Madrid w/ Mom and Dad

Last week my parents came to Barcelona. They were scheduled to arrive around 2:30 Wednesday afternoon. This was a perfect excuse, I thought, to miss my two horribly boring afternoon classes at UAB. Since I decided not to go to class, a couple friends also thought it would be a great opportunity to take class off as well. After my second class of the day I headed home to grab lunch and relax for a couple hours before they were supposed to arrive. However, upon checking my computer I saw an email that my dad had sent me early that morning...they were going to be late. Apparently someone got sick on their flight from Chicago to Frankfurt (where they connected to Barcelona) and the plane, already over the Atlantic Ocean, had to be turned around to land in Boston. Since I had already gone home I clearly couldn't go back to class so I enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon.

Around 6:30 I got a call from my parents saying that they had arrived and were on their way to the hotel. I met them there and we decided to walk around the city for a while before grabbing a great dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant in Barri Gotic. After some more walking jet lag set in and we called it a night. Thursday morning it was time to play tour guide again... Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, and a tapas place for lunch. Luckily it was a nice day so it was good to walk around the city. The morning's activities also provided the perfect excuse to not study/ not feel bad about the fact that I was not going to spend much time studying for my midterm at 3:45 in my Mediterranean History and Heritage course (which should probably be renamed 'Archaeology and ancient human history'). After my test I called my parents to see what they wanted to do for the rest of the day- they were participating in the great Spanish activity known as 'Siesta', an artform I have come to know and love even more than before since being here. We then did some more city wandering and had a great dinner in El Born, next to Santa Maria del Mar before heading back to the hotel to enjoy a short jazz concert.

Friday morning I had Spanish class until 12:15. I recommended some sites for my parents to see while I was in class and we planned to meet up for lunch: Paella. Not sure my mom loved the shrimp and crayfish fully adorned with tail, shell, tenticles, and eyes, but it tasted good, as always. We then headed to Montjuic ("Mount of the Jews") and I had the opportunity to do see some touring that I had not yet done. We headed up the Fernicular to the Gondola, which took us up the side of Montjuic I had not yet seen (another adventure which Mom, who is afraid of heights, loved). There we wandered around the giant Montjuic fortress. On the other side of the mountain is the Olympic Stadium area. Having never been on this side of the mountain I was unsure how far the stadiums were fromt the fortress- we were told it was about a 5 minute walk. After a Spanish 5 minutes (about 30 minutes) and some improvisational navigation around construction we arrived at the olympic stadiums. Unfortunately the stadium was closed, but at least they got to see the area. After a quick snack stop we walked down to see the fountain light show in Plaza Espana, another event I had not yet seen.

Saturday morning I woke up around 7:00 to head to Madrid. I slept for the entire 45 minute flight. Our cab driver from the airport told us that we were staying in a great hotel in the best area of Madrid-he was probably correct. We were across the street from the famous Prado, in the heart of the city. We settled into our hotel and then walked to the front of the Prado were we caught a tourist bus tour to take us around and get a feel for the city. Unfortunately the bus was quite full and there was some drama when trying to determine the order of people to move up top and sit in the sun, but I did get the opportunity to learn a little about the city via an audio recording. We got off the t0urist bus at the Palacio Real stop where we found a place for lunch-more paella. Then we went to the Palacio, the home of the Spanish royal family for hundreds of years. We walked in just as the last English tour of the day was leaving and ran to catch up with the group. The palace was truly incredible with literally thousands of different rooms, extravagent artwork, and incredible history.

Tangent: The history of Spain is truly remarkable. I knew very little about it before coming here, but am in awe of the dynamic nature of the country over the past century. I feel as though many people of my generation, including myself, consider Spain to be the same as many other Western European countries (ie: Germany, France Italy). This is not at all the case. In the past 85 years Spain has gone through a democratic revolution, a civil war, a world war, a dictatorship, a monarchy, and another peaceful revolution. The amount of development and Westernization that has taken place in just one generation is truly remarkable. Again, I would love to discuss with anyone interested.

Anyway, after seeing the palace we hopped back on the bus and were lucky enough this time to be able to go straight to the top. Amidst the georgous weather a city noises, which I have become very accustomed to by now, I fell asleep. We went back to our hotel for another brief siesta before getting ready for dinner. For dinner we met up with Danielle Himmelman at a restaurant called 'Botin', allegedly the oldest continuously active restaurant in the world, open since 1725 or so, I don't remember the exact year. We walked in a went down a narrow staircase and then were seated in a back room encompassed by brick walls. The room was large enough for two 4-person tables. The restaurant looked like an old house or series of shops. Food was delicious, yet again. After dinner we wandered the streets of Madrid with Danielle, seeing all of the various plazas and areas before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to the Prado. I'm usually not one for art museums, which may surprise you considering how many I have done since being in Europe, but I really enjoyed walking through the Prado. Every painting was truly remarkable and the number of 'masterpieces' in the museum wowed me. The place was gigantic, as well. After a couple of hours in the Prado we headed to the Restiro, a giant outdoor park. The weather was so incredible that I was hot walking around in just a t-shirt. It was great to see the Retiro on a Sunday because it was filled with street performers and thousands of people. We grabbed something to eat after the Retiro, checked out, and headed back to Barcelona.

Sunday evening in Barcelona we ate dinner at a restaurant called Barceloneta in the area of Barcelona called Barceloneta. I actually had not yet been to this little area, right on the water, and it was good to finally get there. The restaurant was incredible-probably the best piece of salmon I have ever had, thus perpetuating my opinion that Barcelona has some of the best seafood in the world. I then headed back to the hotel with my parents briefly before saying goodbye. I went home and spent a good couple of hours doing homework that was do Monday morning. They caught a flight bright and early and made it back to Chicago without landing in any random cities. It was a fun weekend filled with great food and another exciting adventure in a new place.