'Cause You Know I'd Walk a Thousand Miles

As I walked back to my senora's apartment at midnight on Saturday after saying goodbye to my family in person for the last time in a month and a half, I had the wonderful fortune of remembering that it was presently 6 PM E.S.T. on the day of Prog Formal. Meaning if I were at Penn State at that moment, I would have been putting the finishing touches on my hair and makeup and getting ready for a night of fun with my friends in my program. On top of that, as I walked along a row of orange trees on Calle San Fernando, it suddenly hit me why I've been homesick for India the past couple weeks: the orange trees are now in full bloom here, and the blossoms smell remarkably like the మల్లెపూలు (jasmine flowers) that are ubiquitous in India. And all of a sudden, I wanted nothing more than to turn around, run back to my parents' hotel, catch a ride to the airport with them, and hop on a plane- to Philly, to State College, to Hyderabad, anywhere.

Last week was spring break #1 for me in honor of Semana Santa (the week before Easter, which is a big deal here; significance and traditions to be explained in the next post). Instead of going home like I would in a regular semester, my family came to visit me. (Or at least that's what they claimed. I say it was a convenient excuse to vacation in Europe.) I first went to Madrid with a couple of friends for two days, then my family arrived and I spent two more days sightseeing in Madrid with them. Then I returned to Sevilla with them, where I spent the last three days showing them my hood, with a day-trip to Cordoba snuck in. It was absolutely incredible spending a solid week with my family, rediscovering what it's like to go on a family vacation after so many years, taking the driver's seat for the first time, remembering all the little ways we get on each others' nerves, and still loving every moment. But first things first...

Weekend: To the capital with friends

The adventure started last Friday morning when my friends, Laura and Meredith, and I took the 6-hour bus ride to Madrid. Upon arrival, we walked the 40 minutes to our hostel. I have found this period- between the moment you arrive at your destination and the moment you find your hotel/hostel- to be the most terrifying part of traveling, because there is always that fear that the hostel (or your reservation) doesn't exist, thus leaving you homeless for your vacation. But when we found Way Hostel, we were not only relieved but elated. Having never stayed at a hostel before, I only had a vague expectation of 20 bunk-beds in a dark, desolate room and germ-infested dorm-style bathrooms. Instead, we had a room to ourselves, a bathroom to ourselves, access to a cute little kitchen fully equipped with dishes and cutlery from Ikea, and access to three computers with internet. My only fear is that every subsequent hostel I stay at will be a huge disappointment.

After a quick lunch of senora-made bocadillos (the ever-popular Spanish sandwich) and self-made PB&J sandwiches (to satisfy our American tastebuds), we set off for the Thyssen Museum, one of the trifecta of famous art museums in Madrid and probably my personal favorite. Unfortunately we only got to spend about two hours there before it closed and thus only covered one floor of the three-story collection, but in that time I saw works by Degas, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and many other less famous but equally amazing artists. I enjoyed the variety of subjects and styles on display on the same floor, from elaborate landscapes to intricate still-life to exquisite ballet dancers to a curious scene of dukes showing each other their lovers. Unfortunately, this was early in the trip when I actually didn't take pictures in places I wasn't supposed to, but that should give you all the more incentive to go see it for yourself.

After being herded out of the Thyssen at 7 PM sharp, we decided to take a walking tour around the city. Led by Laura's guidebook, we hit almost every major plaza and puerta (literally means "door" or "gate," but think more like the Arc de Triomphe or India Gate) and parque (park) in Madrid. It was so cold that I was forced to put on my gloves, which is never a good thing and especially not on "spring break" in Spain, but we managed to have a good time marveling at all kinds of architectural wonders and countless statues of men on horses through the shivering.

Puerta del Sol, Madrid's most famous and central square. Named for a city gate which used to be located here, now it's pretty much your typical Spanish plaza. This building used to be part of the post office but is now the headquarters of the government of the autonomous community of Madrid. That clock up there is the famous clock that Spaniards watch on New Year's Eve (like their version of our ball in Times Square) while eating a grape for each of the twelve chimes at midnight.

Statue of King Carlos III in the Puerta del Sol (the first of many such statues, and the only one I remember who it is of)

Directly in front of the government building shown above is "Kilometer 0," supposedly the exact center of Spain and the official starting point for Spain's 6 National Roads.

