Sol, as it looked nothing like Seville. It’s large and open, with tall, Parisian style buildings. Sol would seriously not feel out of place in Paris. And I think that’s the main vibe I’ll continue to reiterate in different ways throughout this post. Namely, that Madrid is a European city; Seville, on the other hand, is a Spanish city. We walked back to our hotel and found a nice tapas place. I got my parents the classics, including a tinto de verano, croquettas, and carrillada (the pork cheek stew), along with a few other things. We ordered a lot of food, and when the bill came, it was much more than I was used to: 57€. Mom and dad both looked shocked, as was I. But for different reasons. While I had figured that we’d ordered too much, and that a dinner should cost no more than 35€ for three, they were amazed at how cheap it was for all the food we’d ordered! I guess I’m in for a shock when I get back to Ann Arbor unfortunately.

We started our second day with a bike tour, and we took the metro to get there. The one thing I do really, really like in Madrid compared to Seville is the public transit. Their metro is, though admittedly less extensive than Paris’s, very nice, clean, timely, and easy to use. Anyways, the tour took us to all the major spots in Madrid over three hours. Including, the very European-looking, grandiose royal palace and cathedral, the Plaza Mayor that looks just like Place des Vosges in Paris, a square with sky-scrapers, the gardens, a few museums on the Paseo del Prado (the main street connecting the fancy part of Madrid to the regular part), and a few other historic houses. The tour was great, the guide was very knowledgeable, and it wasn’t very strenuous. What was best about the tour is that it gave us a sense of layout of Madrid, and gave us things that we’d want to see and return to later.

At the end of the tour, we got lunch at an octopus restaurant. But Ian! You may say. Madrid isn’t on the water! Well, what’s very cool about Madrid is that you have influence from everywhere in Spain. You can get Galician octopus right next to a flamenco bar, and restaurants loyal to beer brands as diverse as Estrella Galicia, to Mahou, to Cruzcampo, and everything in between can be seen. It really is where Spain’s various cultures all blend, with this commonality of a European metropolis as the background. And of course, the comforts, the staples of Spain can be found everywhere as well. The Corte Inglés (brand of malls), the culture around bulls and horses, people playing guitar in the street.

We spent the afternoon visiting first the Reina Sofia Museum of modern art. There was much Dalí and Picasso in there, and being there really brought out an appreciation for the genre that I feel is often dormant. In particular, was Picasso’s Guernica.

I think Guernica is the antithesis to the Mona Lisa. First, whereas the Mona Lisa is the top attraction at the Louvre, and there are signs from every room in the Louvre showing you how to find it, we didn’t know that we were one room away from Guernica until I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Second, everyone always says that the Mona Lisa is unimpressively small, and that its beauty is dwarfed by the other, massive, far more impressive paintings in the same room. Guernica is absolutely the other way around. It is massive. I was expecting a Mona Lisa sized painting, and ended up with an entire wall of a room filled with this one painting. It is by far the most impressive thing in the room, and all other pieces in the room are sketches of how it was painted, reproductions of certain sections of the painting, etc. Third, the room with the Mona Lisa is mobbed by people just waiting in line to take a picture with it. The Guernica room is hardly crowded at all, and you are not allowed to take pictures of it. Finally, Guernica is a powerful statement, whereas the Mona Lisa is just a portrait. It’s a scene during a bombing in the Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War. It shows mothers screaming with dead children in their arms, disfigured bulls, people trampling over each other, and a chaotic arrangement of humans next to animals. At the top of it all, a singular light bulb. In my opinion, the light bulb and the bull ground the entire piece in reality. The monochrome color scheme used, as well as liberal use of cubism could lead to the piece being seen as too abstract, too removed. But the light bulb reminds us that this is happening in the modern era—at a time when there is electricity, when the world is supposed to be civilized. A time when atrocities like this should have been left centuries in the past. And the bull. A symbol of Spain. That this wasn’t happening anywhere, but it was going on in Spain. A country with a rich history, diverse people, tradition, music, and art. A country hardly barbaric. These two reminders of the world in which these atrocities are taking place make the image significantly more powerful, and give the piece something actually worth thinking about, worth analyzing. The Mona Lisa does not inspire thought, it may inspire a slight amount of awe for the detail and shading, but there are a million portraits in the Louvre, the only thing special about the Mona Lisa was that it got stolen. Guernica, on the contrary, is a masterpiece.

