Journal #1
April 2, 2005
Sorry, guys that I haven't been punctual with my journal entries. I have been really busy. There is seriously so much and too much to do here in Madrid. I'm already in my fourth week and I feel that I have only been here for three days!
 Week
One
Day 1 - Feb.7
My first day in Madrid was crazy. I arrived at Barajas airport almost six hours late. I thought my luggage was lost, but thankfully it wasn't. I immediately called home to tell my mom that I had arrived. While speaking with her I heard loud banging and cheering coming from the entrance of the airport. So after I hanged up I walked to where the sound was coming from. I continued to hear (!Campones! !Campeones! ((Champions!). Well, apparently that same day Spain's national handball (balonmano) team had won the world championship and they arrived around the same time as me. There was so many people and tons of Spanish news stations. I walked right up to the crowd and became intertwined with the celebration. How lucky was I to have just arrived and be part of one of Spain's most talked about events of the year? I took a lot of pictures and I even took a picture with one of the players.
Right after that I ran to a taxi and arrived at my hotel where my group was waiting for me.
 Day 2
- Feb. 8
At 10 am we walked to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace). The king and queen don't reside there but they use it for special occasions. The palace has over 2,800 rooms!!! We only saw twenty and it took about an hour.
Day 3 - Feb. 9
Once again at 10 am we left our hotel but this time to the world renowned Prado museum. We got to see masterpieces from El Greco, Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, Caravaggio, and many others. My favorite painting there is Las Meninas (The maids). Some statues on display are thousands of years old!
 I can't even imagine how the artist began to make such an amazing master piece. During our time there a car bomb went off in Madrid. We were totally unaware of it at the time. When we found out we were a little shaken but everything was fine. Later that day I checked into my residencia, which is right in the center of Madrid on Gran Vma.
I am literally only a five minute walk from the most visited and important places in Madrid.
Day 4 - Feb. 10
We left early in the morning to El Escorial (Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial). This monastery palace was built between 1563 to 1584. It only took twenty years to build when most palaces took up to a hundred years to build. The monastery which was owned by King Felipe II contains some of the oldest books in the world. It has over 50,000 volumes in its libraray. Our tour guide told us that it would take him entire week to show us the monastery. El escorial is also a resting place for many of Spain's royals. There is a room, which is referred to as the (rotting(room. The rotting room, as of right now, contains the body of current King Felipe's mother who died six years ago. We were really creeped out. The Escorial is situated in the Guadarrama mountains north of Madrid. The hills in Kerrville have nothing on these mountains! I really enjoyed the chance to see snow there. Several of us had small snow fights.
Day 5
- Feb 11
 Well we already experienced a bombing within the week, now the city suffered from a major fire. I was walking home with my friend Josue on Gran Vma when we saw firetrucks speeding down the road. I wondered what the urgency was. Then I later found out through the news that a major skyscraper (The Windsor Madrid) was up in flames. They still dont know what caused it. Talk about a crazy week. My group felt as if we were bad luck to Madrid because so many bad things happened within five days of our arrival. I like to think that we brought excitement not bad luck. !Hasta Pronto!
(L to R) Lauren (API program member), Alyssa (API program member), our tour guide, me and Maria Angeles our director here in Madrid. |