Plaza Mayor, the other huge, famous plaza in Madrid. It's rectangular, enclosed, and looks identical on all sides except the side shown in the photo below, making it feel more like a British square than a Spanish plaza in my opinion.

The north side of Plaza Mayor is a four-story building known as Casa de la Panadería (Bakery). It is covered in colorful frescoes which are difficult to see at night but very obvious, especially in contrast with the surrounding monotonous buildings, in daylight. Over the years, it has housed the Baker's Guild, the Royal Standard Weights and Measures offices, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the Royal Academy of History, and the Municipal Archives.

In Plaza Mayor, there are several of these circular bench things in which famous people and scenes from Spanish history are engraved. Here, Laura and Meredith check one out.

The Mercado de San Miguel (St. Michael's Market) is a slightly upscale, indoor market enclosed in a glass building. It's kind of like Reading Terminal Market in Philly, but smaller and fancier. Inside, there are stalls selling everything...

from wines...

to strange chocolate creatures.

We walked by a church famous for the sweets its nuns make and sell. I thought it was interesting that you could just ring the bell, say "dulces" (sweets) and a nun would come and sell you some goodies. Unfortunately it was closed the whole time we were there due to Semana Santa, so I didn't get to try any.

One nice thing about Madrid that is lacking in Sevilla- street signs are common, easy to find, and have cute little pictures relating to the name of the street. They are reminiscent of the days when most people were illiterate and street signs actually had pictures so the illiterate could get around. I never thought about how being illiterate would affect one's life in such a mundane way before, or the fact that street names usually come from prominent buildings on them. For example, there used to be a large armor shop on this street- thus the name ("codo" means "elbow") and the image. Cool!

The Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena, Madrid's cathedral. Breathtaking, especially at night, and so unlike any other cathedral I've seen. That's because it was only completed in 1993. That's right- there are things younger than me! More on the cathedral to come, when I talk about actually going inside.

The Palacio Real (Royal Palace), located right across from the Cathedral. Also huge (the largest building in Madrid), breathtaking, and to be discussed later.

The Plaza de Oriente, located in front of the Palacio Real. Like any good Spanish plaza, it's got landscaped gardens, a fountain, a huge statue of a Felipe on a horse, 44 statues of Spanish monarchs from the medieval period, and is lined with cafés selling overpriced beer and café-con-leche.

Thoroughly impressed and frozen, we returned to our hostel to sleep (or attempt to sleep, in Meredith and Laura's case).

The next morning, after enjoying the hostel's typical Spanish breakfast (carbs, carbs, and more carbs, but with Nutella and Cola Cao, so who's complaining?), we trekked over to the Temple of Debod, which is an authentic Egyptian temple from the 2nd century B.C.. What's is doing in Madrid? Well, it was a gift from the Egyptian government to Spain in 1968 as thanks for Spain's aid in saving monuments that were at risk of being destroyed when the Aswan Dam was constructed in 1960. I didn't know countries were in the habit of donating their historic monuments ("Eh, we've had this lying around for a while, let's re-gift it to Spain") but hey, I got to see a 2,200-year-old Egyptian temple without setting foot in Egypt, so that's cool!

From the vicinity of the Temple of Debod, you can get a great view of the city.

As we left the Temple of Debod, we stumbled upon the Plaza de España, the most prominent feature of which is a monument to Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. There is a large stone sculpture of Cervantes overlooking smaller bronze sculptures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Of course we stopped and took pictures.


Next stop: the cathedral. Now, I have seen more than my fair share of cathedrals in my two months in Spain and I actually thought about skipping this one because I figured I had a pretty good idea of what it would look like without stepping a foot inside: a large central altar prominently featuring Jesus on the cross, gaudy retablos covered in gold-leaf depicting scenes from the Bible surrounding it, dozens of chapels around the perimeter dedicated to different saints, a couple insanely large organs, stained-glass windows, Gothic architecture, a strong Mary motif, and enough angels to make your head spin. (There, now you don't have to visit Spain.) Luckily, my friends convinced me that the Catedral de la Almudena was a must-see, and as soon as I stepped in, I knew why. For one, we could go up close to the main altar instead of being blocked off a mile away. Second, the ceilings were bursting with patterns and portraits so colorful and unrealistic they looked like modern art. Third, the little chapels around the cathedral had artistic depictions of various saints, as expected, but in all different media (everything from wooden carvings to tapestries to paintings of various styles) instead of all having the same traditional statues. As we walked around to the different chapels, I asked my friends (both Catholics who attended Catholic school) some questions about Catholicism and discovered many fascinating similarities between Catholicism and Hinduism.