The rest of the museum was very interesting as well, and my favorite piece in there was a depiction of Europe in 1915 with countries displayed as people.

That night, we ate dinner at the top of a skyscraper, overlooking much of the areas of Madrid we had seen during the day. It was very cool, but unfortunately we had some issues getting over there due to a Pride Parade blocking some streets and metro stops, and also with there being a huge line for waiting for a table.

The next day, we got on a tour bus and headed for Toledo, La Mancha’s counterpart to Andalusia’s Córdoba. Toledo is located on a beautiful hill, encircled by a river. The old city of Toledo is significantly higher than the new city, so there are actually escalators that bring you up from the ground level. It takes several minutes, actually.

Before going up to the city, we saw a factory specializing in two of Toledo’s specialties: Swords and Damascene pendants. Damascene pendants, a type of jewelry originating from, as the name would suggest, Damascus, was introduced to Spain with the conquest of the Moors. A Damascene pendant has very intricately, usually hand-placed strands of gold in intricate patterns. The aesthetic didn’t appeal to any of us really, but it was cool to see it around. The swords were very cool, and we got to see a guy forge part of a sword. In general, the trip to this factory wasn’t a waste of time, but it certainly could have been shorter, since we didn’t get much time in Toledo anyways.

We then headed up to the top of the city, where we had a guided tour. We started in the Zocodover, with the first syllable, Zoc (pronounced thok by the Spanish), coming from the Arabic word for market, souk. This, therefore, was the Muslim quarter of the old city of three cultures. As we continued to walk around, I couldn’t help but compare it to Córdoba. They’re very similar in many ways… the narrow, winding streets, the Moorish arches, the architecture, even the impact on food (salmorejo in the Córdoba, marzipan in Toledo). I think I was very excited about the prospect of visiting Toledo, but I really do think that Córdoba’s got everything Toledo has, and that beautiful Mezquita-Catedral. We visited the synagogue in the center of the Jewish quarter, and there, met a very nice guy. We talked with him for a while about Jewish life in Florida and South Carolina, as well as where his family is and what travels he’s up to for his few weeks in Europe while his family is all at summer camp or traveling for work.

The synagogue itself is very Moorish in its architecture, shocking, right? Anyways, it was cool to see my parents get excited about it, to have their expectations of what a synagogue should look like taken away from them. Interestingly enough, there was a cross affixed to the ceiling, which was surely put there after the Inquisition. But either way, Córdoba was very similar to Toledo. I’m still very glad I went, though, just because I always appreciate a chance to see new things and get a few more history lessons under my belt.

We had lunch overlooking the river, before leisurely walking back to the bus. By time we got to Madrid, it was almost time for us to head to Seville! I did get a chance to say hi to Max, but he’d been in Barcelona the entire day before, so it was just a quick meet up over a tinto.

It was mostly just fun to watch my parents get so excited about all the Spanish things… the things that I’ve become so used to over the last two months. Things like the architecture, the times of eating, the prices of things, the heat, you name it. I feel like I got to see Spain through a fresh set of eyes again, and it was definitely fun to watch them get to excited as they explored Toledo.

When all’s said and done, of course Madrid and Toledo were fun. Madrid is a wonderful city, full of things to do and places to see. We didn’t even come close to scratching the surface. But, I am so glad I ended up in Seville. Seville doesn’t feel like a European city, it feels Spanish. I got my European city last year, and now it was time for something a little different. I’ve got Barcelona coming up later this month, so I’m really interested to see what I think of that—if it’s more like Madrid, or if the city has its own culture and feel, seeing as much of its architecture is so new, so planned, and they have their own language and customs there as well.