After the cathedral and several interesting discoveries (both Hinduism and Catholicism utilize rosaries but with different numbers of beads, Laura used to make up sins for confession when she was younger), we cut through Plaza Mayor on our way back to the hostel for lunch. This time, the plaza was bustling with people eating lunch at the surrounding restaurants, your standard street performers (musicians, caricaturists, people pretending to be statues), and your not-so-standard street performers (headless men, Winnie the Pooh, pirates, bullfighters, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and my personal favorite, obese ghetto Spiderman). It was like Disney World gone terribly wrong.
After lunch came the part of the weekend I had been anticipating most: visiting the Prado Museum. The Prado is the biggest art museum in Spain, boasting numerous famous works and artists (Velazquez, Rubens, Murillo, Rembrandt, El Greco, Goya, Zurbaran, etc.). But more than the artwork, I was looking forward to meeting my long-lost friend from Governor's School, Silpa, whom I hadn't seen in about two years. Silpa is studying in London this semester and she happened to be visiting Madrid at the same time I was, so we had made plans to meet outside the Prado at 4 PM on Saturday. 4 PM came and we were there, but no Silpa in sight. We wandered around, starting to get nervous when- voila! There she was, with her travel buddies from NYU. As luck would have it, we forgot to take a picture together at that epic meeting, but regardless, I enjoyed meeting her friends and catching up after so long while strolling through the seemingly endless collection of artwork housed in the Prado. In fact, we were appreciating each piece so thoroughly that by the time it was 6:30 and Silpa had to leave, we realized we had only gotten through a fraction of one floor of one building of the museum. (In case you were curious, there are two buildings with three floors each.) We made a quick dash up to the second floor to see "Las Meninas" (it was one of those "been there, done that" things that we couldn't leave the museum without doing), hugged, and then Silpa and her crew left. Laura, Meredith and I ended up staying until the museum closed at 8, and even then we were practically running around trying to hit the so-called masterpieces. I say so-called masterpieces because the pamphlet we received when we entered the museum literally listed the 50 masterpieces it contains, along with the room where each could be found. However, at least to my untrained eye, this term "masterpiece" means nothing, since surrounding every "masterpiece" are dozens of other paintings that are equally impressive and elaborate. Really, what makes this painting of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus better than the 37 others in this room? I don't see where this other one lost points. Why do I know of Peter Paul Rubens but not of Jan Sanders van Hemessen? It made me feel sorry for the thousands of talented artists who never achieve fame, although I guess even the ones who do usually achieve it posthumously, so what difference does it make? Man, being an artist must be rough.

The outside of the Prado Museum

The only painting I managed to snap a picture of in the Prado, and probably my favorite. Entitled "The Surgeon," it shows a quack surgeon smiling deviously as he cuts into the skull of an unsuspecting patient, with his assistants and the next victim surrounding him and looking on somberly. (Disclaimer: Just because I like this painting doesn't mean I plan to model my career on it.)

After four hours in the Prado, we were hungry and exhausted, so we had dinner at a restaurant and turned in early for the night.

The next morning, we set off for the Palacio Real. The third greatest palace in Europe, the Palacio Real was constructed in just 26 years beginning in 1737. There are over 2,000 rooms, but only 20-some are open to the public. Nowadays, the royal family doesn't live there (they live in a smaller palace just outside of Madrid) but the palace is still used for state functions like banquets and receptions of visiting heads of state. The palace is really impossible to describe, but I'll give it a shot: a banquet hall seating 80 people at one table; a room in which the walls and ceiling are decorated entirely in porcelain; ridiculously gaudy chandeliers in every room; carpets that match the upholstery that matches the cloth covering the walls that matches the cloth by which the chandeliers appear to hang; a room reeking with rich red velvet in which the golden thrones are located; clocks everywhere; a room in which the royal family's China and crystal and silver-ware are on display; tabletop decorations so intricate they look painted but are actually mini-mosaics; every corner of every room elaborately adorned. But like I said, the gushing gaudiness of the place can't accurately be put into words, so I suggest you go see it for yourself.

Outside the Royal Palace. (More importantly, this picture proves that I own clothing besides my Penn State sweatshirt.)

One of the rooms in the palace. It's one of the bigger rooms we were allowed it, but certainly not the most extensively decorated. I believe this is the room in which Spain officially joined the European Union.

One of the last rooms we were allowed in. It's small and completely covered in Chinese-looking artwork. It looks highly out of place in a French-inspired Spanish royal palace, but I loved it.

In the Farmacia Real (Royal Pharmacy), where large labeled flasks used to store various herbs and potions were on display. I enjoyed being able to understand most of the chemical names in Spanish. Sulfato de aluminio! Nitrato de amonio! Aqua distillata!

After the Palacio Real, we decided to check out the Rastro, Madrid's weekly open-air flea market. As I've found to be quite common in Spanish cities, there was an abundance of Indian tapestries and handicrafts for sale, along with some other interesting odds and ends.

I wonder if the people who buy these vibrant tapestries of half-elephants and blue-faced beings know that they are Hindu gods.

"Broches," also known as Hamma-bead creations like the ones I used to make in the second grade hot-glued to pins. Only 4 euros, come and get 'em!

From the Rastro, we headed to Madrid's famous Retiro Park. The sun had finally decided to smile upon us, and we took advantage of this fact to sprawl out on a small patch of the 350-acre park and enjoy yet another PB&J lunch.

The Crystal Palace in Retiro Park is a charming little glass pavilion used to house a botanical display.

After Retiro Park, we had pretty much covered all the major things we wanted to hit in Madrid, so we killed the last few hours before Laura and Meredith left for Toledo wandering around to some random places of interest.

Puerta de Alcala

Madrid's National Library. We didn't believe this was the library until we got up close are read the sign because it looked way too cool.

Laura and Meredith left for Toledo (a town I hear is lovely, just an hour bus ride from Madrid) around 6 PM, leaving me about 4 hours to kill until my family arrived. It was still unnaturally sunny out (thanks to daylight savings, which had occurred the previous night), so I decided to take advantage of the weather and headed back to the expansive Retiro Park to do some of my favorite activities as of late: read Roald Dahl short stories in Spanish, eavesdrop on Spanish-speakers’ conversations, and walk around with my iPod on shuffle.

Retiro Park around 6 PM; check out that unnaturally blue sky and sunlight

Around 7:30, I figured I should start heading to the hotel where I would meet my parents. Googlemaps said it would be a 15 minute drive or a 1.5 hour walk. (Don’t ask me why I still use Googlemaps after the Morocco disaster.) I realize that to any reasonable person, the obvious choice would have been a taxi or bus ride. But my standards for what is considered “walking distance” have become so distorted over the past two months that I said to myself, “Hey, even if it takes me 2 hours, I have nothing better to do, I’ll get there before dark, and I’ll get to see more of the city.” Plus, I’ll admit, I was in the mood for an adventure and wanted to put my survival (read: map-reading) skills to the test. So, equipped with just a handful of Googlemaps print-outs and weighed down by my luggage for the trip (in one backpack), I set off in search of the Travelodge on Calle Torrelaguna.

It did take me about 2 hours, and it was almost dark by the time I found the hotel. I had to ask 2 people (elderly women or couples only) for help, and at one point I must have looked pretty desperate because one lady asked me if I needed help. I learned that what looks like a regular intersection on a map might actually be a bridge passing over another road, thus making it impossible to recognize or stand at said “intersection.” But I also learned that the people of Madrid are very friendly, that a 2-hour walk is nothing, that I don’t panic as easily as I thought, and that I love a little adventure and risk and the sense of accomplishment that follows. Not to mention I passed lots of cool things on the way that I might not have seen otherwise.

The Caixa Forum Museum. Yes, that is a statue of an elephant doing a trunk-stand, a wall covered in real plants, and a red rusty-looking wall. One guess what kind of museum it is. If you guessed post-modern art, congratulations!

El Corte Ingles is a one-company department store that is ubiquitous in Spain. It's like Walmart in that it sells/does everything (in addition to clothes, electronics, home furnishings and the like, they have a supermarket and a travel agency) but expensive.

I don't know why this isn't mentioned in guidebooks right along with the Prado! Just kidding- it's not actually a museum but a chain of stores that sells, you guessed it, good old Spanish ham. (However, in case I didn't mention it before, the idea of a museum dedicated to ham is not a bizarre concept in Spain. We actually saw a sign for one in Aracena.)

I was just walking along Calle Alcala when- woah, what is that imposing building ahead?

Oh, just Madrid's ginormous Plaza de Toros (bullfighting stadium). No big deal. (Check out the people at the bottom for a sense of scale.)

When I finally found the hotel, I was able to check into the room using my dad’s name (highly unsafe but convenient). To get my mind off of the anticipation of seeing my family for the first time in over two months, I watched a documentary about Sevilla on TV (and realized I have developed a strong sense of Sevilla pride) and talked to my aunt who happened to call at the perfect time. No more than two minutes after I hung up with my aunt, I heard a knock on the door and- there they were! My sister was still shorter than me, my dad still hadn't lost so much weight he was unrecognizable, my mom immediately panicked when I told her I walked to the hotel alone... there they were, the way I left them and the way I like them. :)

Monday: Initiation to walking boot-camp

To be fair, I had warned my family to come prepared to walk a lot. Apparently, their definition of “a lot” doesn’t even scratch the surface of mine. After a good night’s sleep (they suffered little to no jet lag, amazingly), we started the day off by taking a bus to El Centro (the central part of the city where all the historic/touristy sites are) and walking a short distance to the Cathedral. Thus began "Take 2" of Madrid for me. (As this post is already monstrously long- and all the good photos from this part of the trip are on my dad's camera- I'll spare you the details. No worries, none of the monuments changed much in the two days since I had last seen them.)

After the cathedral, we tried to see the Temple of Debod, but as luck would have it, it was closed for some photo shoot or film shooting that day, so my family only got to see the outside. Which is especially unfortunate because we were freezing and it's nice and toasty in the Temple. Instead, they sat on benches outside the Temple and began to complain about how much walking they had already done as I tried not to roll my eyes. They were hungry and cold and exhausted, so I decided it was time for an early (by Spanish standards) lunch.

For their first proper meal in Spain, it seemed appropriate that they should try typical Spanish food. So we headed to the same joint where I had had dinner with my friends a couple nights ago, and I ordered a tortilla bocadillo (sandwich with a cold potato and egg omelet inside), patatas bravas (fried potato wedges in what Spaniards call a “spicy” sauce- what a joke), paella (fried rice with seafood), and queso manchego (cheese from a region of Spain called La Mancha). All classic Spanish (non-veg) foods, and all received mediocre ratings from my family. Pretty much exactly what I had expected. Right about then, I’m sure my parents were wishing they had brought some పచ్చది and కారం (spicy Indian powders and pickles) like they had considered doing. On top of that, in the middle of our meal, the waiter stuck a little bowl of some meaty-looking pieces which we had not ordered on our table. When I told him so and asked what it was, he pointed to his ears and started oink-ing- apparently pig ears is a specialty there! Needless to say, my mom was not turned on by this. Or by the bathroom with it’s light that automatically turns off after 20 seconds, lack of soap, and non-functioning hand-dryer. It’s amazing how little time it took my family to complain about the same annoyances of everyday life in Spain that I have been living with for over two months.

Finding the main Spanish dishes sub-satisfactory, we took up the habit of “tea time” (more like “sweet time”) at a local cafetería or chocolatería for the rest of the week. Thrice we indulged in churros con chocolate. Once we tried torrijas, a sweet typically eaten in Sevilla during Semana Santa that tastes like French toast covered in honey. (God, I miss French toast.) Another day, we had Moroccan tea and Arabic sweets after lunch at a Moroccan restaurant in Córdoba. A couple times we tried bollos, your standard pastries filled with cream and chocolate. It was far more than the recommended intake of sugar and calories for a week, but it was heavenly and I rationalized it by telling myself it was like cramming an entire semester’s worth of sweets into one week, since I never eat anything sugary on a daily basis here.

After my parents’ and sister’s first churros con chocolate experience (enjoyed by all, but mostly by my mother because the churros reminded her of పునుగులు, a salty fried-dough snack), we headed to the Reina Sofia Museum of 20th century art. I didn’t think my family, or myself for that matter, would be big aficionados of contemporary art, but the Reina Sofia is free for a couple hours at the end of the day so we had nothing to lose, and to be honest, I wanted to hit all three of the museums that comprise the Golden Triangle of Art in Madrid. Once we went in, my suspicion was confirmed- there were lots of exclamations of "This is art?!" and "I could have drawn that!" from my family. We tried to find deeper meaning in the works of Miro, Picasso, Dali, and others. However, we did appreciate "Guernica," which is much larger than I expected. I also enjoyed the photojournalism of the making of "Guernica" (which shows the phases the work went through to arrive at its final form) as well as Picasso's practice paintings in preparation for Guernica. I usually don't think of artists as renowned at Picasso having to practice before they start on their masterpieces, so it was interesting to see the room full of crying women and distorted horse heads in the room adjacent to "Guernica."

A "work of art" in the Reina Sofia entitled "Circulation." It's plastic tubing arranged on the floor, and a machine pumps a colored liquid through it. Enough said.

A piece by Dali. I kind of understood it, so I took a picture.

Already put-off by Spanish cuisine less than 24 hours after their arrival, we found a nice little Thai restaurant for dinner. After dinner, Nana was limping, Amma and Vidya were complaining, and I was feeling awful for putting my family through torture, and on the first day of their vacation at that. Nobody was in the mood to explore Madrid at night as I had originally planned, so we caught the next bus to our hotel and collapsed onto our beds for a good night's sleep.

Tuesday: Suffering the consequences of Day 1, but persisting like troopers

On Tuesday morning, we had a difficult decision to make: Palacio Real, Prado Museum, or both? Both are major must-see sights in Madrid, but we only had a few hours and three-fourths of the family was feeling burned out from all the walking I put them through the previous day. After much deliberation, we decided to start with the Palacio Real, since we thought it was more likely to have a long line if we waited until later in the day. (Fact: if you want to visit the Palacio Real, be there when it opens, or else you will be stuck in a line that extends to the cathedral and beyond.) So I saw the Palacio Real again, but with different eyes this time. Probably due to the fact that I was with my (worldly, jaded, highly-practical) parents instead of my (young, wide-eyed) friends, this time I viewed the palace with awe but also some disgust regarding the extravagance of the Spanish kings, or European royalty in general. (Think of all the poor people that could have been helped, the diseases that might have been cured, the discoveries that might have been made with the money used to build a palace that grand! Oh wait, then we would have missed out on this great tourist attraction. Hmm, tough choice.)

Following the Palacio Real, we caught a taxi to the Prado, where there was a lengthy line, but we jumped in and moved right along in time to spend a couple hours there. This time, we knew we wouldn't have time to leisurely see everything or even any appreciable percentage of the works, so we took a different approach: the masterpiece scavenger hunt. Guided by the pamphlet, we literally dashed from room to room finding masterpieces, admiring them for a few seconds, and checking them off on our pamphlet. I know, we are so classy.

After another round of churros con chocolate, we parted ways- me to the bus station, and the rest of the family to the airport.

In the Madrid bus station, which could easily be confused for an airport. After all, I'm sure it handles more traffic than the Gibraltar airport.

After a 40-minute walk to the bus station, a 30-minute wait for the bus, and a 6-hour bus ride sitting next to the most annoying bus-mate imaginable (she slept for the first half but around 9 PM, when we rest of the passengers were trying to sleep, decided to pull out her phone and talk, or perhaps recite a monologue, at maximum volume in some Asian language) I was itching to be back in good old Sevilla. Seeing the river still there, passing familiar landmarks, crossing the Puente de San Telmo, I realized that there’s nothing like returning from a trip to convince you that your new residence is starting to feel like home.

Up next: Semana Santa, Part 2: In Andalucia